Beth Marcue
With the exception of a couple of years here and there, Colorado has been my lifelong home. I love the landscape, the people, the sense of independence that defines this part of the country.
The other world that lives in me, right alongside of this one, continually pulls at my heart. It is the world of my childhood summers of my mother's home in North Carolina. The things that I learned there, so many years ago, have never left me - the simplicity of life, the abundance of family, the wisdom of working the land, the poverty juxtaposed with a sense of plenty. I think that my appreciation of the old and well-loved, the worn and discarded comes from those early times and the notion of using and reusing. I believe that all things have a life and a story and there is value in that story, whatever it is, continuing in some form.
Over the course of my life, my experience of our culture has gone from a built-in frugality born of necessity to that of everyday excess and a disturbing sense of entitlement. Somehow, my attraction to the old and the discarded helps me to live more comfortably in the 21st century.
I like to use the old in new ways, combining things in ways I find interesting. My artistic career began as a calligrapher and words and their meaning continue to be an important element in my work. I work mostly in metal, copper, old tin, wood and all sorts of found and collected objects. I have been working with hands as symbols for a number of years now and that continues to be interesting to me. Each piece I create is one-of-a-kind.
Over the past winter, I began working on a series of shrinelets. These are small to medium sized altar-like assemblages that address our need to communicate with the divine. They are meant to settle our minds, ask for blessing and give thanks. I am also working with larger, more dimensional objects, old neon signs and theatre marquee letters and boxes.
The piece for AiN deals with time, memory and how they shape and define our world view. This piece has a distressed canvas background with old gasoline price signs hanging off the canvas that can be changed and rearranged. The price signs were salvaged from an old store in Virginia. I chose this piece to represent the Black and White Ball, a fundraiser for the Mountain Heritage Museum in Crested Butte early in July. The museum is housed in the old Tony's Conoco building. The correlation between the black and white gas price signs of this piece, the Conoco building, and the fact that they each concern themselves with history, time and memory seemed a perfect match.
I also work as a graphic artist, designing logos, business packages, brochures, illustration, advertisements, posters, signage etc. I find this work challenging and enjoy the process of taking a concept and developing it into something complete and usable. It is satisfying to help a client successfully promote their business or product. Assemblage work, hands and shrinelets can be seen at Tango at 144 Main Street in Gunnison and Lupitas' Bazaar in Ridgway starting in July. My studio number is 641-3345.
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