Shirley Crow by Watts Art Publications (WAP)

Shirley Crow

104

Life’s Mysteries plates an interview

Life’s Mysteries by Patricia Watts

In a world of instant communication, global warming, and the merging of human and machine, we are faced with a constantly shifting reality. My work is about the miracle of being alive amidst the pain and beauty that surrounds us. I find myself immersed in the process of creating what I can only call “chunks of the universe”— ambiguous organic forms that are powered by my sense of a hidden layer, an energy that can be felt but never seen. I am forever paying homage to the great mystery known as “life force.” SC What does a girl who grew up in the Show-Me State in the 1950s know about abstract art? A lot. Shirley Crow has spent the last fifty years developing a painterly perspective driven by her childhood experiences in a rural agricultural community. A fiercely internal process informs how she sees the world around her. Like the spiritual painters before her, including Richard Pousette-Dart and Agnes Pelton, Crow paints non-objective fields of energy as her way to connect with the cosmos. She listens to her intuition and dreams, which give form to an inner world, expressed through colors, sharing her experience of life on Earth. Crow knew from a young age she wanted to be an artist, although she didn’t know why. She did not go to museums and had never met an artist. Her teachers would often ask her to draw maps for classroom tutorials. And, like most visual learners, she did not excel in math, although she was an A student in high school. Crow liked to use her imagination to escape the harsh reality of living with a single parent who had mental health issues. She would often

lie under a walnut tree in the yard, staring up at the sky and wonder about life. Crow and her mother Mildred lived with her grandmother Hattie Jane Shrum. Together they relied on aid for dependent children, as well as a small sum of money sent from Crow’s absent father. Shrum, or Mama (Ma-MAH) as she was called, was the artists’ saving grace, who hung around long enough to know that her granddaughter was on her way to becoming an educated adult. Although Crow did not consider herself intellectual or analytical—even to this day—an English teacher in high school encouraged her to go to college. She was eighteen years old when she left the rural township of Braymer, one hour northeast of Kansas City, and headed to Columbia, Missouri, to attend the University of Missouri. She met her future husband, Edwin Crow, on a blind date during her sophomore year. Edwin grew up in Sedalia and attended school a few hours away in Rolla, so they would commute on weekends and holidays to spend time with one another. In 1962, Crow graduated with Honors with a B.S. in

10 art education. The following day, she married Edwin. They stayed on in Columbia for three more years while her husband studied for his Ph.D. in chemistry, graduating in 1965. During this time, Crow would drive up to a small town north of Columbia, where she taught art at a public school.1 After Edwin’s graduation, he did an internship in Texas and was recruited by Dupont. The couple then moved to Delaware where the company is headquartered in Wilmington. Once settled, Crow took her first official painting class since college at the Delaware Art Museum. The class was taught by Warren Rohrer who was raised by Mennonites in Lancaster County. He introduced Crow to the concept of depicting the life cycles of nature, having her draw flowers in various stages of decay. Rohrer was inspired by color and light, shade and texture, connections with a higher rhythm of life. He was in his forties when he taught the class, a late bloomer who went on to become a leading abstract painter in Pennsylvania. Although Crow does not recall his atmospheric painting style as much as the lessons he taught her, his later works that were ethereal and mysterious abstractions were not unlike the direction that Crow would also take. Each artist’s works expresses the kind of relationship one might have with nature, growing up in a rural environment with time to contemplate the perceptual effects of natural cycles.2 In 1969, after three years in Wilmington, Edwin was transferred to Houston with Dupont. Crow decided to take a job at a private school and art gallery, the Lowell Collins School of Art, where she took drawing and painting classes for the next five years. Crow remembers Collins as a gregarious personality who encouraged the enjoyment of the creative process. He had studied at the Art Students League in New York and earned his master’s

degree in fine art from the University of Houston. He was also the dean of the Houston Museum School for over twenty years prior and an appraiser and specialist in pre-Columbian and African art. The Crow’s became close friends with Lowell and his second wife Wanda, and Edwin began collecting PreColumbian art. 3 While at the Lowell Collins School of Art, Crow experiments in art foundations, drawing sketches of nudes. Ultimately though, she was attracted to forms in nature and abstractions. Included in this monograph are ink and graphite drawings on paper and oils on canvas selected from the approximate twenty-five works she made in the 1970s. The works are strong examples of her foray into non-objective organic forms. For example, New Life [fig. 1], although it appears like a flower or plant form, could easily depict a microscopic cellular level organism, such as an ovum. In Spherical Landscape [p. 22], a close-up of what appears as a plant form, a sunflower, could be an electron perspective, with hairlike follicles rising from a sphere reference a living thing. Although the scale is unclear, the composition is possibly a metaphor for planet Earth. Crow continued making works on paper in the 70s while the young couple moved around. In 1973, Edwin was transferred back to Delaware for one year, then again to Memphis, Tennessee, where they stayed for the next five years. Notable during this time are a few still life paintings of flowers encased in a glass sphere, one titled The Night is Young and Old [p. 24]. The globe-like effect in these studies became her tool for ways of seeing. Everyday moments were an opportunity to explore new perspectives. One day, Crow was in the kitchen and noticed a similar circular perspective reflected on the lid of a stainless steel pan as sunlight shown in from the window. At this moment, Crow became the observer and voyeur

Life’s Mysteries

fig. 1

New Life, 1971 ink on paper, 23 x 17 inches

simultaneously, reflecting her internal dialogue outward to the viewer of her artworks. In her painting titled From Inside [p. 26], a figure stands in the front of a window with hands on hips. A reflection, a blue hourglass shape, is projected below. In 1976 the Crow’s made their first trip to Europe. Edwin was there to do business, and they took side trips to both Rome and Paris. Highlights included the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel, Pantheon, and Colosseum in Rome. In Paris, they visited the Centre Pompidou, Musée d’Orsay, and Louvre. After returning home, they welcomed the birth of their only son Ryan. The artist then focuses on being a mother. In 1981, they moved back to Delaware for the third and final time, staying in Wilmington for almost twenty years. The following year the artist’s mother passed away. Early in the 1980s, Crow had a powerful dream that informed her that if she neglected

to make her art, a film would form over her eyes, and she would go blind. She made approximately forty works in the coming decade, adding oil pastels to her repertoire while working on paper. By the mid-1980s, the artist built on her experience with the kitchen pan and globe perspective and painted All of Us [p. 28]. In what appears to be a family portrait, three figures look down into a circle. The viewer looks up at the figures from inside the globe. Another important work from the perspective of a reflection is Strong Women [fig. 2], with two figures dressed similarly standing in the center with their hands on their hips. The background is a domestic interior with windows, and the foreground appears like skin or an enclosure to this inner world, with a fleshly exterior drawn in shades of pink. The work was based on a close relationship with a female artist who stayed with the Crow’s for one month while exhibited her work at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts. In 1986 Crow made a special work in honor of her grandmother titled For Mama [fig. 3]. In 1987, she submitted this and other works to the Delaware State Arts Council and was awarded an Art Fellowship including a thousand-dollar award and a solo exhibition. With the fellowship under her belt and feeling encouraged that her voyeur perspective works had a strong footing, she then transitions from the circular to a larger vertical rectangle format. She completes several more oil pastels on paper works where the viewer is observing the artist’s world. In Rebirth [p. 36], she adds a broader range of colors and a dreamy, almost disorienting perspective. These works are complex and kaleidoscopic, forming fantastical microcosms or other worlds removed from ordinary life. In the fall of 1989, Crow is invited to participate in an exhibition at the American Embassy in Belgium, and includes her work Moving Interior [p. 29].

Throughout the 1990s, Crow completed approximately twenty artworks. She resumed the circular perspective portraying interior scenes as a reflection. In 1994, Crow and her husband Edwin took a trip to New Mexico, where he had an unexpected heart attack and the following year decides to take early retirement from Dupont. He attends to his health and takes their son to look at schools in the Southwest. Ryan begins classes at Colorado University in Boulder in 1996, and Edwin started a consulting business the following year. During this time, Crow has lower back pain with long periods of being bedridden, which she would later learn was probably spinal stenosis, a condition that puts pressure on the spinal cord and the nerves within the spine. The artist makes a few graphite on paper drawings in 1998–99, including flying females and other figures in nature. As the Twentieth Century comes to a close, Crow is feeling ready for change.

By 1999, the Crows moved to New Mexico and bought a home in Tesuque, where she and her husband still live today. The transition to a wide-open landscape in the Land of Enchantment and their new home with a large painting studio provided the perfect antidote. The natural phenomena of sunlight reflecting on the clouds and mountains offered endless possibilities for further work. Crow’s sensitivity to the light and shadows at an elevation of seven thousand feet sends her imagination to new heights. She’s now asking big questions, such as “why we humans are here on earth.” The artist experiences the world with fresh eyes.

Life’s Mysteries

above:

fig. 2

Strong Women, 1985 oil pastel on paper, 22 x 24 inches opposite:

fig. 3

For Mama, 1986 oil pastel on paper, 37 x 29 inches

At times my process feels like pure emotion. I am also driven by technical and conceptual concerns. I get lost in the process of playing with color and refining forms. Often what emerges motivates me to change my original idea and push to a deeper level.

Crow paints over thirty landscapes from 2000 to 2005, with ambiguous standing and flying figures flowing through the skies. The artist reads a book on healing back pain by John Sarno, revealing that emotional stress could often be to blame. She interprets these “flights of freedom” as an expression of her joy, finally free from long-term back pain. She paints The Two of Us On Earth [fig. 5], an important work that signifies this transition. In 2002, she had her first one-person show at a commercial gallery, at Carolynn Roberts

14 Gallery near Wilmington, Delaware—her old stomping ground and home for so many years. A friend had recommended her, and Roberts reached out to the artist, knowing she had moved to Santa Fe. A pivotal work that Crow started in the fall of 2004 includes a figure looking into a light-filled void, a portal that marks a turning point into the unknown. Evolution [p. 46] is painted in dark burgundy and light yellow, representing an important transition for the artist. She states in her painting journal two months after starting the work, “I’m thinking of doing a series on evolution. They would be about energy; maybe use some of the tiny rays blended with light sources. They could be about where we are going or not going as a species, as individuals, how we relate to each other.” She adds, “It’s about the mystery and beauty of where we come from and where we’re going.”4 Crow begins focusing on the expression of pure energy, or abstractions that communicate her interest in science and the concept of energy transmission. In the third phase of her career as an artist, Crow connects with microscopic imagery from her earliest ink on paper works made in the 1970s. A similar painting to Evolution made next is Anything Could Happen [p. 48], where a figure stands on the precipice of a colorful field of light, with pinks and blues, a large tree looms overhead. Other paintings, mostly smaller, made at that same time reveal her preoccupation with the unknown, including Strolling the Universe [p. 54], The Precarious Perch [p. 55], New World [p. 52], and Uncertainty [p. 56]. Crow is now well aware of the environmental changes happening on the planet. In August, Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, displacing more than a million people. She sees the bigger picture.

When I enter the studio a nervous anticipation fills the air—opposite worlds collide: known and unknown, chaotic and ordered, quiet and explosive, material and spiritual. Though my drive to paint is always internal, ultimately there is a transformation that takes place and I find myself incorporating my reactions to the world around me. In May 2006, Al Gore premiered his film An Inconvenient Truth, and by July, there was a global heatwave that set records across the planet. Crow painted ten paintings, including Changing World [p. 65], Crazy World [p. 59], Unseen World [p. 64], and Another World [p. 58]. In each work, a small figure stands in a chaotic yet colorful array of nature. She makes four flower paintings titled The World In a Flower [p. 63], New Life [p. 62], Future Flower [p. 60], and In A Flower [p. 61]. In these paintings, she responds to the unsettling awareness of global warming with beauty based on an imagined nature, with cosmic flowers, and once again, delving into the microsphere reminiscent of her early work. The following year Crow paints ten oil on canvas paintings, including Almost Alone [p. 66], in which a figure walks inside a colorful, tubular, organ-like passageway. It appears to be a landscape, yet it also looks like the inside of the human body. In this dreamlike space, Crow is experiencing being alone following her husband’s bypass surgery a few months prior. In Hanging On [p. 69], what appears to be the same passageway is now closed off, with two

Life’s Mysteries

15 along with fifty paintings dating from 2003 to 2007, presented at the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas. She also paints Life Goes On [p. 78], a triptych. These are Crow’s first multicanvas works, with the latter being over one hundred inches wide. In Life Energy [p. 81], we see a tree or brain-like shape with limbs or arteries. The human figure appears floating inside the form. In Change in Blue [p. 77], there’s a fish-like profile with two legs or arms hanging down, and a single eye at the head, and a snake-like figure along with a human figure positioned inside. The being or non-human floats in a sea of blue. Beginning in 2010, Crow continues to paint in a larger format. She makes four paintings annually for the next two years. The artist makes one last small work titled New Age Plant [p. 84], a blue-leaved, tree-like species with a glowing interior and microcells swimming within. She also paints Rock Energy [p. 85], with a pink vibrating edge surrounding a green diamond shape, emitting energy from all sides. In The Encounter [p. 74], we observe an alien or In 2012, Crow painted Puzzle of Life [p. 87], a large sponge-like or coral-like form, possibly unidentified being from another dimension, ocean-like, perhaps a mollusk. In The Eruption a brain with a curved cerebellum. In The Trio [p. 89], she depicts three cell-like forms in pinks [p. 75], we see flames or plumes of energy in shades of reds and orange with glistening sparks and yellows on the interior with bubbles or sparks of energy floating around the cell surface in the background, possibly a solar flare. And, in deep black space. in Enhanced Human [p. 68], Crow questions The following year, Crow examines the our reliance on technology. She then starts a series of graphite on paper titled Now What? 11 form and function of rock as geothermal energy. In Another World [p. 90], a giant glowing [fig. 4]. In this series, the artist delves deeper segmented rock-like structure, or a rock inside herself, seeking a new direction for being, floats above a dark, more solid form, her work. She makes spirals, globes, ancientpossibly another rock. Again, In Coming Alive looking non-humans and microbes, and the [p. 91], we see a rock-like form floating above human figure. These are mysterious drawings another solid-state, each with similar colorings that inspire her works to come. in reds, blues, and yellows. In 2015, Crow In 2008, Crow made six paintings, one painted Into the Unknown [p. 92], prior to when titled Transitions [p. 79], a horizontal work both the artist and her husband had eye lens consisting of four canvases. This work, one of replacement surgery. The painting depicts a her last that includes the human figure, was circular form radiating a prism of blue, yellow, included in the artists’ first survey exhibition large hands clasped together. And, in Navigating the Unknown [p. 71], she places a figure within a colorful field of neural pathways, a curious space that lures one to go deeper, to seek what’s beyond. The mind-body connection is one, her message to unify the internal and external, integrating the actual and the perceived imaginable.

I’m inspired by questions about a hidden reality, an energy. What is the truth? Where have we been? Where are we going? Science can give us some of the answers. Art can help us explore these mysteries. Through my work, I want to encourage viewers to feel a sense of wonder and awe about the universe.

17 red, and green, visualizing her lens as a shaft of energy connecting her to a world of color and light. In Life Force [p. 94], painted in 2016, Crow depicted red arterial branches reaching toward the sky with star-like beams of light embedded in a deep blue sphere. This painting was inspired by a Hubble telescope image and rock formations seen in a magazine, although it was painted in anticipation of a trip the Crow’s made to Iceland where they would see the Northern Lights, where the sky and earth meet. The artist paints Energy in Color [p. 96] the following year, with a brown background and small white glowing cells overlaid. In the foreground is a cerebral form with colorful swimming fish-like shapes, and behind possibly attached to a larger form with a head and body below. This curious work suggests a heartmind connection, as the colorful shapes of energy swim throughout the heart, mind and body. In Unknown Energy [p. 95], Crow creates a flower-like form in front of a fiery circle, possibly the sun, linking plant life to solar energy.

One thread that has always run through my work is the conscious experience of deliverance and release. This awareness is the root of my inspiration, the fundamental drive that propels me to create. In 2017, Crow’s husband retired from his consulting work. The artist paints one to two

fig. 4

Now What? 11, 2007 (detail) graphite on paper, 12 x 10 inches

pieces each year following. In Black Energy [p. 97], she acknowledges a more profound, grounded energy. A human-like form stands at the center with white tentacles sprouting from a moon-shaped head. Overall the painting has an Indigenous feel, possibly an acknowledgment of the spiritual energy that emanates from the people and the lands of the Southwest. Into the Infinite [p. 98], painted the following year, is a heart-shaped form with a radiating blue and red interior and tentacles all over, a kind of thought form, à la Besant/Leadbeater, expressing pure emotions.5 In 2019, Crow painted a floating rock form titled Cool Mystery [p. 99]. Unlike her previous paintings of radiating rock beings in 2010 and 2013, this one has a cool blue background with an icy white explosion emanating from a rock at the bottom of the canvas. The spray is shooting upward at a more giant buoyant gray and yellow rock. The color palette is different from most of her paintings and presents a range of temperature or color tones in which energy appears to emanate. In a painting started just months before the pandemic in 2020, titled New World [p. 100], Crow senses things are changing quickly. She first lays down crisp red lines, representing flows of energy between larger cells or beings. The contrast between the blue background and the embodied energies is captivating and breathtaking at the same time—the most vibrant and intense in her oeuvre to date. In June, Crow starts a new work while feeling a sense of doom. She paints what appears like a pastel drawing, an oil painting titled Primordial Stew [p. 101]; this was her response to the languishing pandemic and the repeating wildfire season in the western United States, including a local fire only a few miles from her studio. In this painting, a sun is dimmed in a hazy blue sky and enveloped by flames or a large virus-like form.

18 As of the printing of this monograph, Crow’s most recent work completed in 2021 is titled Time of Covid-19 [p. 102]. She states that the result is “violent and scary.” The artist continues to assimilate to the tension, fear, and uncertainty that comes with the pandemic. In fact, the invisible forces that are currently complicating our lives, more recently due to climate change with the fires in the West, are precisely the elemental events that inspire her work. Several prepped canvases stand in her studio today. She has plans for diptychs and triptychs to come. She practices daily affirmations, including the action of countering every negative thought she has with two positives afterward. Crow is concerned for the survival of humankind, and her work begs the question: Why are we here? She persists in making her work as a way of giving back.

Notes Many details about Crow’s life were recorded during in-person and Zoom interviews over the summer of 2021. 1. Interview with the artist at her home in Tesuque, New Mexico, May 23, 2021 2. Warren Rohrer, 1927–1995 (locksgallery.com/artists/warren-rohrer/ series) 3. Lowell Daunt Collins (1924–2003) and the Lowell Collins School of Art (Founded in 1966) (michaelroquecollins.com/lowell-dauntcollins) (cnx.org/contents/eFQIsJEO@2.1:NFfwzq0B@1/LowellCollins-1924-2003) 4. Artists journal (1970–2021), notes under “Evolution,” dated 1/21/05. “I’m thinking of doing a series on evolution. They would be about energy, maybe use some of the tiny rays blended with light sources. They could be about where we are going or not going as a species, as individuals, how we relate to each other. I’ve been thinking about the Nova show on quantum physics. Everything is unpredictable. Tiny energy ribbons. Also tinkering with our genes, cloning. All under a cloud of annilation by weapons of mass destruction, about good-bad, joy-fear, unlimited possibilities, extreme vulnerabilities, extreme power over our future and extreme vulnerability. Could be called Evolutionfuture and past.” 5. Thought-Forms, Annie Besant, C.W.. Leadbeater, The Theosophical Publishing House LTD: London, 1901 (gutenberg.org/ files/16269/16269-h/16269-h.htm)

We live in a time where almost anything can happen. This realization makes me uneasy, apprehensive, curious, and excited—I am in love with being alive. I constantly strive to communicate the sense of awe and mystery that I experience in a society that is changing at an ever-increasing pace.

fig. 5

The Two Of Us On Earth, 2000 oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

Life’s Mysteries

plates 1971–2021

Illumination, 1971

ink on paper, 17 x 13.5 inches

Spherical Landscape, 1971 ink on paper, 17 x 13 inches

Entangled Landscape, 1973 ink on paper, 13 x 17 inches

The Night is Young and Old (Globe series), 1974 oil on canvas, 10 x 8 inches

The Two of Us, 1975

graphite on paper, 36 x 24 inches

From Inside, 1975

oil on canvas, 28 x 22 inches

Variation on Their World, 1977

graphite on paper, 13.5 x 17.5 inches

All of Us, 1984

oil pastel on canvas, 22.5 x 24 inches

Moving Interior, 1984

colored pencil and acrylic on paper, 24.5 x 13.5 inches

Christmas, 1985

oil pastel on canvas, 22.5 x 24 inches

Under Wrap, 1985

graphite on paper, 22.5 x 24 inches

From Above, 1986

oil pastel on paper, 47.75 x 37 inches

From Inside, 1986

oil pastel on paper, 37 x 29 inches

To Fly, 1987

oil pastel on paper, 37 x 29 inches

From Eternity to Here, 1988

oil pastel on paper, 37 x 29 inches

Rebirth, 1988

oil pastel on paper, 37 x 29 inches

Nature Joy, 1998

graphite on rag paper, 33.5 x 27 inches

Just Love Each Other, 1999

graphite on rag paper, 8 x 10 inches

Why Are We Here, 2000 oil on canvas, 22 x 16 inches

Still Alive, 2001

oil on canvas, 31 x 36 inches

Moving Landscape, 2002 oil on canvas, 12 x 9 inches

Near Joy, 2002

oil on canvas, 8 x 10 inches

On Top Of The World, 2002 oil on canvas, 10 x 12 inches

Under A Rainbow, 2002

oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches

Stream of Humanity, 2003

oil on canvas, triptych, 20 x 48 inches

Evolution, 2004

oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Praying with the Daisies, 2004 oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

Anything Could Happen, 2005 oil on canvas, 28 x 32 inches

Compassion, 2005

oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Immortality, 2005

oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches

Life, 2005

oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches

New World, 2005

oil on canvas, 9 x 11 inches

Still Together, 2005

oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches

Strolling the Universe, 2005 oil on canvas, 10 x 12 inches

The Precarious Perch, 2005 oil on canvas, 28 x 32 inches

Uncertainty, 2005

oil on canvas, 9 x 11 inches

Undercurrents, 2005

oil on canvas, 11 x 9 inches

Another World, 2006

oil on panel, 20 x 24 inches

Crazy World, 2006

oil on panel, 20 x 24 inches

Future Flower, 2006

oil on panel, 20 x 24 inches

In a Flower, 2006

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

New Life, 2006

oil on canvas, 32 x 28 inches

The World in a Flower, 2006 oil on canvas, 12 x 10 inches

Unseen World, 2006

oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches

Changing World, 2006

oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches

Almost Alone, 2007

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

Becoming, 2007

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

Enhanced Human, 2007 oil on panel, 32 x 28 inches

Hanging On, 2007

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

Nature Distilled, 2007

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Navigating the Unknown, 2007 oil on panel, 32 x 28 inches

Now What? 14, 2007

graphite on paper, 12 x 10 inches

On the Edge, 2007

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

The Encounter, 2007

oil on panel, 28 x 32 inches

The Eruption, 2007

oil on panel, 32 x 28 inches

The Observer, 2007

oil on panel, 32 x 28 inches

Change in Blue, 2008

oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches

Life Energy, 2008

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Life Goes On, 2008

oil on canvas, triptych, 42 x 114 inches

Transitions, 2008

oil on panel, 24 x 80 inches

The Beginning and Ending, 2008 oil on panel, 32 x 28 inches

Living Energy, 2010

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

New Age Plant, 2010

oil on panel, 24 x 20 inches

Rock Energy, 2010

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Change, 2011

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Puzzle of Life, 2012

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Recreation, 2012

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

The Trio, 2012

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Another World, 2013

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Coming Alive, 2014

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Into the Unknown, 2015 oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Energy on Stage, 2016

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Life Force, 2016

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Unknown Energy, 2016 oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Energy in Color, 2017

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Black Energy, 2017

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Into the Infinite, 2018

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

Cool Mystery, 2019

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

100

New World, 2020

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

101

Primordial Stew, 2020

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

102

Time of Covid-19, 2021

oil on panel, 42 x 38 inches

an interview Summer 2021

105

If I could talk about it, I wouldn’t paint it. I’m fascinated by what’s going on in the world, in the universe. It’s so dramatic— anything could happen. I want to paint the truth about the world we live in. It’s wonderful, terrible, exciting, and scary. SC

How much of what you know now as a mature painter was influenced by your art teachers? Warren Rohrer or Lowell Collins? What techniques did they teach you and what techniques have you developed yourself that you feel are distinctly your mark making? The main thing I remember about studying with Rohrer was doing flowers week after week as they dried and changed shape. I think that encouraged me to find my fascinations, which could also be unique. It also helped me to appreciate changes in nature. Working for Lowell Collins was amazing. I was a student and his assistant. He gave us different problems to solve in our painting. For example, use only cool colors with one warm color or do a painting using complementary colors. That encouraged me to set up my own problems later. If a part of a painting wasn’t working, he encouraged you to make it work and didn’t offer his solutions. I took both painting and drawing classes with him. I think I learned from him to enjoy the creative process. Although Rohrer and Collins did not teach me specific painting techniques, I have experimented on my own over the years. I started with oil paint, primarily wet into wet. Then tried pastel layering. Then oil pastel. And

finally, oil. I think it’s best to find the medium that helps you say what you want to say. Oil does that for me. You get instant feedback. When it dries, it will look the same. Also, it doesn’t dry instantly, so you can take a break and come back and wipe it out if you want. Accidents that you like better than your original idea are more likely to happen. I like getting gradations by starting with lots of paint on the brush and patting until none is left. I also like wiping out, meaning wiping out usually a small area with a dry brush. You get a unique look. Another technique I like is putting water on the canvas and dropping paint on it. I used this technique in Life Goes On. You get incredible textures. Currently, I seem to be using thin lines that suggest movement. — Have you ever been interested or researched scientific imagery as the basis for your paintings? If so, when? what? Yes, I’m very interested in scientific imagery. I receive daily emails with Hubble Telescope images. I keep the ones that move me, and they often are incorporated into a painting. I also get scientific images in scientific magazines or any magazine or paper or image on the computer. My painting Life Force was inspired by a photo

106 from Hubble and rock formations I saw in a magazine. However, you might have a hard time seeing the relationship between the inspiration and the finished painting. That’s because the images get me started, and then things happen. — What is your understanding of the form and function of rocks? I know your son Ryan is a geologist. Is that what got you interested in the rock form and the energy that is absorbed and flows from the Earth’s geology?

2006 titled The World In a Flower, New Life, Future Flower, and In A Flower. What is your connection with the concept and image of a flower and it’s connection to your interest in capturing forms of energy?

To me, flowers are incredibly beautiful. So is the concept of energy. And, when you combine the two, Voila! Think of all the evolutional energy it took to create the tremendous array of flowers that exist; it’s fantastic. Flowers are so much a part of most people’s lives. Life without them To me, rocks are records of the past condensed. would be so bleak. I had a small garden as a If they could talk, what would they say? My child and have loved gardening all my life. The interest in geology began when I took a geology older I get, the more impressive springtime class in college. I loved the shapes and colors seems. That first sprig of a plant is magical. of rocks. My son was a consulting geologist on — the “Trail of Time,” a trail along the edge of the I understand you have taught creativity Grand Canyon, a favorite place. Rocks were workshops in your studio. Can you tell me brought from the canyon to represent different more about this? times and placed along the trail. About three Yes, I’ve taught classes with up to twenty feet represents a million years. My painting participants from a unique perspective on art titled Rock Coming Alive was inspired by the and the creative process with students of all Trail of Time and images from outer space. backgrounds and experiences. My primary goal I’m fascinated by what happens when you put with these workshops was to allow students the two together. For this particular painting, I the opportunity to experience the value of was very excited about a vague idea of glowing creativity and imagination. I didn’t want it to images contrasted with linear forms. I drew the be too structured. It was not a lecture—more general shapes with pastel and purposely kept about playing and exploring. Our culture them vague because I love having an idea of doesn’t value creativity as much as it could. Just what I want to do and then finding out what a taste of the creative process can carry over the painting wants. For example, in the area at into the rest of your life. the upper left that’s red with blue stripes, the I once held a creativity workshop for red just appeared. For me, the main thing about a family of five in my studio. They each painting is the process, the adventure of what did a small painting, and although I had will happen. paintbrushes, I encouraged them to try a — technique using water and paint on top without You mentioned that Roher had you paint a brush. The reason was that the water usually flowers in all stages of decay in his classes in moved and encouraged them to experiment. the 1960s. As a young artist, I’m sure this was I also talked about how these experiences can a captivating exercise. Following you painted be a metaphor for how one approaches life. flowers in a globe-like sphere in the 1970s, I wanted to give them a taste of the creative and again painted several imagined flowers in process—no right or wrong, just being open

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107 to the joy of discovery. Each family member created a unique 8 x 10 inch painting. It was amazing and very fulfilling to see the variety of creative expressions. — In 2020, you had solo exhibition titled Now and Then that was installed at the Macy Center at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, New Mexico, just weeks before the pandemic lockdown occured. That must have been exciting and a let down for you. Tell us more about it.

If someone had told me when I was a child that I would be showing my art in colleges and art centers, I would have jumped for joy. Why is the biggest mystery of my life. I grew up in a small farming community and have no memory of seeing art, not even reproductions of fine art. Thank heaven an English teacher in high school told me I was going to college. I barely knew what it was. A wealthy relative said he would pay for it but told me I must not study art as I would see nudes in drawing class. He said I should major in home economics because I would become a housewife. I told my relative The venue was in an entertainment center I would work my way through school without lobby, a beautiful space. The show was a his financial help and major in art education. I retrospective, including several paintings should have skipped the education side but was presented when parents brought potential told I might need to support myself and that art students to visit the college. The school wanted education was a good way to do it. visitors to know that they also teach art there I was born into a sad situation. My and support the arts through exhibitions dad left when I was a baby. My grandfather, as a way to reach out to the surrounding a wealthy farmer, had died and lost almost community. Many middle school students were everything except a victorian house in a small brought to the show by a fantastic teacher. We town. My mother, Anna Mildred Arnhart, was had informal discussions mostly about how like a child, and I lived with my grandmother science influenced my art. Many of the students (Mama) in her seventies. We never learned had never been to an art show. They seemed what was wrong with her, but she was unhappy very excited. Individual students from one and would go into rages when you least group spontaneously gave mini-lectures on expected it. One of the ways I would escape why they liked a particular painting. It was would be to spend time exploring my uncle’s so great to see them build their confidence, forty-acre farm. After doing chores, I would sharing their feelings about the work. I told take off with my cousin into the horizon and them about my life story. When I asked a often spend most of the day building dams in student what was the most important thing creeks, running through cornfields, wading in he got out of the discussion and show, he said muddy ponds, rescuing baby mice, climbing he would not give up on his dreams. I was trees, chasing cows. The sense of freedom was blown away. Unfortunately, we had to cancel amazing, very special. a session with college students because of the I loved my grandmother very much; she coronavirus epidemic. was very supportive. I still tear up when I think — of her. Mama was more like my mother. She I know your childhood has weighed heavily on loved cooking, sewing and was very kind. She your development as an adult and has affected got rheumatoid arthritis, was bedridden and or influenced your creativity. What are some in constant pain when I was in high school. memories that stand out for you that you feel Before college, before I left for a summer job, are important on your life’s journey?

108 she told me, “Now I can die.” I think she hung on because she knew I needed her. I was told she was calling for me. When I got home, she was in a coma from an infection, although she probably knew I was there. After the funeral, I remember waiting until everyone had gone and telling her to just watch. I was going to have a great life. I have. She is responsible for who I am. But I regret not staying with her till she died. How it did not even occur to me is beyond me. — You’ve mentioned you like the idea of giving back. I know you’ve done this through your paintings, your painting workshops, and talks with students during your solo exhibition at The Macey Center in Socorro. Where are you now with this desire? I grew up on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, a federal assistance program, and a small sum of child support from my father. I remember a social worker pulling me out of school to see how I was doing. Perhaps this background makes me feel the need to give back to a country that supported me. Knowing I will probably die within a few years makes life more precious. I remind myself I want to be as happy as possible every day. What makes me happy? Loving others, loving beauty, being creative, and being open to new ideas and situations. I have many ideas for paintings. They’re coming so fast. And, I have so much experience behind me. It’s a very exciting time. I hope telling my story will inspire others.

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Shirley Crow b.1940 shirleycrow.com Education B.S., Art Education, University of Missouri, Graduated with Academic Honors, Delta Phi Delta, Sigma Epsilon Sigma, University of Missouri, Columbia (Scholarship) Art Foundation Classes William Rohrer, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE Lowell Collins School of Art, Assistant to Director, Houston, TX (Scholarship) Solo Exhibitions 2020 Now and Then/Shirley Crow, a retrospective, Macey Center Gallery, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM 2018 Energy, Macey Center Gallery, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM 2017 Energy, Studio Gallery, benefit for New Energy Economy, Santa Fe, NM 2016 Life Energy, Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, TX 2008 Images for a New World, Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, TX (catalogue) Forsyth Center Galleries, Texas A & M. University, College Station, TX University of New Mexico Medical Gallery, Albuquerque, NM 2005 Paintings: Light, Energy, Motion, Read-Johnson Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM 2004 Being Alive, Tyble Davis Satin Gallery, Main Library, Santa Fe, NM 2003 Alive, Studio/Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2002 Celebrations, Carolynn Roberts Gallery, Yorklyn, DE 2001 In The West, Studio/Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1992 Themes, Delaware State Arts Council, Wilmington, DE 1988 From The Light, Delaware State Arts Council, Gallery 1, Wilmington, DE 1987 Inner World, Outer Expression, Exhibition and Seminar, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 1985 Works by Shirley Crow, County Arts Advisory Committee, Wilmington Arts Commission, Wilmington, DE Paintings by Shirley Crow, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE Group Exhibitions 2020 ecoconsciousness, ecoartspace, Santa Fe, NM (catalogue) 2019 Frontiers of New Mexico, Los Lunas Museum of Heritage and Art, Los Lunas, NM 2015 Celebración, annual juried Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) exhibition, Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, TX (2011, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005)

curriculum vitae

113 2010 Survey of Zane Bennett Contemporary Art Artists, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Design Santa Fe, Pop-Up Boutique, New Mexico Committee of The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Jay Etkin Gallery, Santa Fe Railyard, NM 2008 Vote Art, Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington, DE 2005 Other Women, Farrell Fischoff Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2004 Selections, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, NM 2003 All Decked Out, Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM Runoff, Santa Fe Watershed Association, Santa Fe, NM 2002 A Celebration Of Beauty, Gallery Zipp, Glorieta, NM Collect, Plan B, Santa Fe, NM Celebrating the Beauty of Life, Gallery Zipp, Santa Fe, NM Paper Moons and Other Illusions, Gallery Zipp, Santa Fe, NM 1999 Celebrating 25 Years of Art, The Art Store Gallery, Charleston, WV 1992 2nd Annual Exhibition, Friends of the Tim Mark Endowment, Penn State, Delaware County Campus, Media, PA From Abstraction to Realism: Contemporary Images By Women Artists In Delaware, Delaware Women’s Conference, Wilmington, DE Two Person Show, Community Gallery of Lancaster, Lancaster, PA 1991 1st Annual Exhibition, Friends of the Tim Mark Endowment, Penn State, Delaware County Campus, Media, PA (catalogue) Ten Years of Excellence, Visual Arts Fellowship Recipients, touring show of work by Visual Art Fellowship Recipients, Delaware State Council, DE Invitational, Penn State University, Media, PA 1990 Contemporary Women Artists of Philadelphia International, American Embassy’s Cultural Center, Brussels, Belgium (catalogue) 1988 Large Works, Delaware Center For The Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE 1987 Invitational, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts and Wilmington Arts Commission, Wilmington, DE Above and Below, Two Person Show, Delaware State Arts Council, Wilmington, DE 1986 Showing Our Best, The Art Store, Charleston, WV Group Show, Aperio Gallery, South Miami, FL 1985 Invitational Exhibition, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE Paperworks, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE Group Exhibit 50 Artists, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE Annual Open Juried Exhibition, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA (Honorable Mention) An Evening of Art, Wilmington Flower Market, Hagley Foundation, Wilmington, DE 1984 Artists Celebrate Flowers, Wilmington Garden Center, Wilmington, DE 1975 12th Annual Invitational Art Show-Chester County Artists, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA Two Crows With Vision, Foyer Gallery, Media, PA Fall Focus On Five, Media Gallery, Media, PA 1974 Midsummer Madness, Media Gallery, Media, PA The Many Facets of Eve, The Women’s Action Coalition and Mac Morland Center of Widener College, Chester, PA Chester County Artists–1974, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA 5 Artists In Media Exhibit, Media Gallery, Media, PA 1973 Fifty-ninth Annual Delaware Exhibition, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE (brochure)

114 1972 Oil and Sculpture Exhibition, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA(brochure) Gallery 72 Show, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA Watercolor Exhibition, Chester County Art Association, West Chester, PA (brochure) 1971 Group Show, Lowell Collins Gallery, Houston, Texas 1969 The April Show, Clear Creek Art League, Clear Creek, TX (second prize & brochure) 1968 December Membership Juried Art Exhibition, The Clear Creek Art League, Clear Creek, TX (brochure) Second Annual Art Exhibit, City of Baytown, Baytown, TX (brochure) Awards 1987 Individual Artists Fellowship Award, Delaware State Arts Council, Wilmington, DE Collections Numerous private collections Regional Center For Women In The Arts, West Chester, Pennsylvania Reviews 1991 “Work of 43 Artists Gets Place In The Sun,” Gary Mullinex, Wilmington News Journal, Wilmington, DE 1990 “Witness to Nature,” Delaware Nature Society, Hockessin, DE 1988 “Old Tradition Boldly Interpreted,” Penelope Cope, Wilmington News Journal, Wilmington, DE “Art On The Town,” Carolyn Roland, Art Matters Magazine, Philadelphia, PA “By The Light,” Judy Pennebaker, Delaware Today, Wilmington, DE 1987 “Wilmington Artist Has Lots To Crow About,” John Hayes, Greenville News, Greenville, DE “Old Tradition Boldly Interpreted,” Wilmington News Journal, Wilmington, DE 1986 “An Interview With Shirley Crow,” Joanne Petrezzi, Expressions: First State Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, Wilmington, DE “Under Wraps,” Lois Rasys, Expression: First State Journal, Wilmington, DE “Showing Our Best,” Don Surber, Charleston Daily News, Charleston, WV 1972 “Artist Draws Spirals From Pre-Columbian Period Art,” Dorothea R. Flood, Daily Local News, West Chester, PA Lectures, Interviews, Workshops 2020 Now and Then, Macey Center Gallery, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM (artist talk) 2014 Creativity Workshop, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, NM 2008 How My Life Experiences Have Affected My Work, Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, TX and Texas A&M, College Station, TX (lecture) 1991 Art and Spirituality, First Unitarian Church, Wilmington, DE (lecture) 1987 What My Art Means To Me, WXDR Public Radio, University of Delaware Honors Department, Newark, DE (interview) 1986 How Personal Experiences Have Affected My Work, University of Delaware Honors Department, Newark, DE (lecture) Catalogues 2020 ecoconsciousness, ecoartspace, Santa Fe, NM 2008 Images for a New World, Buddy Holly Center, Lubbock, TX 1992 2nd Annual Exhibition, Friends of Tim Mark Endowment, Penn State University, Media, PA 1991 1st Annual Exhibition, Friends of the Tim Mark Endowment, Penn State, Delaware County Campus, Media, PA 1990 Contemporary Women Artists of Philadelphia, American Cultural Center, Brussels, Belgium Witness to Nature, Delaware Nature Society, Wilmington, DE

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This book is dedicated to the artist’s grandmother, Hattie Jane Shrum (1870–1958).

Shirley Crow is published by Watts Art Publications, 2021 shirleycrow.com Essay by Patricia Watts Special thanks to Shirley and Edwin Crow for their trust and adventerous spirit. Design by Brett Yasko ©2021 Watts Art Publications. All artwork by Shirley Crow ©2021. Essay “Shirley Crow: Life’s Mysteries” ©2021 Patricia Watts. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the artist. front cover: Shirley Crow, The Beginning and Ending, 2008 (detail) back cover: Shirley Crow, Puzzle of Life, 2012 (detail) pgs. 2–3: Shirley Crow, Hanging On, 2007 (detail) pgs. 6–7: Shirley Crow, The Two Of Us On Earth, 2000 (detail) pgs. 110–111: Shirley Crow, Praying with the Daisies, 2004 (detail) All paintings photographed by Edwin Crow; art studio on pgs. 108–109 by Jean Ross. Portrait on pg. 112 by Edwin Crow. Watts Art Publications issuu.com/wattsartpublications