Featured Artist for December 2001 - February 2002

Featured GiveAway by Lee Tracy Lock, 1997 26 1/2" x 25 1/2" Oil On Canvas Valued at $1000

Dan Rudny Palatine, Illinois

Lee gives credit to her grandmother for introducing her to art and who encouraged self expression while being an "eccentric grandmother" at heart. Lee remembers her fondly with interesting friends and belonging to organizations like the Arts Club, Shakespeare House and the Garden Club. Her grandmother would also lecture to groups on her Valentine collection, China mending or the language of fans and would often call Lee before the crowd to sing a current childhood song or perform a clapping game. Lee used to walk through the campuses where the artists, dressed in black, caught her attention and reminded her of monks with a spiritual mission. Lee announced to her grandmother that "she" was one of them, and thus her encouragement began with a huge black portfolio that was about her actual size at the time. All of Lee's learning about culture, love of life and the importance of the mind's comfort came from her Grandmother Street. Lee says that "She would not be who she is today without her."

Lee went to school at Camden-Rockport High located in Camden, Maine. A town located between the mountains and the sea. Though the nature was grand, she was too much of an adolescent to recognize the full beauty around her. She was new to Maine, moving from Massachusetts, and found the move quite difficult. Her parents had divorced. It was in these school years that she started to work outside of a classroom setting. She did watercolors of ladies in costumes that matched their wild pets; tigers, peacocks, flamingos, dragons and exotic creatures. The town is a boat filled harbor town, so she took an oceanography class. This information took root and eventually became valuable, both in her respect of nature and as inspiration for her art.

Lee went to three different art schools and thus, learned three different approaches to art. She would leave an art school after two years of study because she would get "too settled". Each art school and their diverse experiences contributed to her development. Her opinion was formed by the realization that she could define her own terms what art was to her and that she did not have to fit into one label or category. She went to school for 6 1/2 years for her BFA. Being a consistent transfer student served her well and she gave up the notion that she needed to pursue her degree in order to continue. To Lee, art was about freedom and self definition. Her training is a mix of drawing from her imagination and observation. Every year she signed up for figure drawing because she had heard, "if you can draw the figure you can draw anything." She still draws figures occasionally to relax and stay in touch with the foundation that helped construct her. The Art Institute of Chicago advanced her painting, along with a studio that reinforced the importance of the artist studio. "If you set up a studio, you will paint." Having a studio was the one thing that enabled her to put her schooling to use and work towards artistic goals.

Kitten In The Engine Oil on canvas 54" x 54", 1998 Private Collection

The Red Trees Project below is an outdoor installation that covered 10-acres of roughly 250 tree stumps with red fabric. The Tree Project began with an emotional response she had to visuals she saw on a trip west that alarmed her. Without intending, she bumped into some political and economical issues. Adbusters magazine ran photos of the Red Tree Project in their magazine in June 2001.

She asks for responses for future generations not as a protest but as a chance for dialogue, since she views her project as a gentle way to alert the environment. For her, both the Tree Project and her 100 Tears project which is also discussed below has a connection to her painting in a visual sense and originates from her own questions on just what art can do. Lee simply states that "The power of art in society is to both educate and unite."

Her goals are long term and she will continue to paint. Currently, she is working on large canvases that are turning into multiple contemporary landscapes that include metaphors that have always appeared in her paintings. She returned to the northwest in August to retrieve 250 Red Trees shrouds - the pieces of red fabric that were left on the tree stumps for a year to be seasoned by the elements. She is now in the studio sewing them together into a large covering. She has been asked if the Red Trees was a memorial for all trees, including rain forests, and if the large covering could travel to countries struggling with deforestation. She is now in the beginning stages of planning for the Red Tree Shrouds to travel to areas during environmental conferences, summits and meetings and is thrilled with this unexpected potential of lending her art on this scale. "I am also very interested in the product of industrial hemp and the benefits of it to our environment. I want Red Trees to make people aware that there is a solution to clear cutting trees by inspiring increased learning of alternative products that are safer and stronger since Hemp grows in 100 days and can be recycled 60 times more as opposed to wood pulp."

Red Tree Project, 2000 10-acre outdoor installation Red Tree shrouds in varied sizes

Lee is driven to experiment ambitiously, and takes risks to pursue ideas. She wants to create a trail, records of influence and thought, that make sense and provide a visual history that records doubts, concerns, triumphs, questions, discoveries and answers. It is important that she feel connected to the experience of a community and is inspired by social and environmental conditions that shock. She notices loss, yet keeps hope intact. Her goals consist of finding art that speaks poignantly, directly and simply about issues that are often ignored. She is inspired by a childhood ideal, the reason why she became an artist. "On some level I thought that art equaled a form of social service, revealed startling truths, evoking unity, a call for justice. It goes back to the art students dressed in black and the attachment that I felt, as if the connection between creativity and prayer truly exists."

She wants her art to cut through the noise and not add to it. Lee finds it exciting to live in the 21st century and feels that art is going through a tremendous change. She believes that through mature artwork, one can be involved in the evolution of mankind in a positive way. She has learned to create art in the present while keeping a larger view that can include honoring those that will live in the future.

She works mainly in oil paints and at all hours of the day. She loves working after the dinner hour when the world seems to be quieting down. She tends to work with a feast or famine attitude, throwing herself into painting for a period of time without interruption. A few years ago she went to the Ragdale Foundation for a two week art residence. The experience at Ragdale was a catalyst for change in her studio environment. Her stay allowed her to focus so intensely on several projects that she was inspired to enlarge her studio to carry on many projects at the same time.

Lee works at her art full time. She has an active studio with an environment that remains exciting and perpetuates a cycle that sustains creativity. She also receives assistance from students at the Art Institute of Chicago that allows for a certain dialogue. She enjoys sharing her motivation with them and in return embraces the openness and daring attitudes that her students offer while learning about their place in the world. She has also worked with young children through an Illinois Residency grant and through the Peach Club/Gallery 312 and has mentored several children in her studio and in the Chicago Public Schools, to explore materials and create finished works of art. She has been teaching for two years at the Art Institute of Chicago in continuing studies and has had the opportunity to teach both adults and college age students while enjoying the diversity.

100 Tear Project, 2000 Installation glass, paper, video

Lee's 100 Tears project still grows to unite people in a single goal and has a life of its own that she honors. She welcomes involvement in shaping the direction and finds it exciting to work with art pieces that respond to the input of a community. This is the time in her creative history that she will focus attention on sculpting clay to be cast in bronze. There is a set of 100 bronze tears, bronze tree stumps and bronze personal support sculptures. She wants art to be explored by all people with assorted economic and educational extremes. What she finds so exhilarating is that after years of working, her projects, the paintings and the collaborations are all starting to intersect. This she feels reinforces stability and the idea that they were all just meant to be.

Lately important elements that hold her attention have evolved together into one endeavor. Community, participation, social concern and beauty have been the focus of her more public projects, 100 Tears and Red Trees. In these projects, she wants people to think about something normally not considered in everyday life, things that are most often hidden or concealed. She encourages participation and an opportunity to think about and express high ideals, things felt, but, not always spoken. Working on a larger public scale is new to her, yet she embraces the experimentation. Her web site has been a key factor in getting her ideas out and she loves working on organizing the history of her work so that it is easily understandable. Her site has a large amount of work that represents quite a history. It is a tangible way for others to clearly understand where she has come from while allowing her to discover new ways to reach people. This approach allows people to view her art, have excess to versions, have input into the creative process and to help support and influence future phases of projects.

Falling Plates, 2000 Charcoal and acrylic on canvas 101" x 112"

ARTIST STATEMENT

As a visual artist, my roots are in painting, though my interests extend beyond the two-dimensional plane. My history includes bodies of work in sculpture, books, video, and installation in addition to oil and mixed media. The underpinning of this scope is timely social relevance with a progression towards collaboration with the audience. ~ Lee Tracey