Featured Artist for March 1998

Two Featured GiveAway's by Corrinnia Briggs Rosy Toes, Limited Edition Print, 18" x 18" - 1997 Valued at $100 Byrne Baby Byrne, Limited Edition Print, 18" x 18" - 1997 Valued at $100

Lester Crocket Crisfield, Maryland Dr. Jeffrey Brooks St. Louis, Missouri

Both Rosy Toes and Byrne Baby Byrne are simple images but oh how long it took to design that easiness. Byrne Baby Byrne was created because Corrinnia was listening to David Byrne and was influenced by his music (not to mention his total artistic bent). When a friend who works for a PR firm in Dallas heard that David Byrne was going to open his Strange Rituals Exhibit - he promptly called to see if he could present one to Mr. Byrne. He, somehow, finagled his way in to see Mr. Byrne and he accepted the print, and had a good laugh. - Mission Accomplished. Meet the Artist

Corrinnia Briggs was born in North Little Rock, Arkansas in 1951 on Christmas Day. Her parents were very, very young (her mother had just turned 15 when she was born). She grew up in a small town in North Central Arkansas called Flippin. Rick, (her husband of 26 years), also grew up there and she tells everyone that they started dating when they were the same height. He's now 6'2" and she's 5'2". Flippin was - and is - small, rural, religious and infamous, as Whitewater - the so-called development is located there. She had a wonderful childhood with supportive parents and lots of friends and relatives around. Her Grandma Grace was a practicing psychic and painter, so early on she learned to accept things and events that others considered way out there. Her grandmother painted dark scenes out of her dreams. Corrinnia mentioned, "They were pretty scary and so was she sometimes!"

She always drew and painted and messed around with art while growing up. She was the student who was always involved with posters and decorations for the school parade floats. She was obsessed with the fact that faces were not actually lines and remembers trying to draw faces without using lines when she was only 7 or 8 years old. She felt compelled to draw (as most artists do), and because it was just easier for her to create an image than to create words.

An acknowledged reincarnate, Corrinnia lives and works as a graphic artist in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with her poet husband and their daughter Caitlin. She has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Arkansas and has run her own graphic design/advertising studio in Fayetteville for the past 15 years. Her design studio has the reputation in the area of being ARTSY and she works with people who like and expect creative solutions to their problems. Her interest was sparked by observing the world around her and wanting to do design in Fayetteville that you only saw in bigger cities. Her hours upon and hours spent each day at the computer was great training for her as an artist.

Music influences her decisions in art. She said, "Paul Simon sings - She's Got Diamonds On The Souls Of Her Shoes" - the inspiration. She had been reading Art Deco books and felt like incorporating those kinds of design elements and colors into a piece of art. So there you have it, Diamonds on the Soles of her Soul.

Her influences run the gamut of fine arts; ranging from painting, poetry and printmaking to music, film and photography. Corrinnia often draws inspiration from literature, particularly from contemporary Southern works.

Lately, Corrinnia's fascination with period and contemporary graphic design images, coupled with the immediacy of computerized color manipulation, has lured her down an exploratory path through electronic freehand expression.

The featured giveaways, "Rosy Toes" and "Byrne Baby Byrne" can be seen at Zarks Contemporary Art Gallery in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. She has only jumpstarted the art part of her career last year and has shown her work in a couple other galleries. She says, "It seems that Fayetteville has a hard time supporting contemporary art and many contemporary galleries come and go."

Remember Swisher Sweets - the cigars? She was reading a book on fifties collectibles and started thinking about those really great linoleum patterns. She wanted to explore those images of the past and thought about how much they influenced design and art even now. Her kitty cats tail goes back and forth - hence Swisher Sweet.

About The Artist

When Corrinnia was in school, she was entranced with hard-edge lines and color against color. She loved the way color sang to her and tried to paint that way but could never control the lines and areas as perfectly as she wanted. After receiving her art degree, she was broke (aren't we all at this stage!) and decided that she wanted to design album covers for rock and roll artists. So, she found her way into the field of graphic arts. She has worked in design studios and agencies for over 20 years. She and her husband run her design studio and concentrate on providing creative answers to advertising problems. When she switched her work to computers, she finally found the avenue for creating her art that let her explore color and line to her very hearts content. She just drew and drew and drew... then she would edit, edit, and edit. She feels the work looks deceptively simple and she makes it appear so very simple but what goes on in the background is a whole different story. She is influenced by Japanese prints, the work of artist Will Barnet and photographers, Sally Mann and Diane Arbus. She is surprised at the intensity of images in daily life and music.

She's been interested in Feng Shui and has tried to use some of those ideas in her own habitat. The most respected practitioners of Feng Shui are called Black Hats, thus Black Hat Feng Shui was created. So, this was her own kind of visual pun. Besides, she loved using the red and following the principles of (uhhhem..) the art of placement.

Corrinnia tends to get her art done in bits and pieces. She's known to burn dinner and create a piece of art in the same time span. Rick and Caitlin always say... "Don't eat at a restaurant called MOMS... cause mom can't cook." She spends 6 to 8 hours each day at her computer at work and she still can't resist working on her own art after she arrives home. She gets inspired and usually draws for 6 or 7 days in a row then lets it sit for a week or two while she tries to figure out where it all came from. She also keeps a notebook of ideas, visual puns, word phrases and sketches of things she wants to explore in her art series.

Her experience in the field of print management lets her use the tools of the traditional printer and create images that look exactly like the ones she has drawn. She absolutely loves it. She also knows it's hard for some artists to accept computer drawing as authentic but, in her eyes, the mouse is just like a pen or pencil and the color palette comes directly from her imagination. Straight from the brain to the board. Corrinnia's work definitely deserves recognition since creating art from a computer has generated a whole new body of work known as, yes, Art.

She went to an "AllDayAllNight" party out in the countryside in her younger, wilder days. A girl in a flowing dress got wasted and crawled out on the roof of a barn and did an exotic dance with the wind. The image was burned into her thoughts ever since and Barn Dance was born. She responds to people who ask if she is falling with "What if she isn't ?"

Corrinnia feels the need to be artistic has always been there for her. She likens it to a good relationship where it has to be nurtured and worked on all the time. She's always admired artistic people who rise above and expect the best in life and art. She continually works to develop her art by looking, reading, researching and just wanting to create images that work on several levels. The levels being; visual, color, and humor while being dead serious. She wants to know what makes people respond and vibrate on that higher level where good art seems to take you.

She hopes to spread humor and humanity in her work. It's serious but playful and portrays a whimsical way to look at life. She also believes that smiling opens the avenues to the "ah-ha Eureka I've Found it" part of the brain. At least it seems to be like this for Corrinnia. She wishes there were more hours in the day; wishes that chocolate wasn't fattening and also wishes that Coca-Cola WAS the real thing.

Corrinnia lives with an antique, overweight, diabetic, grey cat named Gracie. The kitty seems to sink so deeply into the comforter that she becomes "one" with the bed on which she sleeps in Gracie Becomes Comforted.

Corrinnia loves to collect antiques and antique jewelry, old Valentines and Halloween postcards, as well as shade flowers for her gardens. (Did you know there are hundreds of different varieties of hostas?) She also has an enviable collection of plastic, Christmas reindeer and her herd of reindeer is 100 strong. Quite odd in the warm climate of Arkansas ! She also loves receiving email jokes - hint hint! Reading is a fun past time for her and includes contemporary Southern writers, Lewis Nordan, Reynolds Price, Ellen Gilchrist, Fred Chappel and Donald Harrington and music is a way of life for her. Sting, James Taylor, The Corrs, Donald Fagen, Paul Simon, K.D. Lang, Annie Lennox, Joni Mitchell and the list goes on !

She doesn't take kindly to hypocrisy, Kenneth Starr, Muzak trying to play rock and roll or fights over whether Mac or IBM is better ! Just make them work she says !

Corrinnia says of this work, "In the 70's, Peter, Paul and Mary recorded a song that went... If I had Wings No One would ask me - Could I fly." With all the angel imagery around today, she has turned this into her own inner vision of these sometimes fallen fliers.

Again her kitty cats inspire her in Airing Out Our Auras. They retire to the screen porch to lounge and air their sweet auras of energy. She thinks we should all "air our auras" on a regular basis. She says, "just think about how fresh air on a screen porch can clear up a skewed perspective". She also believes that iced tea, (unsweetened, of course) helps, too.