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| Ellen Peckham | ||
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If Ellen Peckham, who till 2000 signed her prints as E. Stoepel Peckham, were asked to specify the one
aspect of being an artist which she has found most objectionable she would choose the narrowness of
vision so often encountered. As a child of the 1940’s and 50’s she was told that her answer to “...when you grow up?” was impossible: only men ever had been or ever could be, artists. Stubborn, she said she would be the first. She persisted, finding role models for women artists only to be told one should work in but one medium: oil or watercolor, pastel or clay. It was presumptuous to attempt more and downright hubris to write as well. But inspiration, which strikes as it will, prevailed and for many years she painted, drew and wrote poetry which, nevertheless, she did not attempt to publish. A scholarship to Cooper Union justified her escape to New York where, as uncomfortable with the abstract expressionist aesthetic being taught there as her teachers were with her rendering of faces and limbs, she stayed one year. She then enrolled in Edwin Dickinson’s class at The Art Students’ League and, shortly after, became class monitor, a position held at various times between periods of travel/study in Europe. Drawing became an obsession. Done on scraperboard, which allows reworking, some took as many as four years to complete. A framer to whom she took a piece selected for exhibition remarked “this is really the work of an etcher” and that passing remark was, in itself, an education. She enrolled with Roberto De Lamonica and, after his death, continued to study with Mohammad Omer Khalil. But not to “specialize.” As a release from the often frustrating technical difficulties of printmaking and for the lushly tactile and immediate satisfactions it provides, collage and construction have a place in her work. Lately etching plates are being used with collaged surfaces to push the image and the emotion. And finally, encouraged by her husband (who could read her writing and made typescripts) she began to publish the poems, reading in the US and Europe. They are also frequently integrated with the visual works. Her art and poetry drafts and edits are now part of the Doubly Gifted Collection of the Harry Ransom Center For The Humanities. |
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Quotes from the artist: |
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“Though I was often told that I should be satisfied to pursue one aspect of the arts, I
was never convinced. Frequently I wanted to write out of a feeling or experience, rather
than draw it. Or to create a bit of jewelry (as Dali did, and better that, to my mind, than
Leonardo’s designs for war) or sew a costume. As I moved into a world wider than that of my childhood I found more and more examples of women who were artists, and of artists who wrote, composed, costumed and designed. And slowly I became more comfortable experimenting with and combining forms. I have done ballet costumes and am making silver jewelry and small silver sculptures. I wrote poetry privately and held it in secret until the early 90’s, when I began to publish and to give readings. To me, the readings approximate (by speaking words into space) hanging pictures on a wall. I frequently use both art forms in a single work, the text decorating and explicating, the image illuminating. I work from emotion and from memory. I try to transpose pain and other unruly passions into very specific representations, to create technically acute images which analyze or memorialize. The subject can be as simple as a certain moment or as complex as a relationship which changes with time and all life’s unforeseen mischief. I believe that the more artistic ‘languages’ I can speak the stronger and more communicative the work will be.” |
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