Margaret Jamison
Biography
Margaret Jamison was born and raised in Walla Walla and graduated from Whitman College in 1974 with a degree in Art/Art History. She earned an M.A. in Art Education from Seattle University in 2000. After living in New York and Seattle she returned to Walla Walla after 30 years, in 2003, as Executive Director of Carnegie Art Center. She retired after three years in order to paint full time.
Margaret has occupied a wide variety of creative and art-related jobs in the fields of advertising, book and magazine production, illustration, graphic design, writing, editing, and desktop publishing. She has had several sets of fine art silkscreen prints produced and marketed nationally. As a practicing artist, she has developed technical dexterity and familiarity with a wide range of materials and art-making processes, including cut paper, painting with acrylics, tempera and watercolor, drawing with pencil, ink, Prismacolor and scratchboard, and handbuilt ceramics with majolica glazes. She has also experimented with block printing, collagraph and monotype.
In addition, she has dedicated much of her professional life to sharing her profound delight in creative exploration with students of all ages. As a certified art teacher, Margaret taught in private schools in Seattle for 10 years and has worked with adults through specialized retreats and workshops.
Statement
Being a designer and “serial thinker” I enjoy the challenge of using a single form in as many ways as I can imagine until I exhaust either myself or the idea. My recent series have become like word games or anagrams – how many ways can I use this shape to say something about my experience? How many visual “words” can I find?
2007 provided opportunities to showcase a new series “Heartwork”, at Walla Walla Community College and Northstar Winery. This work explored the inner landscapes of love and relationships. A few of these acrylic and mixed media paintings on canvas are still available.
In 2008 “Inner Circle: The Archetype as Tribal Elder” was shown at Pendleton Center for the Arts, another series of large acrylic and mixed media works on paper. These are 4’x5’ robe shapes that give form to psychological drives and motivations. The series remains available for exhibition.
Previous series have included scratchboard goddess figures, small acrylic paintings of archaic female forms, geometric tile designs, pen-and-ink black dogs, watercolor variations on the shape of the cross, and many hands in various media from clay to Prismacolor and beaded and embroidered paper.
I continue to explore the forms of garments and of the body’s underlying structures, both physical and psychic, and in the psychological implications of changes to those structures.
Events
"Bio-Graphics: The Stories I Tell"
Paintings, assemblages, scratchboard, monotypes
May 22 - August 7, 2009
Memorial Building, Whitman College, Walla Walla
"Slings & Eros"
February 1 - 27, 2009
Willow Loft Gallery
“Paper Works: Mare Blocker, Margaret Jamison, Frank Janzen, Roberta Lavadour, Melissa Webster””
Carnegie Art Center, 109 S. Palouse, Walla Walla
September 2-26, 2008
Artist opening reception Friday, Sept. 5, 5-7pm
The works in this exhibit continue the theme of the robe explored in “Inner Circle: The Archetype as Tribal Elder”, Margaret’s previous exhibit this year at the Pendleton Center for the Arts. The new pieces are greatly reduced in scale and began as monotype prints. Most of them have been embellished with beads and/or embroidery to emphasize the underlying garment structure while exploring surface enhancement. The artist’s interest is in the complex social responses people have to simple shapes; in this case the extremely simplified robe shape telegraphs cues about culture, history, gender, concealment, class and status, eliciting a variety of reactions from the viewers depending upon their own experiences. The color scheme is emblematic of power, struggle, and the dynamics of human interaction.
Links
Margaret’s greeting cards may be purchased from her online store Transformations at www.greetingcarduniverse.com
Contact
mgjamison@msn.com