Darcy Meeker, Through Endless Blue, hand tooled copper, oil

American, b. 1946, playing from Blacksburg, VA, USA

Darcy Meeker tools copper (from earrings to 38-foot wall work), creates sculpture in stone, clay, silk, aluminum, and, well, pretty much anything she can get her hands on, and paints, collages and prints on a variety of materials with the same wide-ranging enthusiasm. She also works in light, currently developing a walk-through light/sculpture experience.

Her commissions include a large public sculpture for General Electric in Schenectady, NY, one for the Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in Blacksburg, Va., and other sculptures for private homes coast to coast.

Five colleges have given her one-person shows. Galleries in North Carolina, Washington, DC, Virginia, Oregon and Tennessee have included her work in one-, two- and three-person shows. She has been in invitationals and juried shows in Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Florida, South Carolina, Arizona and North Carolina.

It all started when she made her first face in clay at age 44 and discovered sculpting magic in her hands. Some 57 faces later, she carved her first stone at a two-day workshop and traded it with the teacher for a set of tools and a new rock. Soon, she resigned from the agricultural extension communications faculty at the University of Florida and moved to Blacksburg to carve out a new life for herself as an artist.

The Blacksburg art community opened its arms to her, and found her public relations experience invaluable to the New River Arts Council and the Blacksburg Regional Art Association.

She helped coordinate the annual Gallery of Local Artists, a Christmas cooperative, for seven years. She organized and marketed a show of Southwest Virginia Women Sculptors and has helped put on a biennial regional juried show, New River Art.

She has written for Sculpture Magazine’s online edition and Sculptural Pursuits magazine. She writes and gives workshops on the healing power of making art. and teaches stone, copper, clay, gouache, and fabric art to young and old alike in southwest Virginia.

She has taught stone-carving at the Vermont Carving Studio,and founded a stone-carving group in Blacksburg, VA, that has an ever-expanding exhibit schedule, Her own stone-carving teachers include Bob Lockhart of Louisville, KY, Hanneke Zwart of The Netherlands, and the late Bernard Matemera of Zimbabwe.

She has also studied art at the New School in New York City, at the University of Florida in Gainesville, at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, at the Studio School in Roanoke, VA, and at Virginia Tech.

Her husband Jim Pease, a professor of agricultural economics at Virginia Tech, lavishes her with love and support.

www.darcymeeker.com

Thoughts on the Telephone process

I would love to do it again!