Artist's Statement

My work is conceptual. I began each piece with a question, usually related to human roles or relationships. I examine myths, symbols, and the origins of how we define ourselves. Sometimes, my work takes me deep into personal experience as I try to understand events in my life. Other times, my work requires me to be more academic. I study history, philosophy, religion and the origin of words to understand the things that have shaped me. I do not believe that art is merely a reflection of what we see in the world. Instead, for me, art is a process of discovery where the work teaches me as much as I shape it. If a topic is worthy as a subject, I know little about it, even as it creates a deep emotional response in me. I try to explore what I do not know, seeking to give form and voice to the thing in each of us that is silent and tantric. The language I use is the language of shape. I have discovered, through years of teaching and application, that sculptural expression takes its root in the symbolism of geometric form. Each of us responds to shapes based on our personal experience of them. For example, a triangle will remind us of a pyramid or mountain and our emotional response to that symbol is predictable. Triangles inspire us with the desire to climb. They are hopeful, transcendent, highly energized and exhilarating. When I use a triangle shape in my sculpture to accentuate an expression, I am describing and qualifying the form of my sculpture like an adjective describes and qualifies a word. The shapes I emphasize reflect a personal philosophy about my journey in life. The subjects I choose to sculpt are the landmarks that illuminate my path. Steel is exciting to me as a medium because it can have an exceptional softness in the final finish. I achieve a combination of organic forms and geometric shapes through the use of my MIG welder and my oxygen/acetylene torch. I create my colors by applying acid patina and heat to the raw metal, after the form has been completed. The combination of techniques allows me the freedom to explore relationships between emotional and intellectual responses to experience. I often refer to my studio as my dungeon. I feel like the Greek god, Hephaestus, who was relegated to the bottom of a volcano after he was horribly deformed. From his smoking, dirty pit he was able to create the most beautiful, metal art. Many believed his deformity enabled him to see beauty more fully. I take his deformity as a metaphor for the human condition, which is mine, and his stature as a god as a metaphor for divine intervention, for which I hope.

Biography

“Allison is as fluent and eloquent a communicator as you will ever meet.” says Mickey Rogers for the Santa Fe New Mexican. “Sculpture has no boundaries. It is not contained within the covers of a book or the borders of a frame. It interacts perpetually with the space around it. Sculpture is infinite and the process of its creation is perpetual. One can watch a sculpture change and shift according to the dictates of its environment like we change and shift according to the dictates of ours. And, like us, the form and soul of each work is individual and eternal, regardless of the effects of external occurrences. Sculpture casts a shadow. It will not break if I bump into it. It does not get put on a shelf, its title obscured by other volumes when I am done reading it. It remains constant, a moment in time, a living thing,” says Allison about the medium she loves. While Allison’s relationship with art dates back to her childhood when art was constantly discussed and debated by her father, a writer, and her mother, a painter, she is predominately a self-taught artist. Born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Allison moved to Boston, Massachusetts after college where she worked as a free-lance journalist and raised her three children. It was there that she discovered sculpting. Allison fell in love with the art of sculpture while playing with her son’s modeling clay during a moment of writer’s block and domestic frustration. Since then, Allison has focused solely on the art of sculpture. Dedication, tenacity, and what she calls “down right stubbornness” have yielded her current success. Over the last thirteen years, Allison has worked in bronze, stone and steel. She has won several awards and has been represented by galleries from coast to coast. Commissioned works can be seen in schools, churches, museums and government buildings across the country. Allison is currently represented by renowned galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Ojai, California and Middleburg, Virginia. In addition, she exhibits widely in nationally acclaimed, juried art exhibitions. In the past year, she installed a major public work for the town of Clinton, Oklahoma, was nominated as president of the board of the New Mexico Sculptors Guild and received two awards of excellence for her innovative work in steel. Most recently, Allison was awarded first place in sculpture at the Riverwalk Fine Art Festival.

Resumé

EDUCATION: American University, Washington D.C. Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA The Art Institute of Boston, Boston, Mass AWARDS/COMMISSIONS: 1st place, Artfest 2006, Addison, TX 1st Place, Riverwalk Fine Art Fair Honorable Mention, Peoria Art Guild Commission, Frisco Civic Center, Clinton,OK Commission, Santa Fe Preparatory School, Santa Fe, NM Commission, Holy Family Episcopal Church, Santa Fe, NM Commission, Candlelight Construction, Santa Fe, NM Commission, UNM Department of Psychology, Albuquerque, NM Commission, Los Alamos Historic Trails, Los Alamos, NM Commission for the City of Attleboro, Attleboro, MA Commission for Mr. and Mrs. Keith Hayes, Mansfield, MA Commission for Mr. Kenneth Brown, Norton, MA Honorable Mention, “Faces of Women” art exhibit, Las Vegas, NM Visiting Artist, Massachusetts College of Art Juror, National Congressional Art competition Subject and Demonstrator in national traveling photography exhibit, “Women at Work" Grant Recipient, Massachusetts Cultural Council Awarded Apprenticeship, New England Sculpture Service, Everett, MA SELECTED JURIED EXHIBITIONS Port Clinton Fine Art Fair, Higland Park, IL 2005 La Quinta Festival of the Arts, La Quinta, CA 2005 Oklahoma City Arts Council Festival of the Arts, Oklahoma City, OK 2005 Carefree Fine Art and Chocolate Festival, Carefree, AZ 2005 Carefree Fine Art and Wine Festival, Carefree, AZ 2005 Riverwalk Fine Art Festival, Naperville, 2005 Uptown Art Festival, Minneapolis, MN 2004 SELECTED GALLERY AND MUSEUM EXHIBITION HISTORY: Santa Fe Sculptors, Crossroads Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM 2005 Showcase on sculpture, Trowbridge-Lewis Galleries,Middleburg, VA 2005 "The Softness of Steel" Solo show, Shidoni Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2004 Paxton and McCall Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2003 “Inside, Out,” Shidoni Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2003 Solo show, Paxton & McCall Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM 2002 “Round the Roundhouse” Governor’s Gallery, State of New Mexico Capitol Building 2002 Solo show, LewAllen Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, NM 2001 9th annual “Faces of Women,” Las Vegas, NM 2000 Waxlander Khadure Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1999 Art in Public Places Invitational, Los Alamos, NM 1999 Santa Fe Clay Invitational, Santa Fe, NM 1998 8th annual “Faces of Women” exhibition, Las Vegas NM 1998 "New England Sculpture Association" Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, MA 1998 Waxlander Khadouri Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1998 REPRESENTATION: Crossroads Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM Trowbridge-Lewis Galleries,Middleburg, VA Thornwood Gallery, Houston, TX PUBLIC WORK: "Engage," Edmond, OK "Clinton Crossroads,: Clinton, OK “Musical Landscape,” City of Attleboro, MA Los Alamos Historic Trail, Los Alamos, NM SELECTED TEACHING/ART RELATED EMPLOYMENT AND VOLUNTEER WORK: President, Board of Directors, New Mexico Sculptors Guild Project Facilitator, Localmotion Design Team National Y Arts Leader for National YMCA Arts and Humanities Program Director, Santa Fe Family YMCA Arts and Humanities Program Instructor--Adult Sculpture, Santa Fe Clay, Santa Fe, NM Private Instructor for renowned artists including Carole LaRoche, Janet O’Neal and Harry Fonseca Visiting Artist, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA Instructor--Adult sculpture, Attleboro Museum of Art, Attleboro, MA Instructor--Adult Sculpture, Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA Interim Director of Art Education, Attleboro Museum, Attleboro, MA Board of Directors, Easton Cultural Council for the State of Massachusetts Journalist--Tab Newspapers, Boston, Ma BIBLIOGRAPHY: The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, OK The Daily Camera, Boulder, CO The Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN Channel 13, CBS Good Morning, Minneapolis, MN THE Magazine, Santa Fe, NM The Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, NM The Providence Journal, Providence, RI The Attleboro Sun Chronicle, Attleboro, MA The Brockton Enterprise, Brockton, MA The Easton Journal, Easton, MA Inland Cable News, Attleboro, MA "The birth of a Sculpture" film documentary