A small WASPish town surrounded by the Ozarks raised me, along with a big, happy family anchored in the local Methodist church.  That and those soft hills bordering Springdale, Arkansas instilled a yearning and a sense of wonder that has continuously fed my art and poetry.  The lure of "real art" took me from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to Dallas and SMU.  There I finished my B.F.A. in painting and art history, followed in by a M.F.A. in museum education in 1978.  I lucked into an internship in the Kimbell Art Museum's conservation lab, then a Rockefeller fellowship at the Dallas Museum of Art.  That evolved into a 13 year career in many aspects of museum work, especially collection management, museum ed, and architectural programming.  I wrote grants, and received one to attend the Getty Institute for Museum Management.  My final assignment was Deputy Director for Planning at the DMA.

Rick Geyer and I married in 1977.  We sought a simpler lifestyle for our two children and moved to Austin in 1988. Rick produces videos and is Chief of Development at People's Community Clinic.  At last, in Austin I was able to return to art making.  In a small home studio, I create trompe l'oeil glazed porcelain objects that draw from my present world as a wife and mom, from my former world of museums, and from my perpetual world as a probing Christian.  There is an essential playfulness in my work that I hope prevents it from being obnoxiously earnest.  I comb my middle-class American world for sacramental objects --- such as fire hydrants, toys, make-up mirrors and sleeping bags --- and invest them with scripture and art history.  This rooting around in tradition fires my passion.  If the work succeeds in defamiliarizing the familiar, the incongruities in it may collide and expose divine mystery.

Porcelain, more than other clays, is persnickety and prone to technical flaws.  Sometimes the flaws enter into the theological meaning of the work, sometimes they ruin my lofty intentions. Accidents and viewer's insights often find their way into the stories and poems I write; some are integral to the sculpture.  The combination of image and text helps me probe how our "graven images" can become agents of grace.  Transformation is thus a keen interest, and I have a hunch is it proportionately related to the inclusiveness of our love.  In these times, I am alert to art's prophetic role and its capacity to energize hope.  I'm particularly interested in how art can prompt spiritual development and transcendence for those whose religious convictions are too rigid. Art embodies the human ache for new life as it embraces the wild ambiguities of our mundane, tragic and delightful world.  I enjoy tweaking the ambiguities.

My creative/spiritual process involves a lot of research and image collecting... the tidbits not readily apparent in the sculptures overflow into a poem or story that becomes integral to the piece.  My art and stories are well used in small group settings --- I often do presentations with porcelain in hand at retreats and classes.  The sculptures are frequently exhibited in such places as the Center for Arts & Religion in Washington, D.C., and regularly at Cidnee Patrick Gallery in Dallas (formerly Edith Baker Gallery).  I recently wrote an article on my work for IMAGE: A Journal of the Arts & Religion, and will appear on their website soon as "artist-of-the-month".   The work has just appeared in The Christian Century and on www.thehighcalling.org. I consult on art for Laity Lodge, an ecumenical retreat center in the Texas Hill Country, where we've opened new studios, a gallery, think tanks on the arts, and retreats for artists and writers.  I formerly taught art at Concordia University and am an adjunct professor at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, co-teaching their first course on studio art & spirituality.  At the same time, I'm furnishing my mind by slowing working through a master's degree in pastoral ministry at the seminary.  University Methodist Church is my spiritual home and anchor for outreach ministries.  An especially significant ministry there was working on art with homeless people. All that said, my yearning seems to focus on a less busy time of life, time when I can fully concentrate on my calling as an artist, hopefully in a small cabin in the Ozarks... or maybe in Italy!

Ginger Henry Geyer