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Press • Gapers Block, "Domestic Sunshine at Northwestern," A/C Arts + Culture=Cool, April 21, 2008 • Rogerspark.com, featured artist, July 2007 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- From Daytona Beach News-Journal (April 15, 2007) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From the Durango Telegraph, 11/23/06 on the “Forms, Figures, Symbols” exhibition at Shy Rabbit Contemporary Arts, Pagosa Springs, CO - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Exhibition focuses on body-image issues
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Life in fast line inspires artist: Her drawings now on display with five other artists at Cultural Center Cars speed along Interstate 64 between Huntington and Charleston, their drivers encapsulated in climate-controlled metal and glass boxes of boredom, relieved only by piped-in talk radio or 70s album rock. There's little in the way of scenery or excitement, mostly road signs, houses, billboards, malls, danger from the merging lane. One of those cars, a blue Dodge, contains 25-year-old Marcy Baker, a Scott Depot woman who's found inspiration in the icons of the highway. The black and yellow stripes of a hazard sign, the cross-like Chevy emblem and the naked lady on truckers' mud flaps have found their way into Baker's artwork, which went on display last week as part of the Contemporary Drawings exhibit at the Cultural Center. Baker has found herself commuting more than usual this summer. She aims her car west in the morning and heads to Marshall University, where she takes classes in ceramics, printing and art history. By late afternoon, she points the car east and heads to the University of Charleston to take an evening class in British literature. At Marshall, students are allowed to take only two classes during a summer term, but Baker talked them into letting her take three. They absolutely drew the line at four, so the got around the rules by taking the other class at UC. She plans to transfer her MU credits to UC, where she's just a semester away from graduation. The 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. class schedule on Tuesday and Thursday doesn't allow much leeway for anything else, but she manages to work in a newspaper interview by skipping her Brit lit class. She arrives at the Cultural Center late because of a wreck near Huntington that backed up interstate traffic. She didn't bother to eat. She's running on two hours of sleep. At Marshall, it's finals week. And she's fuming, because an art professor told her she was working too slow. "What's one more thing?" seems to be her attitude about the interview. This Marcy Baker, the one driven and driving to graduate by December and go on for a master's degree and eventually become a professional artist, is not the Marcy from high school. That girl lacked direction. "I was aimless, depressed, a terrible student," says Baker, a pained expression on her face. She's tall and thin in a long-sleeved white shirt and black pants, dark brown hair hanging past her shoulders. She wears big silver hoop earrings, chews gum and uses the word "cheesy" to brand all that is trite and corny. She dropped out of Winfield High School at the beginning of the 11th grade, which turned out to be a liberating experience, she said. "When I dropped out, I finally got out of that tunnel vision. That high school was just so cheesy," she insists. She had been in artist Caryl Toth's gifted art classes since the age of 9 and had decided to become a graphic artist, the safe practical alternative to earning a living as a painter. She worked, though not too hard, as a graphic designer. "I was lazy," she says. All the while, she worked on the drawings and paintings which would earn her a scholarship to Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. She was 21, away from home and having a good time. I was a serious student with an active social life, and I got on well with my teachers," said Baker. "I got my first studio, and I got to be with other people with the same ambitions, but I found out how spiteful artists can be, which hasn't changed and I don't think will ever change." After two years of art school, Baker returned home. The things she tells people about why she left aren't the truth, she admits. She spent the next year "nearly comatose," a "wooden Indian," and then she began to paint again. That summer her work began to look more mature and less like that of a student. She enrolled in UC, where she began to make excellent grades. "No more B's," she says. The art was going well, too. She was one of the artists invited to participate in the Arts & Letters series, which featured an exhibit called "Black and White: Drawing in West Virginia." In 1995, her acrylic painting "The Human Factor" won a $500 merit award at the West Virginia Juried Exhibition. The traveling version of that show was the first exhibit at the Tamarack arts center. She even sold some pieces that year. Now her drawings are on display with those of five other artist, most with advanced careers. "When you consider that most are in their late 30s or 40s and have their degrees and are teaching, she's a natural," said Mark Tobin Moore, director of exhibits for the West Virginia State Museum. "She's just loaded with talent." Moore praises Baker's awareness of contemporary art history, and says her more experimental drawings add a nice touch to the show. "They're sort of the accent on all the other pieces -- the salt," he says. Despite the fact that things are going well, Baker feels like she's stalled out, because she lives at home, has yet to graduate, and has a couple of years on some of here college classmates. When a 21-year old guy asked how old she was, she lied, subtracting two years. "Everyone else is on the train to adulthood, while I'm still stuck in college," she laments. "You probably can't print this, but she's hot shit," says Moore, with a laugh. "But she doesn't even know it." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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