We're All Mad Here: Paintings and Doll Sculpture by Margaret Meyer Schultz
Exhibition: July 21 through August 27
Reception: July 23, 7 – 9p.m.
Margaret Meyer, now Margaret Meyer Schultz, lived in Lawrence a decade ago and remembers it with affection. Over a year ago she sent a letter to the Lawrence Arts Center asking about the possibility of showing some of her new work in the gallery. She wrote: "Lawrence used to be my home. In 1995, I graduated from the University of Kansas with a BFA in painting and moved to Kansas City. Though I currently live and work in Chicago, part of me has never left Lawrence. The patina of time has only added to its mythological status in my mind, yet every time I visit, it stands the test. I am never disappointed. Its citizens seem to live one step outside of the ordinary and perhaps that is why Lawrence is where I learned how to make manifest a separate world of creatures and characters in paintings."
Her wish to have an exhibition is now a reality. Recently she wrote to answer LAC gallery director Rick Mitchell’s inquiry as to what the exact content of the exhibition would be. She said…"paintings of imagined characters and locations, rich in texture. In fact that's how all the paintings begin, as fields of texture that I gaze at and see things and try to make them solid. Some whimsy with some dark. Some of the characters in the paintings inspire dolls. Some of those, in turn, evolve into shadow boxes. In some instances, the three dimensional figure evolves from an interesting bit of wood or metal. I never plan these things; they are discovered. I'm not going through some deep psychological exploration (at least, not consciously!). I just create things that make me happy because they aren't anything you'd see in real life."
Recently, Margaret Meyer Schultz has been Head of Fabrication for Permavision of Los Osos, California, where she designed, built and maintained puppets for stop-motion animated film. She has also worked in costume and wardrobe design for Northwestern University’s theatre program and for Brush Creek productions in Kansas City which created clothing for actors in Robert Altman’s film "Kansas City." Additionally, she has worked in Prague painting marionettes and was recently accepted into the Masters Program in Experimental Animation at California Institute of the Arts.