Profile 1: Anne Huskey-Lockard

Favorites: Colors: Black and Red

Artist: Freda Kahlo

Movie: "Too Wong Foo"

Bands: The Ramones and The Mis Fits

Song: "Blitzkrieg Bop" by The Ramones

My first profile is of 49 year old Anne Huskey-Lockard, born in Italy while her father was serving in the military; many moves; many schools, mostly parochial. She attended Brooks College in Long Beach, California.

She is primarily a mixed media and fiber artist; which includes many liturgical pieces; fabric accoutrement for her church-The Main Street United Methodist Church here in Peru. These works include altar cloths,banner sets, stoles, matching bible markers and pulpit hangings.

One of her wall hangings; done in memorium to a physician, is displayed in the chapel at Dukes Memorial Hospital, also here in Peru.

In the fine arts field, she has a great deal of talent for oils as well; 2 lovely small paintings of pears hang in Cafe Du Cirque.

She and her husband, Gary(military man); 24 years married, have lived in the Peru area for the past 16 years. The home of her soul; the place she feels most connected to is New Orleans even though she has never lived there. She and her husband would travel there each year at Halloween; her favorite holiday.

It has influenced her art work tremendously with it's architecture which is covered with layers and layers of paint peeling away, often revealing the vibrant colors of previous lives.

With the grime of black silt getting all over everything, imbedding in crevices, juxtaposing the contrast of colors and textures, she transforms the look and feel to her pieces.

She is now working on a series of box canvases 1 and 1/2 inches thick, creating little worlds in the recesses on the reverse sides as well as working on the faces of the canvases.

She roughly layers up to 5 coats of gesso until a pleasing, uneven texture developes. Then she layers paint using a paint and wipe method, usually starting with an intense, bright pink or green as a base coat. She uses Golden Fluid Acrylic paints and Golden Mediums for her work and highly recommends them.

Anne uses cut outs, tissue paper prints, twigs, stones, bleached bones, transparencies,beads, rocks, shells, feathers, leaves; you name it, she uses it. She also utilizes rubber stamps, embossing, and pieces made by stamping black ink into paper clay, letting them dry and then painting them.

Her goal is to create an old weathered look to her works that belies them having a previous life of their own; sometimes joining disparate elements to tell another, perhaps hidden story.

Her works are usually built around a single major theme or idea incorporating religious iconography that includes the sacred heart or cross. Other themes she also draws from are fortune telling and Buddha; elements of belief systems that often relate to her love of New Orleans. She has also done works based on artist Freda Kahlo and the band:The Ramones.

She gathers ephemera she plans to use in the piece at hand, starting with a general idea. But often the works turn out differently than her perceived concept because she lets the elements guide her process, letting them tell her where to place them or whether to use them at all.

She finishes the box canvases by varnishing with up to 3 coats, depending on how absorbent the substraight is.

When complete they have an aura all their own, kind of old looking, many colored, many textured, funky, but with deeper feeling, deeper meaning.... beautiful in an unconventional sense. Very luckily I own one.

Anne has had her works in Artifacts(in Indianapolis) and the Idianapolis Art Center. She has also shown in the Honeywell Center in Wabash; was part of a 3 woman fiber art show there last year and had a piece there in the latest 9 County Art Show. Most recently she had one of her box canvas works exhibited in the Ft. Wayne Museum of Art as part of their Members Show.

Her next venture is to be teaching a fiber art class in the fall in Valparaiso.

Anne is a very talented woman who has dedicated MUCH time and EFFORT into promoting the Community Artists Co-Op, to gain information for shows and opportunities for us. She has taught me much and we thank her, I thank her.

Her desire was to enrich the greater Peru area with the talent and art of it's local residents; to spur them into creativity, to beautify our community and to develop a group of creative people to interact with each other; inspiring, teaching.... To enrich our lives.

She, as well as the other founding members, has given us a path....

In honor of you, Anne....