Priscilla Steele

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  • Biography
    ​I was raised in New Jersey, just outside of New York City where regular trips into New York and Philadelphia opened to me a large, somewhat daunting, but very exciting, cosmopolitan world.

    With the promise of extensive work abroad, I chose to study at a small liberal arts college in northern New York state: Saint Lawrence University. Four years later, I had spent a productive academic year in Europe, gained an intellectual foothold and appreciation for the major shifts within Western art, and developed a strong interest in drawing and printmaking.

    After graduating in 1973, I moved to the Midwest and balanced printing and drawing with theatrical design and painting, as well as furniture design with my husband, Craig Campbell. It was during this decade that we also had our three children: Maggie, Charlie and Willa.

    As a family, we made the decision in 1986 to move to Iowa so that I might attend graduate school at the University of Iowa for an MFA in printmaking.  For almost twenty years I enjoyed teaching with the excellent faculty at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and for over 40 years have been a working artist, focusing on figurative and botanical subjects. It is with great excitement that I am able to continue this path now in Omaha, Nebraska- a beautiful city where Craig and I began our life as a family.
    Statement
    “The mind… yearns for some hard task, lifelong, longer than life, to concentrate it and make it whole…”
    —Wendell Berry
    ​
    "​Drawing and printmaking are my chosen tools for exploring the most basic aspects of being human. So much has already been drawn, painted, sculpted, by great, historic masters that the “hard task” of the quote above has, indeed, proven to be life-long. And, while it is certainly true that work has given meaning to my life, whether I am achieving the elusive sense of “wholeness” cited by the poet Wendell Berry is up for grabs at the end of each day in my studio. I get close when what is personal in my own work communicates the beauty and complexity I find in life.

    Going through my life-sized (or nearly so) drawings, I recall the process that allowed me to finalize each piece. The only consistency in the creation of any of them has been the sustained effort necessary in pursuing the drawing process itself. Using specifically the female form as a vehicle for personal expression, I have explored an ever-broadening use of tools for making marks. I have salvaged fragments of figures—layering them so that they interact and create a rush of visual ambiguity, and in the best cases, mystery in the finished composition. Finally, every time that I believe I’ve landed on something of a “silver bullet” for making a great drawing, it becomes crystal clear that there is no formula for conjuring the ineffable. The lesson is simply that every drawing has its own life. Discipline and similar drawings can aid and inform a work in progress, but eventually, I’ll just be slugging it out with each drawing’s scale, light, composition, and viewpoint. There’s no dignity, no grace—just a push toward something not yet found. So often I just come up with a day spent in the studio confirming how mediocre I can be. The only thing that makes this drowning phase of drawing absolutely worthwhile is an infrequent resolution in a drawing that transcends me, my effort, my thoughts, my emotions, and just sings on its own with the complexity that makes life as rich and miraculous as it truly is."
    Previously available works
  • Education
    1992 M.F.A. Printmaking, University of Iowa
    1990 M.A. Printmaking, University of Iowa
    1981-86 Creighton University, audited printmaking and life-drawing
    1974-1975 Kansas City Art Institute, evening classes, printmaking and drawing
    1973 Art Students League, New York City, printmaking
    1973 B.A., St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, magna cum laude
    Phi Beta Kappa
    1971-1972 Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Madrid, Spain

    Selected Exhibitions
    2017 Dubuque Museum of Art, Dubuque, Ia., “Dialog Human” with Thomas C. Jackson (Upcoming)
    2016 7th Annual Discourse on Drawing, University of North Carolina
    2016 Coe College, solo show, “A Thousand Calling Voices” (Upcoming)
    2015 Cedar Rapids Museum of Art Summer Exhibit
    2015 Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, Oregon “Living Mark”
    2015 University of Northern Iowa Museum of Art, Cedar Falls, Ia. “Drawn Together: Dialog Human 2015”, with Thomas C. Jackson
    2014 Olson-Larsen Gallery, Des Moines, IA (Solo Exhibition)
    2014 Icon Gallery, Fairfield IA (with Tom Jackson)
    2014 Waterloo Center for the Arts, Waterloo, IA (with Tom Jackson)
    2014 Chait Galleries Downtown, Iowa City, IA (Group Show)
    2014 Gallery ‘C’ Dubuque, IA (Solo Exhibition)
    2013 Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha, NE (Solo Exhibition)
    2012 “Voices from the Warehouse District, V8”, Dubuque, Iowa
    2012 Olson Larsen Galleries, Figurative Show, (group show)
    2011 Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa salon exhibition
    2010 Olson Larsen, December group show
    2010 University of Iowa, “Botanical Drawings”, exhibited with IA Summer Rep
    2009 Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, “Beneath the Surface”, group show
    2009 Olson Larsen Galleries, West Des Moines, Ia., Botanical show
    2008 Priscilla Steele Studio and Gallery, Marion, Ia. Grand Opening, October
    2008 Olson Larsen Galleries, West Des Moines, Ia. “New Work”, group show
    2008 Campbell Steele Gallery, “Spring Gallery Tour”, group show
    2007 Olson Larsen Galleries, West Des Moines, Spring Invitational
    2007 Uptown Art Festival, Minneapolis, ‘05, ’06 (best in drawing)
    2006 Olson Larsen Galleries, West Des Moines, Spring Landscape show
    2006 Chait Galleries Downtown, Iowa City, Iowa (group show)
    2005 Augustana College Art Museum, Best in Show, Rock Island, Illinois
    2004 Quad Cities Arts, Rock Island, Illinois (two person show)
    2003 “Face to Face”, Peoria Art Guild, Peoria, Illinois
    2002 Olson Larsen Gallery, Holiday Invitational, group show
    2002 “New Art”, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, curator, Jane Milosch
    2002 Arts Iowa City, solo show, Iowa City, Iowa
    2002 Kirkwood Community College, Area Faculty Show, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    2001 Cornell College, Area Faculty Show, Mount Vernon, Iowa
    2000 Peoria Art Guild, Peoria Art Festival, (best in 2D) (best in show ’90)
    2000 Mount Mercy College, solo show, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    2000 Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver Colorado
    1999 Henry W. Myrtle Gallery, Cedar Falls, Iowa (solo show)
    1999 Luther College, solo show, Decorah, Iowa
    1999 Milwaukee Art Museum, Lakefront Festival of the Arts (best in graphics 98,97)
    1999 Arts Iowa City, “Corporeal Reality”, (best in show), Iowa City, Iowa
    1998 Madison Art Center, Art Fair on the Square, (best in show) ‘88, (best in graphics) ‘93

    Collections
    Saint Lawrence University, Canton, New York
    Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    Mount Mercy University, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois
    University of Iowa, Iowa City
    University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, Iowa

    Selected Publications
    2014 Cityview, Des Moines, Ia., “Same Subject, Different Points of View”, Oct. 16, 2014
    2014 Waterloo Courier, “Dialog Human” April, 2014
    2014 Telegraph Herald, Dubuque, Ia., Gallery C Exhibit Jan. 2014
    2009 “Beneath the Surface”, Grinnell College, Lesley Wright
    2008 Cedar Rapids Gazette, March 23, “Cooperative Competitors”
    2008 Corridor Business Journal, Iowa City, Iowa “Entrepreneur 101”
    2007 Art Scene (February) Des Moines, Iowa
    2006 Des Moines Register, Iowa, “Landscape paintings reveal views of nature”, June 11
    2005 Augustana College, Rock Island Fine Arts Exhibition, April
    2005 Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa, “Celebrate beauty of land, water”, June 5
    2004 Coe College, Faculty Scholarship and Grants
    2004 Quad Cities Reader, Rock Island, Illinois
    2002 Iowa 2002, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
    1999 Peoria Art Guild, Peoria Art Festival (poster)
    1996 Saint Lawrence University, Canton, New York, Third Biennial Alumni Exhibition
    1992 Cummington Press, Omaha, Nebraska, Dance Music, Barry Goldensohn (frontispiece)
    1991 Cummington Press, Omaha, Nebraska, A Final Antidote, Louise Bogan (frontispiece)
    1986 Cummington Press, Omaha, Nebraska, A Voyage to Cythera, Ralph Bobb (frontispiece)
    1986 Cummington Press, Omaha, Nebraska, Bathsheba on the Third Day, Jane Greer, (frontispiece)

    Related Professional Activity
    2010-present Moderator, “Talk in the MUD”, Campbell Steele Gallery
    2011 Moderator Portraiture panel, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
    2007-present Board of Trustees, Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
    1995-present Instructor, Drawing and Printmaking, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    1994-present Marion Arts Festival Advisory Board
    1991-present Co-owner Campbell Steele Gallery, Marion, Iowa
    1993-1996 President, Marion Arts Council, secured grant (Greater Cedar Rapids Foundation) for installation of public art in Marion Public Library
    1994 Instructor, Art History, Mount Mercy College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    1988-1993 Co-scenic designer Theatre Cedar Rapids, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

    Workshops Conducted
    1993 Open life drawing sessions twice weekly, year round, Coe College (on-going)
    2003 Carlos Ferguson, drawing/ tonality project
    2002 Nancy Erskine, monotype
    2001 Gerald Auten, drawing
    2000 Kathy Caraccio, printmaking
    1999 Stephen Cone Weeks, drawing
    1998 Joe D’Uva, aluminum plate lithography

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