ARTIST STATEMENT
As a feminist social activist multi-media artist, I am called to examine scenes from our cultural archives of mass-produced illustrations, vintage photos, and other ephemera as witnesses to how we have lived. Inspired by the heritage of truth-telling Dada collage, I trust my subconscious to choose images, which I deconstruct and/or elaborate to depose a deeper historical testimony there. Often my works are reports from our past, that chasm where all left wounded and untended later arise to become our stumbling future.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lucy Julia Hale began her life-long commitment to advocacy by leading a protest against racist extracurricular policy in her newly integrated high school. Growing up in Georgia on the cusp of needed social change around the 1964 Civil Rights Act, she saw entrenched injustice brutalizing black and women citizens. She has continued to devote herself to protecting and enriching lives, especially those of vulnerable populations, which unfortunately now include all creatures sharing our earth. She has worked with various activist organizations, including NAACP, SCLC, various environmental, criminal justice reform, and voting rights groups, and serving as president of LWV and AAUW chapters. A new advocacy commitment important to her is defending teachers, students, and librarians from invasive Orwellian censorship.
Her art has been selected for numerous national juried exhibitions and publications.
Recent artistic awards include East Tennessee University’s Reece Museum Award as their staff’s favorite exhibitor of socially and politically engaged art, 2017; Jurors’ Award for the 2018 10x10x10xTieton Exhibition; the 2021 Appalachian Artist from the Reece Museum and the Sammie L. Nicely Center; and a 2022 Collage Artists of America honorable mention exhibitor award. She is a member of Women’s Caucus for the Arts; Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts; Collage Artists of America; ATHICA; and the Woman Made Gallery; is a Signature Member of the National Collage Society and gallerist for Anamchara Gallery. She holds a B. S. in Art Education and an M. S. and Ed. S. in Counseling and Educational Psychology.
© Lucy Julia Hale