ABouT The Artist
GREAT THANKS FOR VISITING MY WEBSITE!
I am very happy that you have chosen to visit my website and my hope is that you will enjoy your visit (or visits!) As in so many of my endeavors, one thing has led to another without a fixed plan at the outset. Other people have asked me in recent years, “Do you have a website?” Throughout my career in Art, photography, print and electronic media have undergone vast changes. Keeping up with those changes has not captured my interest as much as just making art and I find that has been compelling.
The site was established as a way to share with you some of images and the thinking behind my artworks and to preserve several of my printed and photographic materials. The first section on Post Sculpture begins my website because when I installed it in 1976 it was a defining time for me in producing larger-scale sculpture. It also connected me with my first patron who saw it and asked me to create a sculpture for their grounds outdoors.
Post Sculpture came just before I undertook two larger-scale sculptural works: Parameters.Parimeters., that toured and was moved often, and Eighth Continent (see above) that was permanently sited. After touring with Parameters.Parimeters., those two experiences defined my preference for heavier sculpture that “stayed put!”
During the same time that I produced those three works, I helped co-host a University of Iowa Foundation Presidents Club tour to Italy in September 1978. There I had a remarkable “meeting” with Donatello (written about in the section Reliefs) that laid the groundwork for my continued interest in sculptural relief.
It is my hope that you will go at your own pace and enjoy my website. If you are inclined to comment about the website or ask questions about any of the artworks, please respond on the “Contact Us” message slot. Some of my artworks are yet available.
Now that I’ve completed this site after three intensive years, my desire is to keep on creating.
Thank you! Thank you!
Acknowledgments
After having gardening help from Lindsey and Grace Parrott for the entire summer of 2020, and just before they left for their colleges, they asked to see more of my artwork. I invited them and their mother Deb (who had been one of my Physical Therapists) to come over so I could show them some of my brochures.
They were astounded! And the first thing one of them asked was “Do you have a website?” That question launched me on a three year project as I saw my diminishing numbers of print materials with no feasible way to distribute them! To the Parrotts: Thank you so much for planting the idea of having a website.
I started to devote time to building the website in mid-2020 with the help of my daughter Anne Wyrick, a graphic designer and an art teacher in Iowa public schools, and my daughter-in-law Annette Wyrick-Solari, an advertising art director and artist in Los Angeles. I’m deeply appreciative of their assistance and encouragement.
Both Anne and Annette also provided a vast amount of technical advice to me and taught me to scan my slides, photos and articles and they then worked to clean up the scans and to format the website. There were close to a thousand slides and print materials to work with!
One of Anne’s major challenges was converting the Needle Drawings from their live presence (that fluctuates with changes in lighting) to a consistent readable digital format. Their help did not shield me from the work involved in transforming the record of my body of work into this electronic medium nor from facing the task of writing organizing links. It was also necessary to arrange files that I thought were already in order. However, my records stretch over a sixty-year period and proved to be a daunting task to whip into shape.
When Annette first shared with us the website that she had started developing, we were awestruck! It was exciting to see how she was able to link the important information together (with what is called “buttons”) and allow me to proof the copy and its organization on an actual preliminary “WIX” website.
I am also extremely grateful to both of my sons, Craig Wyrick-Solari and Lane Wyrick, for their skills in film and videography, which I encouraged when they were still in high school and at early stages in their careers. They filmed and produced the installation of some of my major artworks and their videos are available on this website.
There is another family member to whom I owe great thanks, also. That is my husband Darrell who encouraged me to do what I wanted to do to build my career, even before and during “Women’s Lib.” He also included me in his own very successful endeavors for the UI Foundation.
We attended many events and aided by a “Gourmet” cookbook, I became a good cook for numerous small parties at our home even though cooking had never been an interest of mine until then!
My greatest accomplishment, though, was to be able to go from grinding metal to getting ready for a “dressy” event in 15 minutes (something I cannot come close to doing now!)