Art professor Marjorie Schick celebrates new book

Ask the average person what they consider body art, and you may get answers ranging from jewelry to tattoos to forms of dance.

But the work of Marjorie Schick takes things into a whole new realm.

Schick, a university professor in the Department of Art at Pittsburg State University, is an artist and teacher whose work redefines the concept of jewelry and art for the body. Pieces from throughout her career as both a student and professor can be seen in her new book, Sculpture to Wear: The Jewelry of Marjorie Schick. The book was published by Arnoldsche Art Publishers of Stuttegart, Germany, with graphic design by Silke Nalbach.

“I’d like to think I’ve made contributions to the field, that I’ve helped open peoples’ eyes to sculpture to wear,” she said. “My work has been very different.”

Her sculptures aren’t your typical neck, ear, and wrist jewelry. The non-precious art materials (no gold, silver, or jewels) are formed into designs that wrap about the body, head, and appendages, and are made of everything from metal to papier-mâché. The pieces are unusual and intriguing, appearing at times complicated to wear but always beautiful to see.

For Schick, hers has been a long and focused career. After graduating with her MFA from Indiana University, she taught one year at the University of Kansas before coming to teach at PSU in 1967 with her husband, Dr. James Schick, a university professor in the Department of History. She continued to work on sculptures that could be worn on the body (or hung on the wall or placed on a pedestal when not in use), eventually creating about 500 pieces of art. Often, she only focused on one piece at a time, putting most of her spare time into its creation.

“Pittsburg has been a good place to live and do our work,” Schick said of herself and her husband. “We teach and then work in the evenings and weekends, and it’s been that way forever. Our lives are very focused on our work, and we find that very rewarding.”

Creating art has been a mainstay all her life. Her mother, who passed away this year, was an art supervisor who encouraged Schick’s creativity. She also acknowledges her college art instructor and mentor at Indiana University, Professor Alma Eikerman, as providing the foundation for her work and credits her husband for his extraordinary support throughout their 44-year marriage.

That focus has resulted in work that is consistently in high demand. For years, Schick, who is one of 200 artists in the country to be named a Fellow of the American Crafts Council, has traveled to cities in Europe, Australia, Japan, and Korea to lecture on her art. This summer, a retrospective of her work was presented in San Francisco through International Arts and Artists of Washington, D.C. It is currently on display at Indiana University and will travel to a handful of other venues including Kansas State University before returning to her in 2009. She was also interviewed in 2004 for the Archives of American Art Oral History Program at the Smithsonian Institution, as part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. For this, the Smithsonian has requested her papers for their archives.

But for those who don’t live in an area with access to view her work, the new 240-page book brings the creations of this artist to a much bigger audience.

“The book has been a nice record of my accomplishments,” she said. “It has been a thrill for me to create this.”

Schick’s book can be purchased locally at the Spiva Art Gallery in Joplin, the PSU Gorilla Bookstore, and at the Pittsburg Art Supply in downtown Pittsburg.

---Pitt State---