Today we’d like to introduce you to Karin Broker.
Karin, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Art as an Oddity I was born in Penn, Pennsylvania which is approximately thirty miles east of Pittsburgh. Your family pretty much worked in the steel mills, made windshields or worked at the rubber works. These jobs were all hard work and they were all low-paying jobs. Our community was church-based – Lutherans, Catholics, Protestants.
For me to want to be an artist was an oddity. There were no artists in that small town. I played the organ in our Catholic church and drew a lot as a kid so when it came time to graduate from high school, I’d been offered a scholarship for piano as well as for art. I chose the art route. Typically, if you were an 18 years old female in my hometown, your career path was pretty much limited to getting married, becoming a nun, working at a specialized plant or going into the military. Yet I never considered not making art. I knew from the age of 6 that I wasn’t going to make 5,000 tennis balls a day or work at Bel-View making jelly. I was going to make art.
When I decided to head to graduate school my dad truly thought that I would be in school and a student forever. When I left a small college in my junior year to go to the University of Iowa my dad truly believed that I had to start over again as a freshman. My dad was a smart man, but he didn’t have the educational foundation to understand transfer credits.
In graduate school in the 1970’s you were struggling to produce art like the guys, but you had this extra baggage of “female” stuck to you. “While being female” was a nagging, unwanted part of my graduate education. But it’s that moniker that eventually worked its way into informing my work.
My most recent art is heavily informed by that earlier “gender stuff”. And where my work first focused on gender negativity I have become empowered by the thousands and thousands of incredibly talented and brave women who have been forgotten, purposely overlooked and dismissed for their many achievements throughout history.
2014 solo exhibition titled damn girls at McClain Gallery in Houston was my first show that dealt with abused and murdered women. My most recent exhibition at McClain Gallery was titled “love me love me not”. In short, my own artistic inspiration comes from how people treat one another. I am endlessly fascinated and deeply saddened how a person who was once in love with his wife, girlfriend or ex-girlfriend can feel so enraged and then entitled to abuse or murder that same person.
That is a conundrum. My art, my research, is my small but nagging attempt at visualizing that conundrum. Karin Broker, M.F. A Professor of Printmaking and Drawing, Visual and Dramatic Arts at Rice University since 1980. Karin Broker is Professor of Printmaking and Drawing at Rice University and 1994 Texas Artist of the Year recipient. Her research interests include printmaking, large-scale drawings, and steel sculptural drawings. Broker received her B.F.A from University of Iowa in 1972, studied printmaking at the Atelier 17 with Stanley Hayter in Paris and received her M.F.A from university of Wisconsin in 1980.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
See long blurb “back”
What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
The local, national and international news about women affects my work.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
McClain Gallery, Houston Texas also karinbroker.com
Contact Info:
- Address: McClain Gallery 2242 Richmond Avenue Houston, Texas 77098
- Website: karinbroker.com
- Phone: 7135823242
- Email: broker@rice.edu
Image Credit:
Paul Hester
Peter Molick
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