Debra Gerard

Artist Statement:  Title:  Her Choices in the Circus of Life

Life can be a circus, with many choices, all presenting both opportunity and anxiety.

My life's choice points (an choices for many young women) in my mid-to-late 20's included very diverse experimental options: either becoming a "bar-fly" binge drinking my way through the weekends in not very nice places in town, or settling down with focus on a teaching career as a professional.  It is such choices that grow the young adult into something like maturity (we can hope!), and the process can be daunting.

The black spine represents the artist, not yet fully defined, with the large yellow circus tent in the foreground, focusing the viewer's attention on the choices available.  The tent represents a world bounded by edges, and choices must be made going forward,  There is no other way out.  On the right side of the picture plane, one can see the bar district/red-light district - the "wild side."  On the left side, the conservative side of life emerges.  So, right or left? "Wild," or tame?

So, these were my choices...  what were your choices?

Artist Biography:  Debra is an award winning artist living and working in her home studio in Kimberly, WI and has been painting and drawing since 1985.  She holds a B.A. from UW-Green Bay with concentrations in Education and Graphic Design. Her work has been shown in galleries in Door County, Wisconsin, and she has exhibited in several Wisconsin art museums. Following college, she taught art in the Wisconsin Public Education System, grades K-8 and with summer high school art camps at UW-Green Bay in Graphic Design.

In the early 1990's, Debra's life's circumstances created the need to leave public education, and took her teaching talents into the business world as a training and organizational development specialist.  Simultaneously she earned her M.S. degree (Silver Lake College) in organizational behavior.  After consulting for several years, in 2000 she decided to redirect her career, and return to her first love - art, and started her art business:  www.sloangerardstudio.com.

WI

USA