Delta Landscapes by Norwood Creech will be on exhibit in the Merkle Gallery February 3-28. The artist will be in attendance for the reception on Saturday, February 21 6-8pm. Creech is a painter, photographer, and printmaker who lives in Lepanto, Arkansas. Her work for Delta Landscapes includes oil on linen paintings and photographs, focusing on her most current works.
“The landscape is my primary subject matter. I roam the levees studying crops and tree lines, watching the light through the changing seasons, taking hundreds of pictures and looking for that special scene that makes me feel wowed. When I find that scene, I begin learning it by painting it with oils, right on location. While there my goal is to internalize the setting, so I know it and feel it. I watch the light, feel the air, weather and humidity,” she says.
Norwood comes from a family of artists. She is represented by her mother, Millicent Creech, in Memphis. Millicent Creech painted watercolor portraits in the style of Mary Cassatt. After retiring from painting in the late 90’s, she has grown into one of the most reputable period antique dealers in the Memphis area. Millicent’s mother, Norwood’s grandmother, K. Doyle Ford (Kitty) was a protégé of Howard Chandler Christy, was the first woman in the pen and ink society, and painted formal oil portraits of men and women of social prominence. Some of Ford’s paintings hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
Norwood can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com/norwood.creech.art
EDUCATION
Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, BS: Studio Art, 1981-1985
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA, 1987-1987
Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts, Master Program with Wayne Thiebaud, 1993 1993
The University of Memphis, 1994
Santa Fe Institute of Fine Arts, Master Program with Gregory Kondos, 1995-1995
Lincoln Center Institute for Aesthetic Education, “Aesthetic Education in Rural Settings,” Crittenden Arts Council, West Memphis, AR, 2006-2006
WORK
Artist in Residence, Hilton Head Art League, Hilton Head, SC, 1985-1988
Artist in Residence, Beaufort County Recreation Commission, Hilton Head, SC, 1985-1988
Assistant to Director of Education, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, CA 1987-1988
Outreach Educator, Bowers Museum, Santa Ana, CA, 1987-1988
Art Director, Boys and Girls Club of Laguna Beach, Laguna Beach, CA, 1989-1991
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
South Arkansas Arts Center, El Dorado, Arkansas, February 2015
East Arkansas Community College, Forrest City, AR, September 3 – 29, 2014
“Beyond the Expected,” Historic Arkansas Museum, LR, AR Winter 2012/2013
“Horizons Interrupted,” Curator for A Day, Arkansas Arts Center, LR, AR 2012
Norwood Creech: Selected Works from the Northeastern Arkansas Delta, Commentary by Arkansas Historian Dr. Jeannie Whayne, Butler Center, Arkansas Studies Institute, LR, AR 2011
Delta Perspectives, commentary by Jeannie Whayne, Southern Tenant Farmers Museum, Tyronza, AR 2010
Artists of Arkansas, Offices of Lt. Governor Bill Halter, LR, AR 2008-2010
Ginger Beebe’s 2009 Arkansas Artists Dayplanner, Friends of the Governor’s Mansion, LR, AR
Arkansas Artists, Offices of Senator Mark Pryor, LR, AR 2009
Osceola Chamber of Commerce, Osceola, Arkansas 2008
DeltaMade Market Place, Clinton School of Public Service, LiR, AR 2008, 2009
Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects, Memphis, TN 2007,1997
“Delta Perspectives,” Lincoln Center Institute for Aesthetic Education, Crittenden Arts Council, West Memphis, AR 2006
Lilly’s Dim Sum, LR, AR 2003 – 2006
Office of Senator Blanche Lincoln, LR, AR/DC 2003-2005
“How the West Won,” CMC Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2001
“Max ’98,” University of Memphis Museum, Memphis, TN 1998
“Self Images 8 to 80,” Women’s Foundation of Memphis/Memphis Festival for the Arts, Memphis, TN 1998
J. Gallagher Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 1998
Young Louisvillians III, Liberty Gallery Bank, Louisville, KY 1993
Hall-Barnett Gallery, NOLA 1993
Eighty Main, Bisbee, AZ 1993
La Quinta Arts Festival, La Quinta, CA 1992
Bear Street Cafe, Crystal Court, Costa Mesa, CA 1992
Laguna Art Museum Art Auction, Laguna Beach, CA 1990-2004