I invited Marcia Fry to interview after seeing her work opening night.  Mind you I was running floors and taking pictures, but I have to say her work made me pause, dawdle, look closely and enjoy the skill of her asemblages.  If you asked me one word, I’d have to say “compelling.”  This is work you can’t just breeze by.  It requires communing to allow the story to develop between you and it.  In other words, you really need to get by this exhibit before the show closes down (don’t panic, you have weeks yet!).

This is Marcia’s first ArtOMatic.  Like many of us, she finds herself now addicted to the energy of it.  “It’s not just the chance to show my own stuff, it’s meeting the others.  During my volunteer work shifts, I was almost silly with the enjoyment of hanging out with other artists.”

When Marcia was a child, she and her sister had stacks of paper and pencils brought home by her stpfather from work.  Add scissors and “we made all the things we wanted.”  It has taken “working like a fiend for the last two years” for Marcia to assemble the work for this show at ArtOMatic.  “The pieces I brought were basically what I was able to complete in time.  With assemblage, it’s a long process finding the bits that resonate within each piece. ”  She also says that her detailed paintings can take months to finish and that she included two colored pencil pieces done years ago just to fill up wall space.  She was inspired to start working in assemblage by the work of Humberto Batista, whose work she finds “magical”.

She continues:

Being a lady of a certain age, I’ve amassed gtons of art supplies.  It’s all about space for me.  In the early days when I had small children, everything has to be put away and space was limited.  Now, I have an entire basement studio, and it’s allowed me to have a section for all the different mediums I work in.  Once you get into assemblage, you cannot BELIEVE all the bits and pieces you need to have on hand [ed note:  so true – no reason to ever throw anything away every again!].  They consume the most space, and look like a gian assemblage on their own.  It’s very inspiring to walk in and see the possibilities on every shelf.

As for my acrylic paintings, my secret technique is Q tips!  They allow me to control the details and act as tiny erasers as well.  If you wet the tip, you can twist the remaining cotton into a small tool.  When I’m painting, the floor is littered with small cotton bits.

Marcia is on the third floor:  Studio Detritus.  “I share the space with my husband, Randy, who has three pieces showing as well.  The room number is a mystery to me, I think 316 – but it’s the futhest northeast corner.  Just look for the glowing orange room.”

Studio Detritus happened as a result of Marcia and Randy working together.  “After being married to him all these years, I can’t believe this is his first venture into being an artist.  He stunned me with this talent.  At first I resented my husband’s intrusion into my space, and my ‘thing’ of being an artist.  I finally realized my thinking was crazy wrong, and Studio Detritus was born.  Still, when I am in the thick of it, I LOVE being alone and I know I work best when I am.  I do rely on him to give me an opinion when I get stuck, and trust his eye enourmously.”

As an assemblage artist myself, I was curious about the delicate skulls Marcia used in her pieces – they are beautiful on their own and add immeasurably to the finished

pieces.  Marcia tells me that she has collected skulls for years.  She says, “I must once have lived in the Victorian era, because I have my own Cabinet of Curiosities where we display all the wonderful bits of nature collected over the years.  My daughters buy me unique skulls for gifts, and my cat, Will Feral, brings me his offering as well.  Bird Brain is one of his.  Recently my husband drove back from California, and brought me a bobcat he found on the side of the road that had been hit.  It will be time to dig him up soon.  Macabre, hmmm?  I just love the beauty of skulls from the smallest to the large!”

Here is the rest of the story behind Bird Brain (she names as her first and favorite piece): “I bought the clock case from Community Forklift in Maryland, a great place to scrounge for parts, and once it started coming together, I realized that old clock cases were for me!  I love antique parts and pieces and have forged a pleasant trade relation with some of the antique store ladies in the area.

“The Candidate evloved from a doll wearing that great little suit.  Each begins from one found item that leads to another and almost tells you what to do from there.”

Insulted when she first heard the term “outsider art” applied to her work, Marcia now feels that the popularity of this art style gives more people a chance to express themselves artistically, no matter their skills.  “Artomatic,” she notes, “is genius.  It gives the Creatives a chance to show what they can do, and I hope it’s catching on in other cities – who knows what will come of it!”

Marcia took on the hard questio of the artist’s role in today’s society.  “Today, more than ever, we need to have something other than the bombardments of everyday life to distract us.  Something to allow our mind to take little side trips of pleasure, maybe inspiration to create themselves.  Without commercial interruption.”

When she hits a slump, she says she is delighted that she lives in “Museumville” because going to art museums recharges her like nothing else.

Included in her list of many favorite artists are Mark Ryden’s paintings (“I tend toward squirmy stuff”), and an assemblage artist from San Jose who she is “crazy for,” Jenifer Renezel/bugatha 1.  “She gies me a bad case of jealousy.”  Marcia says, “Check out the Deviant art gallery – good stuff!” [ed note:  Renezel’s work seriously reminds me of ArtOMatic’s own Jennifer Beinhacker’s work.)

To read more interviews and see more photographs from ArtOMatic 2012 and earlier ArtOMatics, go here.