ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
For sisters Judy Scott and Amy Pilger, the path to the art world took decidedly different journeys.
Scott said she never intended to become an artist, and now even in her 80s, she does not feel she has achieved that status yet. On the other hand, Pilger learned from what both called a creative mother.
Pilger said her mom taught her a layer of contact paper can improve anything.
“I learned creating was much more satisfying than buying what anybody else could buy,” she said in her artist bio for an exhibit she and Scott currently have hanging at Liberal’s Baker Arts Center as the Artists of the Month for October.
Pilger went on to say in school, art and design classes were her favorites. She graduated from Western State College with majors in fine arts and business administration and a minor in accounting.
Meanwhile, Scott said she had no passion for drawing as a child, and while she too had a creative mother, she did not even know where the high school art room was. She would find it later when she returned to do student teaching.
College, however, changed Scott’s course and made a profound impact on not only what was to be her vocation, but on how she prepared lesson plans as a career art teacher in Ulysses.
“My first year on the job, there were students already much better at drawing than I may ever be,” she said in her artist statement for the Baker exhibit. “I remember their names.”
Scott and Pilger were raised in Colorado. Scott graduated from Gunnison State College with an undergraduate degree before she married and moved to Kansas.
Scott then obtained her masters degree with an emphasis in ceramics from Fort Hays State University and became acclimated and inspired by the Western Kansas landscape.
After 40 years of teaching, Scott now resides in Lakin, while Pilger lives in Green Valley, Ariz., just north of the Mexican border.
Scott said this is the first time she and Pilger have done a show together, and they agreed to work on a more abstract type of art.
“The subject matter is design – line, shape, texture and color – not because they refer to an image,” Scott said. “We did that on purpose so our show would have continuity. However, for variety’s sake, she chose to use warm colors, and I chose to use cool colors. It’s fairly easy to tell her work is mostly geometric, hard edge, and mine is more organic. The pieces look different, but they look like a collection.”
Scott said all of the art in the Baker display was done in acrylic, with some collage mixed in, meaning some papers were attached within the paintings.
“They’re on a variety of surfaces,” she said. “Some are stretched canvas. Some are done on board surfaces, and one is like a tapestry. The interesting thing about that painting is we did it simultaneously together. We were both elbowing in, making brush strokes in whatever part we chose until we got it to look like it was one piece.”
Pilger too is now in her 80s, and Scott said despite admiring each others’ work over the years, the sisters have never been able to work or show their work together until this month at Baker.
“This is an exciting new experience,” she said.
As with their journeys to the world of art, what Scott and Pilger like most about the medium likewise differs. For Pilger, she is simply inspired by everything around her.
“I see shape, lines, pattern, texture and color every place I look,” she said in her bio. “As a multimedia artist, I enjoy using things in a non-traditional way.”
Through the years, Pilger said she has always been happiest when she has a project going, whether it be painting the house or painting a canvas.
“I have worked in just about every medium, including woodworking and home improvement,” her bio said.
For Scott, art is more about the excitement the medium brings to her eyes.
“It gives me imagination,” she said. “It turns the ordinary into something extraordinary. As I taught my 40 years, I tried to have my students appreciate art because they knew a little more about it, not because all of them would try to become artists.”
Pilger said living in Arizona, she is amazed at the opportunities to learn and develop, and belonging to Green Valley’s Community Performance & Art Center, as well as Green Valley Recreation, the Tubac Center of the Arts and International Encaustic Artists, has enabled her to participate in classes and workshops and interact with other artists.
“The best part is all the wonderful friends I’ve made who talk ‘art talk,’” her bio said.
While she enjoys art, Scott did say for her, doing it is an off and on thing.
“Both of us were employed for many years,” she said. “There’s a lot of other life to take care of. I paint off and on. I’ve only been seriously painting for the last 25 years. Before that, all of my attention was to my classroom.”
Scott said while everyone can read, observe and talk the talk, until a skill is practiced consistently, a person will never improve. She added she hopes to have years of practice ahead, and she wants to be an inspiration for those who see her art.
“I hope when they look at it, it gives them something to wonder about, to be excited about, find enjoyment in it,” she said. “I enjoy making it happen.”
The sisters’ exhibit will be on display through the rest of October at Baker Arts.
