Alice Brinkman

Artist Biography

2004

Alice's introduction into the world of art has come piece by piece and sometimes by accident, fueled by an early and unavoidable desire to “make things.” Her educational background is in Textiles and Clothing (BS - 1980 and MS -1982 from the University of Illinois, Champaigne, IL). This training, along with several years operating her own dressmaking business, gave her the skills to use the special characteristics of cloth to create images which express  ideas and which “play” with the elements of color, value, form, texture, line and pattern.  Growing up, Alice also had the privilege of dance and music lessons.  This has contributed to her understanding of movement and rhythm.  Alice's particular specialty is surface design and manipulation of cloth rather than the making of the cloth. The magical way colors can mix and change with manipulation of the cloth and the dye pot continues to fascinate her, and like most other artists, she finds herself wishing there was more time to experiment with her medium.  But she has chosen to be involved in several other facets of life, including, most recently, opening a neighborhood art center, teaching art to children (part time), family, church, etc. ; all of which contribute indirectly to her “art” by providing her with rich experiences from which to create visual images. 

Most of Alice's textile work has been with cotton and fiber reactive dyes, though early on she worked primarily with silk and acid dyes and has more recently turned again to these media.  The dyes are applied either in a dye pot or by painting or printing on the cloth... or both.  She has also experimented with mechanical and chemical resists when dyeing.  She enjoys working with a variety of fabric types... from sheer to heavy depending on the end application.  The textile hangings Alice has designed are primarily large scale (sometimes whole “ensembles”). Many are for liturgical or church purposes and are three dimensional installations.  As a side she has also worked with polymer clay.  The ability to create minute, detailed designs in the clay, and in particular, face portraits using pieces of different colored clay that she mixes provides a contrast to the large work she does in the dyepot.

Philosophically, Alice has a passion for figuring out the connection between her faith in Christ and her desire to “do” art.  She finds special satisfaction in making images which focus the eyes of her heart and mind on God’s character.  Alice finds that doing art is an act of worship whether or not the particular work is “religious” in nature.  She is also becoming more and more convinced that our fascination with things visible is rooted in the mystery that the invisible God became visible to us through Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15) Today, Jesus is visible (or should be visible) to us through each other.  Seeing is believing. Participating in the making of images (whether by music, word, visual media or movement) is participating in the mystery of God.