 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||||||
Betty Fitzsimmons
|
Des Moines |
interviewed 3-2-1999 | artist's
books, mixed media, painting, sculpture (small, nontraditional) |
artwork
interview clips
galleries
| Elizabeth (Betty) Ruth Barton Fitzsimmons was born in Vermillion, South Dakota, in 1926. She grew up in Vermillion with her parents and younger brother. She attended the University of South Dakota, and received her B.F.A. from the University of Iowa in 1948, majoring in studio art and minoring in elementary art education. She married and had three children. Through the years, they lived in several different communities, and she continued to | teach art and painted on her own. In 1968, she received her M.A. in Painting (minor in secondary art education) from the University of Iowa. After her divorce in 1978, she continued to teach at the Des Moines Art Center, the Inner City Art Program, Glenwood State Hospital School, the Des Moines Public Schools, among others. She has also worked with Link Associates and the Iowa Homeless Youth Drop-in Center. She works in mixed media. |
 |
| Yin
& Yang copyright © 2000 Betty Fitzsimmons All Rights Reserved |
 |
| Explorations
II copyright © 2000 Betty Fitzsimmons All Rights Reserved |
 |
| Ordinary
People III copyright © 2001 Betty Fitzsimmons All Rights Reserved |
 |
| Ordinary
People V copyright © 2001 Betty Fitzsimmons All Rights Reserved |
| Science
or art
(46 sec.) |
Being
an artist
(46 sec.) |
Books
(37 sec.) |
Antarctica
(51 sec.) |
Homeless
youth
(53 sec.) |
Advice
(37 sec.) |
 (315KB) |
(316KB) |
(252KB) |
(352KB) |
(364KB) |
(254KB) |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Olson-Larsen,
West Des Moines, Iowa
Artists Emporium, Des Moines, Iowa
When I was ten I was going to be Madame Curie the Second. And I had my own chemistry set in the basement, and my poor parents were having a dinner party the day that I chose to see what happened when you melted sulphur. It stunk like a rotten egg, so I sneaked out the door when I heard people complain. I probably was a handful. But I was always very busy making or doing something, and I was always the one to draw things in the classes. I liked to write, too; I was doing a lot of creative writing at that time. And then when I was fifteen, I read Irving Stone's Lust for Life. Every time in that book, like when Gauguin or Millet or any artist was mentioned, I would send for prints of theirs. So I decided that I wasn't going to be Madame Curie, I was going to be an artist.
It took me a long time to really understand what being an artist is all about. Initially it was just making pictures—but it's not just making pictures at all. It has to do with the total of your experience, but also has to do with exploring things that you think about that you can't explore in any other way, and trying to understand things you can't understand in any other way. At least that's what it is to me. It's trying to understand things that I just don't really understand at all, and probably never will. So I'll go on making art, trying to figure it all out. And yet it's also about color. If I have a passion in art, it's color, and then certain shapes and the way they relate to each other. And then how the spirit is expressed in different ways.
When Danny was little, I started writing a book called Pirates Three; it was about a little black boy, a little white boy, and a little Oriental boy. And that's the story about how they built a ship out of crates and had a really good time, and the families got along. It was about '55 when I was doing this, which was a little bit premature trying to get anything like that sold. And I don't know to this day what really happened. It vanished from the face of the earth. The books I have now haven't vanished. I've done a lot of books. I did a book based on the Glenwood experience of working with multi-handicapped—that's where I learned what love was really all about, unconditional love, was from working with handicapped people. I like doing books.
Robert Falcon Scott—he was the explorer who Amundsen beat to the South Pole. He was the one who died with his men. He'd write these wonderful descriptions of the colors that you see because of light refraction and of auroras. So I did a whole series of paintings based on Antarctica. And I decided that I had to go to England. I wanted to go through all of Edward Wilson's diaries. I knew he kept copious notes on colors. He didn't have the poetic vision that Scott had as far as writing was concerned, but Wilson was the person people turned to for advice and for help. He was a very deeply spiritual man. He was an incredible man. I was lucky that I was able to do research at the Scott Polar Research Institute. And I had a table there, and did a bunch of paintings and drawings.
I became very interested in this horrible, hideous, unnecessary homeless problem that we have in our country. And had gone to Buchanan House, which is part of Iowa Homeless Youth. Worked with them down there. And then they said, Well, try drop-in. Sometimes we have as many as 90 come in—just heartbreaking.
Everybody needs beauty in their lives. Everybody needs to be able to express something in their lives. One of the young women, who was 17, was found dead one morning. She was one of the young women who came over regularly to the art table who would help out. She did a collage-type thing, "All people should be treated alike." That work meant so much to her, because she was working through a lot. The kids who are homeless have been through an awful lot. Everybody has a spirit in them that needs to be touched, and it's part of our being a human being. That's something that people forget about.
One, the most important person you have to please is yourself. Don't worry whether your work looks like anybody else's—you've got to be true to yourself, to your own spirit. And two, find something that you can do so that you can eat, because you have to be able to eat in order to paint. And don't worry about so-called approval. And this thing called money is nothing but a tool anyway. All you have [to have] is enough so you can eat and keep a house over your head and be happy. A lot of people don't. And the third thing is, when you can, share what you do know. I think that's really important. Share your experience, share your work, share your knowledge.
