Ames (now WI)

Marilyn McMurry Annin was born in 1938, and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. Her mother was a primary school teacher, her father was a self-employed accountant, and she has younger twin brothers. She received her B.S. degree in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1960, and took many independent study classes from various artists in Minnesota in the 1980s. She painted for many years, but in the 1980s, switched to sculpture, mostly in the form of rigid garments.

She is married and has three children, and has spent about equal thirds of her life in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Although we interviewed in Ames, Iowa, she and her husband have since retired to northern Wisconsin. Galleries carrying her work include 2AU gallery in West Des Moines, and Art Resources Gallery in Minneapolis.

Time and art
(29 sec.)

Several years ago an associate suggested that I temporarily set aside my brushes and move from painting to sculpture. The opportunity came in a class experience that focused on teaching painters to think in three-dimensional terms and it forced me to move from painting's comfortable territory into the uncertain realm of sculpture.

My approach to sculpture was casual and informal as I decided to experiment with common materials such as safety pins, buttons, can tabs, bottle caps, neckties, broken jewelry and many other discarded or forgotten objects. I frequented flea markets, salvage or resale stores, and garage sales. The process of collecting and gathering these ordinary objects seemed to elevate them above the common-place.

The next step in the evolution of my sculpture experience came after several months of handling these gathered objects. I remained uncertain where it was leading until a fellow artist picked up a half-finished piece I had been working on and threw it over her shoulders. As this scrap of "art" conformed to her figure, I saw the wide-ranging possibilities of a new medium.

With that recognition, my involvement in sculpture expanded from the technical aspect of making art into working with ideas: a series of sculptured garments with each acting as a metaphor for a specific attitude or custom of our culture. I have focused on garments as portraiture, as commentary, and as satire.

My process begins with a welding torch and quarter-inch steel rod. The resulting armature can function merely as a support or it can play a definitive role in the design of the piece. The materials that are selected and worked into the fabric contribute to the meaning of the garment. The meticulous nature of the construction and the combining of dissimilar materials tend to draw the viewer into the work. In return, the viewer completes the process by bringing a personal interpretation to the piece.