Cowboys and toys still life western Aycock oil (2018) Painting by Margaret Aycock

Margaret Aycock
Artist’s Statement


I love to paint and to teach painting. I have been painting since I could hold a brush. When I was a child my family spent summers at a boys camp in the Adirondacks where my dad worked. I would hang out in the arts and crafts cabin as much as I could where I would happily paint for hours on end. My parents always encouraged creativity and gave me private drawing lessons as a teenager. Years later I met one of my first painting teachers, John Szekes.

I was walking alone on a secluded beach when I saw an old man walking towards me. We struck up a conversation which lead to a friendship which lead to a barter of gallery help in exchange for painting lessons. This began my quest for a few good teachers to help me to develop my technical skills.

Over the years a handful of teachers have helped guide me and at this point in my life I have chosen both to practice my craft and to guide others along the way. My own college experience was not so great as far as art went. I found college completely lacking in teaching technical skills, such as how to hold a brush to achieve different effects, how to mix paint, how to create the effects of light and shadow, how to see, and how to draw. I believe that unless you know the basics of the craft it may be very difficult to communicate effectively with paint and canvas. I have certainly known how frustrating it is to stumble around with a burning desire to create something beautiful and having no technical skills to make it happen.

As a teacher I vow to send my students into the world with a set of tools and skills with which to bring their ideas to life. I teach adults at TCC and privately. I also bring the arts to Tulsa Public Schools through the Arts and Humanities Artists in the Schools Program and to patients in the hospital through the Arts and Healing program at the Kaiser Rehab Center in Tulsa. Branching out a little bit this year, I designed two of the four panels for The Tulsa Spirit mosaic obelisk that will be the first of three sculptures that will be installed in Tulsa’s Art Parkway and have been instrumental in the creation of the parkway itself. I love to have my fingers in many different pies.

I have been a member of a portrait group for over 20 years. Painting portraits in a group setting has been great for me. My aim has been for my paintings to be representational but to have the appearance of a loose, free style. Painting under the constraints of three hour sessions has helped move me in that direction. My next goal is to be able to afford to hire and set up my own model and to work on ¾ to full length portraits and not be constrained by time or the whims of the other artists in the room. I would like to try to paint on a larger scale and do some paintings of figures in surroundings that tell a story. I am not sure yet what I want them to say but will find out during the process.

In this journey as an artist, I e...

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : 1956
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary American Artists