Artist Spotlight: Elmer Lucille Allen
Artist Spotlight: Elmer Lucille Allen
While many may view the worlds of math and art as entire disparate, Elmer Lucille Allen sees them as fundamental building blocks, working together in perfect harmony. “The whole world is based on art and math, if you sit down and think about it.” For one of our longest residing artists, however, art wasn’t initially among her greatest passions, that would be science.
From an early age, Elmer Lucille Allen was hooked on the subject. She would play “rock school” and study rocks with her friends on her grandmother’s porch. She would follow her love of science into college, earning degrees in chemistry and math. In 1966, she became the first African American chemist at Brown-Forman. Eventually, she developed arthritis in her hands. Being the perpetual student she is, Elmer Lucille Allen tackled the problem through evening ceramics classes at Seneca High School. While she started taking the classes as a means to ease arthritic pain, she continued pursuing ceramics out of a desire to create. In 2000, she enrolled at UofL and began working on a master’s degree in art. There, she had two focuses: ceramics and fiber art.
During her time at UofL, Elmer Lucille Allen was introduced to the textile art of shibori by another student. Similar to tie-dyeing, this centuries-old Japanese art requires careful planning and patience; it possesses an almost meditative quality she appreciates. Much of her current fabric artwork is shibori-style pieces, all of which begin with creating patterns on graph paper before translating it to kona cotton or silk noil. The design is then stitched into the fabric, dyed, and the stitches carefully removed to reveal geometric patterns, occasionally forming human or animal figures.
Today, Elmer Lucille Allen continues to create shibori pieces here at her studio in Mellwood and ceramic pieces at UofL. Tomorrow, you can catch some of her work on display as part of Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts’ 40th anniversary exhibition. As an ardent supporter of lifelong learning, not only does she continue to take art classes, she also does presentations on the subject and will be doing one for the Anchorage Women’s Art League in May.
While many may view the worlds of math and art as entire disparate, Elmer Lucille Allen sees them as fundamental building blocks, working together in perfect harmony. “The whole world is based on art and math, if you sit down and think about it.” For one of our longest residing artists, however, art wasn’t initially among her greatest passions, that would be science.
From an early age, Elmer Lucille Allen was hooked on the subject. She would play “rock school” and study rocks with her friends on her grandmother’s porch. She would follow her love of science into college, earning degrees in chemistry and math. In 1966, she became the first African American chemist at Brown-Forman. Eventually, she developed arthritis in her hands. Being the perpetual student she is, Elmer Lucille Allen tackled the problem through evening ceramics classes at Seneca High School. While she started taking the classes as a means to ease arthritic pain, she continued pursuing ceramics out of a desire to create. In 2000, she enrolled at UofL and began working on a master’s degree in art. There, she had two focuses: ceramics and fiber art.
During her time at UofL, Elmer Lucille Allen was introduced to the textile art of shibori by another student. Similar to tie-dyeing, this centuries-old Japanese art requires careful planning and patience; it possesses an almost meditative quality she appreciates. Much of her current fabric artwork is shibori-style pieces, all of which begin with creating patterns on graph paper before translating it to kona cotton or silk noil. The design is then stitched into the fabric, dyed, and the stitches carefully removed to reveal geometric patterns, occasionally forming human or animal figures.
Today, Elmer Lucille Allen continues to create shibori pieces here at her studio in Mellwood and ceramic pieces at UofL. Tomorrow, you can catch some of her work on display as part of Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts’ 40th anniversary exhibition. As an ardent supporter of lifelong learning, not only does she continue to take art classes, she also does presentations on the subject and will be doing one for the Anchorage Women’s Art League in May.