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Artist Spotlight: Park City
Serendipity and a Dog Named Rudy
Corinne Humphrey's formula for success
by Carol Fulton
What do you get when you combine an author, professional photographer, teacher, philanthropist, flight attendant, and artist? Corinne Humphrey, the award-winning author and illustrator of two children’s books, with a third in the works.|0|
Humphrey is from a small town in Virginia, where she dreamed of being a marine biologist because she loved Jacque Cousteau and his little submarine and dreamed of wearing one of his wet suits. Since she admits to being “hopeless” at science, her childhood dream didn’t pan out. After taking technical drawing and architectural drafting in high school, her ambition turned to being an architect, but she finally ended up majoring in sociology in college. She now lives in Park City, where when she’s not working out of the Salt Lake International Airport as a flight attendant, she keeps herself busy in a variety of projects, many of them artistic.
Humphrey has a way of incorporating and using all her life experiences in her projects. She claims that the path to becoming an artist and illustrator had a lot to do with serendipity, but there’s a lot of intelligence, creativity, and energy in the mix.
The subject of her two books, Rudy the dog,|1-2| actually exists and lives with Humphrey. When she adopted him from Friends of Animals in Park City, she knew he was a ‘problem child’ -- ”he was great at home but we needed to work on some things outdoors,” she says – but he also became the inspiration for her book. She says he comes out from his bed in her studio to nudge her when she’s ‘being lazy,’ goes back to the studio and waits, comes back, and nudges again until she finally gets to work.|3|
In childhood Humphrey took a few art classes, starting with drawing Bambi in a magazine contest, but she says she turned her back on it. “I think some parents steer their kids away from pursuing an art career for fear that they won’t be able to make a living.” Her interest renewed as an adult and, taking advantage of her perks as a flight attendant, she took two art classes in southern France.
The Rudy books began during a sabbatical from the airline. She enrolled in an adult education painting class in Park City and had just adopted Rudy. His markings were so striking that she painted him into the landscape she was working on for the class. She was given a lot of encouragement about that piece, and upon meeting Canadian artist Sheila Norgate, was told, “Sometimes you just have to let the wild woman into the studio.” Humphrey went for it, did more paintings, got in a show at the Kimball Art Center Gala auction, and sold two pieces.
Her busy mind kept swirling, leading her to the idea of making a children’s motivational book incorporating the paintings of Rudy. “The Tao of Rudy” was published independently with help from her parents and a private foundation. Humphrey says she has a tendency to jump into the middle of projects -- for example, she took hunter/jumper classes before taking basic horse-back riding lessons -- but in this case, she attended a BYU conference for writers and illustrators of children’s books, learning and seeking advice. “The Tao of Rudy, Canine Wisdom for the Current Age,” was published in 2007, |4| and won a bronze medal for outstanding book design, and an honorable mention for book of the year from Foreword Reviews Magazine’s Book of the Year awards.
While still on sabbatical from the airline Humphrey also worked on her second book “Shoot for the Moon: Lessons on Life from a Dog Named Rudy” |5| which won the Gelett Burgess gold medal in the inspirational/motivational category, in a tie with author and Olympics star Kristi Yamaguchi. When Humphrey had to go to New York to receive the award, she planned on flying in in the morning, getting the award, meeting with an editor from Macmillan Publishers, and returning to Utah in the evening (another airline perk). She quickly changed her mind when the editor asked if they could get together again the next day so that Humphrey could meet with other Macmillan staff members. It looked like they were going to take on her book.
Back in Utah, a man who saw the book insisted she send it to his friend, director of sales and marketing at Chronicle Publishers. Simultaneously, the editor from Macmillan Publishers was attending a Chicago book conference and there met a senior officer from Chronicle. She pitched Humphrey’s work, feeling Chronicle would be a better fit and could take her books much further. Serendipity. Chronicle took her on with a five-year contract.
The format for these first two books is based on motivational messages like “Don’t be afraid to leave the path,” “Find a balance,” (image) or “Take the Leap.”|5| The stories are accompanied by paintings of Rudy acting out the messages. “The messages are pretty universal and many of them apply to me,” says Humphrey. Rudy has helped her put to use these messages in the making of their books.
Her third book, with a working title of “Roaming with Rudy: EmBARK on a Big Adventure,” shifts direction a bit, and she hopes it will become the first in a series of books designed as kind of a travel guide for a slightly older audience. She’d like to be communicating with third-graders, teaching and encouraging interest in the geography of the world. Here she incorporates her experience as a professional photographer for Lonely Planet while working for the airline. Paintings of herself getting ready to go work a flight to Paris with Rudy watching from his position in her suitcase (he really does this when he catches on that Humphrey is leaving again) accompany her description of the sights she’ll see. Rudy falls asleep and dreams that he is there. Printing her photographs onto watercolor paper, Humphrey paints Rudy into those scenes barking at gargoyles,|7| or hanging out at the bookstalls by the Seine. Along with the images, Humphrey includes fun facts about the places, and a map with numbered paw prints indicates places of interest.
“Juggling everything is a challenge. Marketing yourself takes away from the creation,” she says. Her life is crammed with flight attendant work, writing, illustrating, painting, doing school visits in Park City, giving yearly talks to the 3rd grade group at an elementary school, |7| teaching at ArtsKids. Humphrey hopes, ultimately, to be able to make a living through her art. She’d like to be with a gallery and to have an agent. With a partial scholarship provided by the airline she is now in an Arts and Illustration program at UVU. Never lacking for ideas, she has a running list of future paintings she might do, which she keeps in a big orange binder that she calls BOB, for obvious reasons. She has two more books in mind aside from the travel series. As an author, professional photographer, teacher, philanthropist, flight attendant, and artist Humphrey is a busy lady, but she’s not showing any signs of slowing down.
In March 2013 Corinne Humphrey will be the featured artist at Atelier AFA (formerly Borge Anderson), now a member of the Salt Lake Gallery Stroll. Her two published books, which make for great gift ideas by a local artist, are available locally at The King’s English and online . She (and Rudy) dontate 10% of the proceeds to Friends of Animals, along with one painting a year to the Kimball Art Center Gala. Learn more at corinnehumphrey.com.
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Exhibition Preview: Salt Lake City
A Story in Every Painting
Susan Kirby at Patrick Moore Gallery
by Dale Thompson | photos by Kelly Green
To walk through the front door of Susan Kirby’s house |1-2| is to see an intimate portrait of Kirby herself: every wall is covered with paintings she’s created, small to large, and each one tells a piece of her story. One of these works, a 7’ x 9’ painting titled “Self Portrait,” mixes a variety of personal references, including family, friends, and the home Kirby grew up in.|3| It illustrates, Kirby explains, “several voyages” she has taken during her life including the journey where she realized she wanted to be an artist. From 1972 to 1974 she lived in Paris. One day she found herself walking down Rue Jacob, a street filled with galleries that sold naïve art, work done by self-taught artists. “I was walking through these galleries and enjoying the art and I just knew I could do this. I thought, this is me. I was seeing myself there. It’s changed everything. If I didn’t have my painting, I don’t think I’d be here. It’s my life. It’s like an anchor. It’s given me a sense of purpose,” Kirby says.
In the artwork that’s grounded her, Kirby has explored several recurring motifs. They include Frida Kahlo, the last supper, Adam and Eve, and a menagerie of felines. Kahlo’s image appears in every Last Supper that Kirby has painted and she’s done several series of Frida Kahlo dolls.|4| A series of six will appear in her show opening this month at Patrick Moore Gallery. Kirby expresses strong admiration for the famous Mexican artist. “I connect with the way Frida put her suffering in to her art,” she says. “It’s just beautiful. And she didn’t try to please anybody. I like that. She didn’t paint to please people. She painted to please herself. That’s just the best.”
Kirby is influenced by other parts of Mexican culture, and one of her more recent pieces is a calavera. |5| The skull has mirrored eyes that reflect the viewer, and it’s painted in lively tones. “It took me a long time to decide on those colors but I went hiking a lot when the leaves were turning yellow. The vibrancy of the yellow against the blue sky inspired me,” Kirby says. Glitter and mirrors are materials she enjoys working with, and they were added because she felt the piece needed something that would add interest.
An equally colorful painting that Kirby just completed is a depiction of Adam and Eve.|6| “I think it’s a timeless theme we can all relate to,” she says. For her latest incarnation of the couple, she painted two people she knows. “They do have the tattoos that you see in the painting. In fact they get more tattoos every day. It’s good the painting is done because I couldn’t keep up with how many tattoos they keep getting,” Kirby says with a good-natured laugh.
The Last Supper is another biblical theme that Kirby likes to revisit. As mentioned earlier, Frida Kahlo appears in each one. The other people sitting at the table tend to vary. “They’re fun,” Kirby says of these pieces, “because you can choose different guests, so I usually choose them out of history or I pick people I admire.” She likes to place certain people together, like Coco Chanel and Che Guevara, and imagine the conversation that might be taking place between them.
Her exploration of religious work recently inspired Kirby to paint her own version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”|7| It depicts a woman wearing a tiara screaming in front of the Salt Lake Temple. “I think it might have been inspired by Romney running for President,” Kirby jokes. “But I hope it doesn’t offend anyone. All my relatives are Mormon and they come into my house and see all my weird stuff. They kind of like it.”
Tigers, cats, and other feline references appear in her work. Sometimes they literally appear as Leopards |8| or the figure in a painting may just be wearing leopard print pants. “I feel a oneness with cats,” Kirby says. “I once dreamt that I was a cat and I felt exactly how a cat feels. It’s just total bliss.” She’ll often paint cats that were once her house pets, including one that she refers to as her Mexican cat.
From portraits of the last supper to her feline companions, Kirby frequently starts painting with a very deliberate idea in mind. Every so often it becomes a more fluid experience. “I was going to do an Alice in Wonderland type thing and then the mushroom, as I was working on it, I just saw it as a dark silhouette of a man.|9| It sort of morphed. That usually doesn’t happen because I have my idea before I paint. But this one changed mid-painting into a silhouette or a witness. It’s kind of a subconscious work,” she says.
While Kirby may explore an eclectic range of themes, she has a distinct style that catches the eye. Her provocative works intrigue and beckon people to take a closer look so they can understand the whole story.
A collection of approximately 30 pieces by Kirby will be on display at Patrick Moore Gallery from December 7–28. An opening reception will be held on Friday, December 7 from 6 to 9 pm. Regular hours are noon until 6 pm. Patrick Moore Gallery is located at 2233 S. 700 E.
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