Expressing myself through art has been a long time passion. Many mediums attract me, but my joy is in sculpting. I have completed sculptures in clay, bronze, and woodcarvings. I have also worked with paints and pastels and enjoy experimenting with new mediums. Several of my pieces are inspired by my rural upbringing. I wish to leave behind me a love of art, in people and works. There is so much to say and so little time to express it.
On the Great Plains, just West of Wichita, Kansas, Norma Lynn Nicks grew up on her great grandfather’s farm. The settlers on their way to the riches on the West Coast hurried through these plains referring to them disdainfully as the Great American Desert. Today, almost 70 % of Americans live in urban areas and move through the Great Plains at 70 mph. They often refer to the Great Plains as empty, which for them means devoid of human presence.
Norma and her brothers playing in this so-called emptiness found a world full of miraculous “little things.” Norma developed an artistic eye for its visual images: the miracle of native grasses springing back magically from a drought, a snowy owl on a fencepost, a golden eagle soaring wings outstretched over land appearing to go on forever, prairie roses blooming in the parched earth, cottontail rabbits romping playfully in the morning grass, cock pheasants in full display against a hay stack creating a tapestry of color, giant thunderheads bearing down like an impending apocalypse on cattle huddled in a ravine.
Sunsets fascinated me and as a child that is what I tried to capture a in my first water color. I was so disappointed because I couldn’t make it look like what I saw so I looked for other ways to capture its beauty and that’s why I moved onto 3 dimensional work because I couldn’t capture everything with only two dimensions.” Norma continues excitedly in consideration of yet additional possibilities.
The Great Plains with its extremes in weather and fortune resonate with a almost material tension. Hospitality and insularity, change and inertia, stability and instability, possibility and limitation, education and ignorance, hope and despair, open hearts and closed minds, all combine to play against each other to create a world that is filled with “good telling stories”. Norma uses her appreciation and respect for life on the Great Plains to create visual images, which both preserve and ennoble its stories.
After the birth of her first child, Norma started carving to relieve the tedium of life in a trailer with a small child, but soon discovered a love for the feel and experience of the wood. The family appreciating her art allowed her to devote the entire front half of the trailer to her sculpting. Clay came next and with it the challenge of creating character out of a piece of mud and from there she moved on to works in bronze and other medias.
As a commissioned artist, Norma has a well-earned reputation for producing sculptures, which are not only accurately representative, but capture the very soul of the personality. Norma is also remarkably easy to work, a rare quality in an artist.
Norma has worked as a designer for the Flat Earth Clay Works Co. Her art is displayed in many Wichita galleries such as The Delano Gallery, The Marketplace Gallery, Anna’s Gallery, Cityarts, Center for the Arts, The Hay Market, Sunflower Shop, Gallery XII, Art and Frame. Nationally, her work can be viewed at Folkworks Gallery in Evanston, Ill, Englers Block and Woodcarvers Barn in Bransom, Mo, Circle Gallery in El Dorado, Ks, and in the Carriage Factory Gallery in Newton, Kansas.
“I want to leave behind me a love of art, in people and in works.” Norma says when asked about her life goals. To achieve that goal, Norma teaches locally at some of the universities and the city gallery, and she does in depth weekend workshops initiating artistic newbies and helping established sculptors transition to new media. Norma’s style of teaching is unique. “I used to have an organized approach and I still do with children and some workshops, but I find with adults it works better if I just help them learn what they are interested in.” Norma’s ability to empower beginning artists is remarkable. As a former student, I often drop by her classes because I am fascinated with the incredible quality of her beginning artists.
Norma and her family continue to enjoy rural life on a small acreage near Maize, Kansas. The full basement of her home now serves as her studio, where she teaches small and private classes. While her studio is “home based”, her students and patrons will tell you that her generous spirit extends across the Great Plains and beyond.