Me and Mom

Never exhibited drawings and watercolors from this series by Melanie Hickerson will be included in this show. Some of Geraldine Clark Hickerson’s (mom) artwork will also be on display.

Statement Melanie Hickerson

I was Mom’s primary care giver from 1999 – 2014. These artworks are not reality but metaphors for my experience with my family’s changes; with aging and increasing fragility, hers, and mine. My experience in caring for my mother is not unique. I am using this experience as a door to the experience of caring for someone, a mother, father, husband, wife, child, or stranger.

When I heard Governor Ann Richards’ remark about Ginger Rogers (“Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in high heels…”) it reminded me of the enormous struggle my mother had in her life, raising eight children among other adventures. She taught us all to tap dance and much more. So, I painted Mom with a bow to other realities, to other dimensions implied in physics and contemplated in meditation. Or they are past lives or internal realities?

The world puts on an endless, vivid show. I want to express something about being human in the world.

About the Artists

Melanie Hickerson has been pursuing a career in art since 1976. She had her first one person exhibit in a bookstore in Austin, Texas. Then she went to Italy to be an artist. Hickerson lived In Rome, Italy, for over a year. Hickerson sold miniatures of the ruins in Piazza Navona to tourists. She had a one person exhibit at Teatro Goldoni, the English theater as well as private commissions. In 1979, she returned to Austin, TX, to pursue an art degree at UT at Austin. Melanie graduated with an MFA In 1985. In 1986, she left Austin to pursue an art career in NYC. In the vibrant art scene of NYC, Hickerson had an opportunity to develop as an artist. She had some exhibits in various galleries but eventually joined a gallery called Ceres, the New York Feminist Art Institute. Hickerson had a broad range of experiences, from working as an artist for the City of New York, to a variety of teaching positions, grants, commissions, and exhibits. Hickerson returned to the Central Texas area In April 1999, to care for her mother. She continued to make and exhibit art while teaching at Austin Community College. She has rejoined Ceres Gallery in New York City due to greater access to information, participation and cooperation with Zoom and such digital access programs. It is a new world but just the same, too.

Geraldine Clark Hickerson, August 19, 1919 – March 14, 2014, was the youngest of five girls. She attended Southwestern Teachers College in Oklahoma where she met Al Hickerson, her future husband. She had eight children, each one a unique individual. Hickerson was fearless in her travels. She was a progressive thinker, interested in saving the earth, recycling, composting, and yoga before many people had heard of those things. She loved the stars and could identify most of them and then could tell you about their myths. She was always a unique individual.