Lucinda Parker ’66

Embodying Exuberance

— PNCA Alumni —

Lucinda Parker’s paintings nearly leap from the canvas. Abstract but visceral, some appear fraught with tension while others undulate, echoing natural forms. Recognized by critics as one of the region’s most important visual artists, Parker is a PNCA alumna and Associate Professor whose work is represented by the Laura Russo Gallery in Portland.

Parker grew up in the 1940s, in “a rural little place” outside of Boston. The eldest of five children, she started out early painting and drawing with the support of her parents. “My grandmother gave me a sketchbook when I was ten and I resolved that I would draw real things in that sketchbook,” she says. “I had the run of a lot of backwood blocks; I was running all over the countryside and climbing trees. A lot of freedom. And I used to draw all the time and I painted all the time.”

The combined program of PNCA (then called the Museum Art School) and Reed College offered her a running start in Portland. “I had great teachers,” she says animatedly. “I have to thank them all. I had Louis Bunce and Mike Russo and Mel Katz and Harry Widman….it was a wonderful education. I can’t imagine a better one.” She returned to the East Coast and earned her MFA in Painting from the Pratt Institute, and spent several years in New York before returning to Portland. Here, Parker established herself as a powerful force, gaining prestigious commissions and awards, and exhibiting throughout the countryÑfrom group shows such as the Oregon Biennial to solo exhibitions at New York and Northwest galleries, the Seattle and Portland art museums, and universities throughout the Northwest.

“I see myself as a regional artist and I’m proud of it,” Parker declares. “I think the brain of an artist is far-ranging, and people who are serious about art are looking at things all the time, everywhere they can get at anything that’s interesting. Because you’re a regional person doesn’t mean you have your eyes closed to the rest of the world. It just means you know where you’re standing, you know where your feet are. And the rest of you is like this: ‘What next?’ ”

A sense of place also informs Parker’s newer work, which expresses nature more recognizably than earlier pieces. She says, “I think the earlier paintings were more about the process of building a pattern…. My work has gotten more and more about nature as I’ve gotten older. I started out drawing trees and things when I was little, so it’s like returning to my roots.” Parker also does a lot of “bushwhacking and stumbling through the woods” when not painting or teaching.

Teaching inspires Parker on the level of ideas and provides her with a welcome sense of responsibility. “When you teach somebody to make a painting, you’re really teaching them to make an object which has no other purpose than to feed their eyes and their souls,” she says. “I don’t think there’s anything else in our culture that does that. So much of our culture is about selling and so much of it is about these superficial values…to slow down enough to make a painting is a great, huge shift in behavior.”

That shift has enabled Parker to build an impressive career over three decades, passing on her accumulated knowledge to the students of PNCA. “In its best manifestation, I think an art education can really get people using much more of their eyes, much more of their brains, and much more of their bodies than they normally use. And the thing about making paintings is it’s physical and mental and visual and emotionalÑand it takes everything to put it together.”

photo credit: David Browne, courtesy of Elizabeth Leach Gallery, written by Tiffany Lee Brown

BFA Majors

Communication Design
General Fine Arts
Illustration
Intermedia
Painting
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture