Artist Studios
The Museum’s studio artist program is open to visual artists working in all media. While taking advantage of large, well-lit studios, artists provide opportunities for school and public audiences to observe art in process.
1st Floor Clay Studio
Cecelia Pippin
Studio artist Cecelia Pippin has been an art educator at William King Museum in the youth
and adult programs since 1999. She also is an adjunct faculty member at Virginia Intermont College, in the Evening and Weekend College, where she teaches prospective elementary school teachers how to use art in the regular classroom.
Come wander through the clay studio and let your imagination run away with the possibilities.
In addition to teaching at Virginia Intermont College, Cecelia also teaches classes at William King Museum. For a full listing of classes, please visit the classes page under the learn tab.
Website: http://ceceliapippin.com/
3rd Floor Artist Studios
Val Lyle
Val Lyle received her BFA from Ringling College of Art and Design with emphasis on sculpture and printmaking, and her MFA from East Tennessee State University with emphasis on ceramic sculpture. Lyle returned to Appalachia after many years creating and exhibiting art in New York City. As an Adjunct Professor of Art and Lecturer for the past 12 years, she continues to engage in social activism and promoting the arts. Lyle’s family has been in this area since the mid-1700’s.
Val Lyle’s current traveling body of work “Sanctuary” will be in its eighth incarnation at The T
urchin Center for the Visual Arts from September 2011 to 2012. Each exhibition includes major new works designed especially for the environment it is displayed in. The National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission partially funded The Turchin Exhibition and a catalog for the project titled “These Truths: The Brutal Tenderness of Appalachia.” Lyle is in museum, corporate, and private collections, and has public sculpture currently installed in bronze, ceramics, and fiber.
Website: http://vglyle.com/
Blog: http://sweatandvisions.blogspot.com/
Email: Val@ValLyle.com
Tracy Ference
Studio artist Tracy Ference was born and raised in Northwestern Pennsylvania. She earned a BS in Psychology from Penn State University and attended graduate school at Robert Morris College in Pittsbrugh, PA. Married shortly after college, she started a family with her husband and began moving around the country with his career. In 2003, while living in Texas, she took the opportunity to fullfill a life long dream to study art and has been painting and studying since. While not formally trained, she attended workshops with some of the best portrait artists in the country. Studying the works of the masters such as Rembrandt, John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn and Nicolai Fechin are a continued source of knowledge and inspiration.
Her current projects include working on portrait commissions and exploring her new home through her paintings.
Website: www.tracyference.com
Blog: http://www.tracyference.blogspot.com/
Pamela Hagy
Studio artist Pamela Hagy is from Bristol, Virginia. She has been teaching children’s art classes at the William King Museum since 2004. Pam also teaches art at Blountville Elementary School in Sullivan County, TN.
She is a graduate of Virginia Intermont College with a B.A. in Art Education and a B.F.A. with an emphasis in painting. While at VI, she studied painting with artist and professor Tedd Blevins, attending a watercolor workshop in England with him and his wife Carole Farris Blevins. In 2004, Pam was awarded a scholarship to study Italian art by the Berger Foundation in Florence and Rome. She has also attended the Tennessee Arts Academy at Belmont University. She enjoys participating in the Virginia Highlands Juried Fine Art Show every year and is currently inspired to paint oil portraits.
Website: http://www.pamelafineart.com/