Briggs presents art to USU students
Alice Leora Briggs spoke to students about her art, her life and her philosophy on
Monday evening in the Eccles Conference Center as part of the art department’s Visiting Artist Program.
“I do love teaching,” Briggs said, “but I love making things even more.”
This became apparent to the audience as she showed slide after slide of her intricate wood reliefs, installations and drawings.
Briggs said her images are made up of thousands of marks into surfaces. She said she used Exacto knives, steel wool and even a fiberglass tool made for cleaning engines, to create her art.
Briggs said she finds inspiration for her work everywhere, drawing from the other artists and photographers, as well as current events and personal experiences.
“In many ways, I act as a synthesizer as I put these things together,” she said.
Briggs’ art is both innovative and traditional, using organic crafts and materials to create contemporary, thought-provoking images.
In her presentation, Briggs spoke of how her art is images within images and how she usually doesn’t have a story or theme in mind when she starts.
“I thought it was cool how she used photographs and other artwork in the backgrounds of her work,” said sophomore in art, Kubi Sproat.
At the beginning of the presentation, Briggs told of her older brother, who died suddenly when she was 7 years old. This preface made sense as the presentation continued because her art often deals with the subject of mortality.
Images of September 11, 2001, Abu Ghraib and the crucified Christ are all featured in her work.
Briggs said that she chooses to create art centered on mortality, not in the morose sense, but because she lives with the realization that she could die at any moment.
She went on to explain she wants her art to cause people to examine their lives and live better based on the fact “any breath could be their last.”
Briggs received her bachelor of fine arts from USU in 1977 and her master of fine arts at the University of Iowa. She has taught at USU, as well as other universities around the country.
lyndim@cc.usu.edu