MY ART RELATED AUTOBIOGRAPHY
BY CAROLYN SIMS

Thank you for your interest in my work. I have had an affinity for the creative side of life for as long as I can remember. In retrospect I realize that it was the rich country life that nourished my imagination and left me with a deep appreciation for life and the beauty of nature and creativity.

As a child growing up in rural Mississippi, a “suburb” of Brandon which is a “suburb” of Jackson, I spent many hot barefooted days with friends and cousins, inventing games, creating plays, toys and the like. We would act out plays in full costumes that we made from objects found around the house and in the woods. If the play called for a house or a town, we built one. If we needed roads, we chopped down bushes, grass and small trees to make them. (Please don’t remind my folks of the over dramatized funeral we had for a dead bird that we found).

Other times we would explore the woods, follow a stream to see where it would take us, catch strange creatures at the edge of my parent's pond or search the woods and roadsides for plums, berries, grapes and muscadines. I often call upon these experiences to capture a mood when I am painting.

My parents, R.S. and Ina Bell Cannon, were and still are very supportive and encouraging. They invested in a professional art course for me when I was in my early teens, which gave me a good foundation. They were public school teachers (presently retired), and gave me many opportunities to practice and improve my skills especially when they needed bulletin boards for their classrooms.

My junior high and High-school years were spent in Jackson schools. I particularly remember the unusual art projects at Christ the King Catholic School, where I spent 6th, 7th and 8th grades. In 9th grade at Brinkley High School, Paul Campbell, who is now a prominent artist in Jackson, was my art teacher and a great inspiration.

I majored in my second favorite subject, biology, when I attended Alcorn (A&M College at the time) University. They had no fine arts major, which I would have preferred, but I was on scholarship so it didn’t make sense to go elsewhere. It was during my stint as a biology teacher in the Detroit Public School system (my first position after college, Redford High School) that I took an art course at a community center on the East side of Detroit. The instructor taught me oil painting techniques and I've been hooked ever since. The sad thing is that I can’t remember his name. I would like to send him a note of thanks.

While completing a Masters of Arts degree at the University of Detroit I got married and moved to Chicago, then to a suburb of Chicago, Country Club Hills, where my beautiful twin daughters, Alecia and Tracey, were born and were we presently reside. Strangely enough, having two babies seemed not to leave a lot of time nor the inclination for creative endeavors. My girls are young ladies now and out of the nest, so I have resumed my oil painting and crafts.

Even though I started painting over 20 years ago, I only began selling my originals and reproductions in November of 1993. I also write poetry, work with stained glass, woodworking, clay sculpture, doll designs, handmade note cards, and do other crafts. I prefer to work with portraits, stillifes and abstracts, although I have done some landscapes and seascapes. In my spare time I teach high school science in the Chicago Public School system.

Accomplishments and Exhibitions

I have been a member and an officer of the Creative Artist Association, Inc., since its beginning in January or 2005. I am the “Artist in Residence” writer for “The NewNegro Magazine. Some of the places at which my work has been displayed are: Blackberry Harvest Doll House Museum Shop in Homewood, IL, Martha’s Crib in Lincoln Mall, Matteson, IL, Black Expressions Book Store in Homewood and Evergreen Park, IL, DuSable Museum gift shop and art shows, Annie Lee and Friends Christmas art show and in the gift shop, the N.A.A.C.P. office in Chicago, A.K.A. African-American Art and Craft Show, College of DuPage in DuPage, IL, Expo for Today’s Black Woman in Chicago, Art in the Park in Oak Park, IL, Seaway Nation Bank and their Arts and Crafts Show in Chicago, Custer’s Last Stand Festival of the Arts in Evanston, IL, the Quaker Oats Company in Chicago,  James R. Thompson Center in Chicago, Chicago Renaissance: A Festival Celebrating African American Art, held at Chicago State University in Chicago, Melvin King's RAW art shows, South Shore Cultural Center in Chicago, the Murphy Hill gallery in Chicago. I have been accepted to participate in the Chicago Art Open in October of this year, 2007.

I won an Award of Distinction for my oil paintings at the DuSable Museum of African American History in 2003. My paintings, "Passion," hung in the museum the month of September, 2003 as a result. I exhibited as a solo artist at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2005. In February, 2006 my work is exhibited at the Richard J. Daley Center, The ETA Creative Arts Foundation, and the South Shore Cultural Center in Chicago.

Media: I appeared as a guest artist on the Jennie’s Reflections television show, and on the WKKC radio station in January and February, 2006, respectively. I am the featured artist in the June 2007 issue of “The NewNegro Magazine.

Carolyn Sims