I teach the art history courses at Warren
Wilson College primarily the art history western survey and
world art. I also enjoy teaching the Contemporary Art Issues
class, which looks at the most contemporary artists and is
organized according to themes. For example, this year we are
addressing issues of place, spirituality, identity, and consumerism
in art.
My research which focuses on women artists from the nineteenth
to the twenty-first century informs the class room experiences
in the art history classes.
In the past my research has focused on the portraits and writing
of the nineteenth-century artist and diva of sorts Marie Bashkirtseff.
Currently I am exploring connections between contemporary art
and music by writing a paper on women rockers and their art
work. I will also be chairing a session on this topic for the
next Southeastern College Art meeting.
As far as hobbies, my passion at the moment is to create
images written, drawn, or photographed of my children. I am
fascinated by artists such as Sally Mann and how she represents
her children. Since I have a little boy and new daughter,
I spend a lot of my time trying to capture their childhood
through sketches, photographs, and journal writing.
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Marie Bashkirtseff
My interest in Bashkirtseff began ten years ago when
I was teaching a course about women artists. I saw her
self-portrait with a palette and thought her to be very
beautiful and I read a portion of her journal. I was
impressed with how she wrote so candidly about her experiences
as a young woman artist in Paris. Here was an artist
who recognized the discrimination against women artists,
but chose to fight against it and to produce wonderful
paintings. I was also impressed with how seamlessly
Bashkirtseff combined her interests in writing, painting,
and music. I have sought to do that in my own field
art history. Like Bashkirtseff I am also a singer, and
had thought at one point to pursue this interest more
extensively.
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| Marie Bashkirtseff: "Parisienne", 1882 |
When I was looking for a dissertation topic, the following
year, I decided to write on Marie Bashkirtseff. Somehow
I wanted to analyze her self-portraits in light of her
journal entries. I read Colette Cosnier's biography
of Bashkirtseff, which was fascinating, and began conducting
research on her paintings. I was fortunate enough to
receive a fellowship to pursue my research and spent
three months reading her original journal at the Bibliotheque
Nationale in Paris. That was a wonderful experience
as I felt that I was reading someone's diary. It was
not work, but play to me. I also visited her tomb and
studied similar edifices in the cemeteries of Paris.
I was fortunate enough in the following year to be
invited to present a paper on Bashkirtseff at the Conference
in Nice. Everyone was very supportive and enthusiastic
about my work. I met Bashkirtseff admirers from many
countries and saw the retrospective of her work and
photographs!
Having turned in my dissertation on Bashkirtseff's
self-portraits in 1998, I am now trying to find a publisher
for my manuscript based on this work about Bashkirtseff
and the Masquerade. I continue to enjoy analyzing her
work and hope to continue my research in the future.
Et voilą!
Louly Konz.
July 5, 2001
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| Marie Bashkirtseff: "
Self-portrait with a palette", 1880 |
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| Marie Bashkirtseff: "Woman
with Lilacs", 1881 |
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