The Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, April 26, 2012

AT LEFT: Shirley WALLACE is shown with some of the outdoor scuplture at the Ringgold County Hospital, another of the public art projects she has shared.

Painting the new six foot by 12-foot mural at the American Legionin Mount Ayr is just the latest of many projects that Benton artist Shirley WALLACE has completed. If you’ve seen the metal figuresof a family outside the Ringgold County Hospital then you havesome familiarity with more of the work of WALLACE.

Currently living in Benton, she has done numerous projects over the years for various organizations within the county and beyond. It was dif?cult for WALLACE to pinpoint when her love of art began, but she surmised that it migh thave started in high school when she was provided the opportunity to meet Canadian artist Robert BATEMAN. As a environmentalist and naturalist, nature was a central part of BATEMAN'S work, and WALLACE decided to make nature her inspiration as well. She continues to paint natural scenes today, naming it as her favorite subject matter.

After finishing school, WALLACE continued to share her love of art by becoming an art instructor in Grant City, MO, teaching kindergarten through high school seniors for 30 years. As an art teacher, she continued to produce work of her own in many different mediums such as oil paint, water color, mosaic, acrylics, and ceramics, among others.

"My water colors are my favorite," says WALLACE. "They're so spontaneous. I can do them in such a short time."

Her devotion to art opened other doors for her as well. Aside from being commissioned for various projects, she was also invited by the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. to go there and do a three-day seminar on teaching about the holocaust through art. The seminar was aimed at general educators as well as art instructors.

As a veteran herself who had been stationed in Frankfurt, Germany, she had witnessed some of the horrors of war first-hand. She used to go out with evacuation teams and bring in patients to receive medical attention. This experience helped her speak knowledgeably on the topic for her seminar and also in?uenced the subject matter she painted in the mural at the American Legion.

In October of 2010, the National Art Education Association also selected her and a few others to go to Johannesburg and Capetown, South Africa. The purpose of the trip was for the group to get a first-hand look at the kind of education being offered to students in South Africa, or the shortage there of in highly populated areas. WALLACE's group was also responsible for assisting South African education programs in getting books which are very expensive in Africa.

"We were in one school where the extent of their whole art library was in one house in one room, and it was the largest one in South Africa," WALLACE recalls.

Although her tour of South Africa was an eye-opening experience in many ways, one of the things that really stood out to WALLACE was seeing how willing the children there were to learn. Though they were deprived of many of the resources that so many American students take for granted, their minds hungered for knowledge and they were eager to learn whatever they could. WALLACE remembers being pleasantly surprised by the way South African students held such esteem for people who had an education or a profession. She wishes that her American students back home could learn from these kids' example.

"When I first started teaching, there was such a willingness to learn and a lot of that has been lost," she remarked.

WALLACE, along with four others who attended the 2010 trip to South Africa, was able to experience African artistry for a second time when she attended a workshop at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, KS. The workshop was sponsored by a grant for the National Endowment for the Arts and featured some artists from Ghana who taught attendees about their traditional bronze casting, glass bead-making, food, daily life and what they did to make a living with their crafts. A Ghanian potter also came in and formed pottery with nothing but her hands, which was remarkable to American potters who often utilize tools like molds and potter's wheels.

These days, WALLACE continues to take commissions, some of them for organizations within southwest Iowa. Aside from the metal figures in front of Ringgold County Hospital and the mural at the American Legion, she has also done a painting for a museum in Ellston and the Redding Frontier Hall.

Many years ago she also did a cover for a Southern Iowa tourism newspaper. This newspaper was distributed in rest stops throughout the area so that travelers could see what was going on in different parts of the state.

When asked whether she had any advice to offer other aspiring professional artists, WALLACE had these words to share: "Just keepworking. There will be opportunities out there."

Photograph courtesy of Mount Ayr Record News

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2012