Meet Vera Gierke | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Vera Gierke and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Vera, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
My art career didn’t start as a business, it started long ago as an art interest. But since I had previously had a small business, I decided to turn my art interest into another business, joining together my art interest in everyday life with the work aspects of a business.

My work/life balance is hard to distinguish as to what is work and what is life, they have both melded together. After moving to Rhode Island in the mid 1990’s, I began taking a large variety of art classes at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence and with local artists, expanding my art interest. By the early 2000’s I co-founded a lollipops business that combined visual and creative skills in the lollipop designs and packaging together with the business skills of marketing in the quickly developing online and social media world. That was the work part. The life balance part was that I was always trying and exploring new forms of artistic expression.

Upon discovering collage, that became my main focus. Much of the collage art that I was creating was from what I was experiencing in life, as many of my collages have a connection to my life. I’m always looking for life visuals that I might want to use in my art, thinking of which photos work as a basis for a collage. This is what I would call part of the work, but it’s also the life part, they’re inseparable. I registered my art as a business and progressed to promoting it through social media and local outlets, and that work part sometimes takes more than its share of the balance. However, it’s crucial, but it’s also rewarding when the recognition comes.

After moving to Providence in the mid 2000’s I joined the Providence Art Club, the second oldest art club in the US, and that has become a significant part of my artistic life. I have a studio in one of the historic buildings owned by the Art Club and that gives me regular access and exposure to varied and curated art. Having a studio at the Club was invaluable during Covid as I could work there while at the same time enjoy some pandemic-controlled life with art friends; once again, work and life merged together. But more than that, it’s the opportunity to explore new art endeavors as I am now doing with print making. I’ve became involved in printing on marble as part of my volunteering with Farm Fresh Rhode Island, using printmaking to add artistic value to remnant prices of marble that were headed to the Rhode Island State House, another work/life balance.

With our current lives being constantly connected especially with social media, there’s little separation between work and life. Fortunately, with having an art career, my work is part of my everyday life. I sometimes jokingly say that everything I know I’ve learned through social media. It’s a stretch, but there’s a modicum of truth to that, as I am always happily “working”!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My small messy studio at the Providence Art Club shows that I’ve worked in many different media with varying degrees of satisfaction or success. The most rewarding for me has been my collage work which I describe as “a fanciful view of a realistic subject”. It’s not abstract, I recreate an image by using quite varied pieces of paper, often chosen for their relevance to the subject of the collage. The pieces are rarely just a solid color, they have mixtures, tones, textures, words and interesting variety. I have piles of magazines in my studio, and when working on a collage, the surfaces in my studio are full of torn and sorted pieces of paper, and I usually know where everything is.

When starting a collage, I draw the image on the canvas or panel board, then look for pieces of paper to create the edges. As I find what I want, I lay the pieces on my drawn surface to build the form. When I’m satisfied with how it looks, I glue the pieces to the surface. I then keep looking for more pieces with just the right color and message to fill in the collage. When a collage is finished, I spray it with a UV protection archival varnish.

I’ve been putting a hidden shoe (or several) in my collages and maintain a box of shoes collected in many sizes and colors. I create my signature with letters from my source material, and have a box for that, too. Each signature is unique. For my subway series I started collecting images of people and I have 2 boxes for those.

When viewers look at my art, they often come in close and look for the varied paper pieces that I’ve used. There are often recognizable objects and images in the collage, or some wording that relates to my message. I also encourage the viewer to look for a hidden shoe. It’s a fun search, and it sometimes takes me a while to find them again! I urge viewers to spend time looking closely to find what I’ve incorporated into the finished image and I often find viewers pointing to and touching the surface. That’s encouraged!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Providence and Rhode Island have an interesting history that is still very evident today. Providence was a very active location for the triangle trade, bringing substantial wealth to the four Brown brothers. They owned several mansions that are well preserved today, and they founded Brown University. We would visit the mansions that line Benefit St where old homes have been preserved and tour the rest of the street, which is called Mile of History. We would then visit the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum with its 18th and 19th century collections, decorative arts galleries and European galleries, as well as other and changing exhibitions. Next we would visit the Providence Art Club with the three galleries that are always open to the public, and see the buildings that house artist studios, all historic and well preserved buildings. On certain evenings in the summer we would watch WaterFire, an internationally recognized work of art with sparkling bonfires in braziers that appear to be floating on the city rivers.

What is little known about Rhode Island is that it was the birthplace of the industrial Revolution in the United States. Slater Mill in Pawtucket was the first water powered textile mill in America and is open for visitors. We would make a trip to Newport with its nautical history and active waterfront, and tour one or more of the mansions from the Gilded Age and walk the Cliff Walk along the rocky shoreline between the mansions and the water. If it’s nice weather, we would go to one of the many beaches for a swim and to watch the surfers.

Rhode Island is also the home to Johnson & Wales University so we have a steady flow of new cooks and chefs entering our food scene. We have many excellent fine dining restaurants, the Federal Hill area features excellent Italian dining, and of course we have many seafood restaurants from casual clam shack to fine dining, many of which are on the water’s edge.

It’s a small state, but it has lots of shore line, some sandy, some rocky, with a bay cutting through the middle of it, and Mount Hope Bay and the Seekonk River creating more shoreline and separated pieces of land. It’s a delightfully varied place to visit.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I wouldn’t be where I am with my art if it were not for the Providence Art Club, the second oldest in the US, for its very creative members of so many different skills, and for the staff and management, especially the gallery staff. The Club offers a wide range of classes open to the public as well as members. Beside members’ shows, the Club has several national open calls. In November and December the Club has the Little Picture Show & Sale which is the oldest and the largest in the country.

Most of all I want to thank my two daughters Erica Gierke and Emily Gierke for their constant support and encouragement, and their willingness to listen as I voice out loud my thoughts and concerns.

Website: https://www.veragierke.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/veragierkestudio/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/veragierkestudio?_kx

Image Credits
Michael Rose, Annette Dunkleman