Indira Bailey: The Evolution Of An Artist

Indira Bailey: Evolution of an Artist

The Evolution of an Artist is about artist Indira Bailey’s childhood artwork. This artist journey starts from preschool to post art school. The artwork shows the primary drawings of a little girl, through the tweens in middle school, high school, art school and professional career. Indira pursued her love of art, she became an artist and art teacher. The array of artwork is fun, colorful and the passion of a little girl.

Preschool

I do not remember too much about preschool except, one of my first drawing was of myself, the trees in my yard, my house and an attempt at my zip code. I drew another picture not shown in my presentation of my parents, my brother, my dog and my house in colorful stick

My first art teacher was an older white man and he taught me how to shade. I remember learning how to draw ribbon type curves and shading them to look three-dimensional. I started to see my art skills evolving and I knew I needed to do something. In the Ebony and Jet magazines they would have “Draw Me” ads, which read, “Over $8,000 in Prizes, monthly prizes, Draw Your Favorite!” On the ad were several characters some were: a pirate, “Tippy” the frog, “Lucky” the duck, and many more. They had two options send your drawing in and get prize money or enter the classes through the mail (pre-online art classes). After drawing these characters for a while, I got up the nerve to draw the “Lucky” and submitted to the Art Instruction School in Minneapolis, MN. I didn’t want the money even though I needed it. I lied about my age, because you have to be 14 to receive the classes. One evening I received a phone call and a man on the older side stated I had won the drawing contest. I was ecstatic, finally a real art class, what I didn’t know is you had to pay for the classes. The Art Instruction School would send you drawing to draw and you would send them back for feedback. Unfortunately, my parents did not have the money for the classes and since I lied about my age, I didn’t get the money nor did I receive the classes. I was upset, but it didn’t stop me from drawing, I knew I was good at something

In high school, I had a two black female art teacher, Miss Williamson in the 9th grade and Miss Foreman in the 10th grade. My high school was very large and the ninth graders had their own building called “the old building.” All the art classes where in the new building which made me feel like an upper classman because I got to enter the building. These two women were the first black females artists I could relate to in the art world. During the late 1980’s you did not see black females artists or artworks. Whenever I saw black art I absorb it. Miss Foreman taught me how to draw real objects and the still life in the presentation is one example. In her class, I learn how to draw a real person and experiment with different art materials. It was then I made the decision to take art very seriously and make it an art career. I knew of very few black artists especially females but I wanted to be one. Realizing that a fine artists was not a permeate job, I decided to study commercial art. I had to make a hard decision, I really liked my high school art teacher but I didn’t feel the traditional art classes in my high school could prepare me for a commercial art career. I entered the Commercial Art class as the Union County Vocational School share-time program with for high school students. This program transported me from high school to the vocational school for my junior and senior years. I learn art from the business