BIOGRAPHY
Blair Robbins (Osage)
Creating art is and has been a constant in my life. I grew up in a suburb of New York City where my early impressions were colored both by the natural beauty surrounding me in a coastal Connecticut town and the intense collage of a big city full of art -- a very different setting than that of my Osage grandmother on tribal lands in Oklahoma. A defining moment in my life as a child was learning that I was adopted as an infant and was of Osage heritage on my father's side. This sparked my curiosity which in time became fulfilled.
My love for nature and the vast landscapes of the American West drew me to Seattle, where my studies focused on art and science. Working my way through college, it was not possible to fit in long studio classes by day, thus my focus shifted to science. I graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle with a B.S. in Geological Sciences. However, my heart was in art and I landed a position at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. My work involved dealing with the media and this inspired me to merge my passions for art and science through film. As a self-taught filmmaker, I traveled the western parklands extensively, observing the landscapes, flora, and fauna as I created films on nature and landscape stories. My work earned twenty-four awards in national and international film festivals including CINE Golden Eagles, Telly Awards, and Worldfest Gold. My cinematography was represented by Energy Films in Los Angeles and New York City. My film experience inspired my return to studio art. Looking through the camera lens, my senses were heightened as I marveled at the vivid colors and patterns of nature, its movements and rhythms, the play of light, the passage of time, the textures, smells, sounds, characters, and stories that emerged.
Today I am a diverse media artist. My creative process is freeform, and improvisational. My artistic sensibility reflects the diversity of media that my hands have touched. Currently, I am developing a series of wire horses, some of which are life-sized. Horses have long touched my heart. I began drawing horses as a child, inspired by their beauty and strength galloping across the vast landscapes in Western movies. With my hands, pliers, and wire cutters, I shape hardwire cloths of galvanized steel and aluminum armature wire into forms that envelope space. Working with wire is complex as it involves shaping a medium that is essentially two dimensions into a three-dimensional work enveloping space. My aim is to capture the presence of my subject. Character is not one expression, but a collage of changing expressions that project a sense of persona.
A miraculous twist in my personal story sparked a new direction in my art when I cracked the puzzle and found my birth father just after he was given only months to live. We met and his health turned. We enjoyed several years. He was deeply proud of his heritage and we spent much time in his last years sharing stories. It was a joy to discover that my grandmother, who grew up on Osage lands and is buried there, was also an artist and like me, a sculptor and painter. Coming full circle with my roots and Osage heritage has imbued my art with a sense of joy and new stories.
