Margaret Drake Bio and Artist's Statement
Bronze sculpture, Western art, human and animal, horse art, equine art, equine sculpture, horse sculpture, sculptures of dancers, bronze dancers, fine art, sculpture, bronzes
Margaret lives on a ranch near Glen Rose, Texas. Originally hailing from a small ranching community in northwestern Colorado, she has been around horses most of her life. After retiring from the medical industry in 2008, she devoted herself to a year of studying three-dimensional portraiture. After that, she focused on figurative art, taking multiple workshops at Scottsdale Artist's School. She works with both water- and oil-based clays, and creates realistic figures of the athletic human form, horses and other animals.
Her work has been accepted into juried competitions such as: Bosque Art Classic, the American Academy of Equine Art Museum show, The Texas Masters of Fine Arts and Crafts, the Breckenridge Fine Art Show, the Mountain Oyster Show, Little Rock's "Sculpture at the River market", Cattlemen’s Western Art Show Loveland Sculpture in the Park, and the Museum of Western Art
Awards include "Best of Show" 2016, at Breckenridge Fine Art ShowIn 2017, the Museum of Western Art in Kerrville, Texas acquired one of Margaret's pieces for permanent exhibition. In 2019 and 2020, Margaret was selected to be one of two sculptors who taught elite art students at the Western Art Academy at Schreiner University, Kerrville Texas.
Artist's Statement
What is "ART" if it doesn't arouse strong emotion from the viewer?
I strive to express strength, grace, motion, rhythm, and beauty. Working in the mediums of both water- and oil-based clays, I look for topics that will allow me to express symmetry, balance, rhythm, and motion, as well as beauty. My subject matter comes from my own imagination. I have always been an animal lover, and I have always been fascinated with the grace, beauty, and strength of true athletes.
My favorite tool is a kitchen paring knife - because almost all that needs to be expressed in the clay can be expressed with slices and angles made by that knife.
Taking an idea from my imagination through the foundry process is so very much like having a child. That is what art is about. Creating life where there was only clay before. There is beauty and symmetry everywhere out there, waiting to be captured and celebrated.
