Biography
Marleen Seckendorf has been making sculpture of all sizes from wearable jewelry to freestanding sculpture using metal, wood, clay, and reed for 22 years. Marleen grew up in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois where her very creative art teacher introduced her to art. Her love of art and making objects was born in her high school jewelry classes.
After graduating from high school, Marleen studied with two very well know metal smiths: Fred Fenster and Eleanor Moty at the University of Wisconsin. She received her Bachelor of Art in Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin- Madison specializing in jewelry and metalsmithing.
San Francisco
She then moved to San Francisco to apprentice with Kent Raible, a goldsmith trained in Germany that specializes in the ancient craft of 18k gold granulation. There she learned patience, concentration, and advanced metalsmithing techniques. One of the pieces that Marleen helped make is now in the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C. After four years she opened her own metalsmithing studio where she worked on sterling silver custom design jewelry, 18k gold custom design wedding rings, and a line of nature based jewelry that she sold in thirty gift stores, museum shops, and galleries across the United States. She also had her jewelry line in Viva Terra, an upscale eco friendly gift catalog. During the same period, she taught jewelry and metalsmithing at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco and the College of Marin, in Kentwood, California. Marleen was also a member of the Metal Arts Guild, a non-profit organization that promotes the metal arts education to its’ members and the public. She was the president of the Metal Arts Guild for three years.
Colorado
Marleen then moved to Colorado where she taught jewelry and metalsmithing for one year at Metropolitan State College in Denver as an adjunct professor and jewelry/ metalsmithing, drawing, and design for seven years at Thornton High School. She now teaches jewelry/ metalsmithing, ceramics, and photo at Legacy High School in Broomfield. She regularly teaches professional development classes for Adams 12 art teachers. The topics have included metal techniques such as soldering hollow forms, forging, and roller printing to how to generate ideas and themes with students in the classroom.
Exhibitions
Marleen has exhibited her work in many group shows. In the traveling group show, Sweden + USA, Marleen exhibited her enameled plant form broaches. In January of 2000, the exhibition traveled to Sculpture to Wear Gallery in Santa Monica, California, then to Velvet da Vinci Jewelry Gallery in San Francisco, and in May to Galleri Metallum in Stockholm, Sweden.
The traveling exhibition, entitled Tiaras Will Be Worn, began at Velvet da Vinci Jewelry Gallery in San Francisco in October of 2000. Marleen’s enameled floral tiara was also displayed at the 2001 SNAG conference in Richmond, Virginia, traveled to the Shaw Gallery in Northeast Harbor, Maine during the summer of 2001, then ended in New Orleans at the Thomas Mann Gallery in the fall of 2001.
In September 2001, Velvet da Vinci gallery celebrated 10 years of showcasing contemporary metalsmithing with a group show entitled Rock, Paper, Scissors where Marleen exhibited her necklace that had three flowers each holding delicate sterling silver scissors, garnet rocks, and Japanese paper. The show takes its theme from the playground hand game, interpreted by different artists.
While teaching as an adjunct professor at Metropolitan State College in 2001, Marleen exhibited two necklaces in the Art Faculty Show made out of sterling silver and 18k gold that followed the nature and plant form theme. Marleen also exhibited her clay sculptural work at the Adams 12 art teacher and student show entitled Duets. One of Marleen’s students exhibited a clay piece made out of intertwining clay hands using the theme of growth. Marleen’s piece is of a tree branching out holding illuminated red lanterns. Stamped into the tree are sentences of art advocacy and the four state standards.
Influences
Teaching students art is one of Marleen’s influences and passions in life. She sees the transformation, illumination, and reflection that occur for students when they dive into the art process. She is very grateful to be able to work with students on a daily basis and hopes that they gain from her as much as she gains from every one of them as they embark on their creative journey.
Other influences and themes are forms, textures, and patterns of growth or erosion from nature. An additional theme that Marleen works with is that of connection or disconnection: in relationships with others and oneself, and from the past to the present. Another area of inquiry is of blood molecules and synapses within the human body. Blood is a complex chemical soup made up of water-based plasma, several types of cells and a wide variety of molecules. It serves many purposes in the body, from transporting oxygen and nutrients to cells to allowing cell-to-cell communication through the use of hormone molecules. For a multicellular organism, blood is essential, as it’s the only way to connect cells far from the lungs to a source of oxygen, and without it, cells couldn’t communicate or coordinate their activities.(http://www.livestrong.com/article/169321-blood-cells-and-molecules/#ixzz1Ra8ijSGl) Synapses are essential to neuronal function: neurons are cells that are specialized to pass signals to individual target cells, and synapses are the means by which they do so. (Wikipedia).
Artists that have influenced Marleen’s work are the forged sculptured steel gates of Albert Paley. He tapers and twists metal in a very sensual way that is also strong at the same time. The wooden painted and treated surfaces of Marcia McDonald’s wooden and metal jewelry is spectacular. She uses color and texture in very unpredictable yet in also congruent ways. Patrick Dougherty's sculptures are very influential. They are constructed on site for 3 weeks, made entirely from woven saplings. Dougherty is based in North Carolina and has constructed over 200 twig art installations all over the world. His work alludes to cocoons, nests, hives and lairs created by animals, as well as woven baskets, haystacks and primitive huts. Another influential artist is the environmental sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy. The seasons and weather determine the materials and the subject matter of his projects. With no preconceived ideas about what he will create, Goldsworthy relies on what nature will give him.
