Antoinette Slick

Art entered Slick’s life early. As a child, her parents always made sure she had supplies, but when it came time for college, Slick was told she must have a vocation. At a time when the choices available to women were either teaching or nursing, she decided to pursue a career in educating students with special needs. She graduated from Kent State University in Ohio with Honors and started teaching. Marriage, a husband in school, building a business, a move to Michigan, kids — as she says, “Art was not a part of my life.” But the spark was still there, the urge to paint still smoldering.

She began taking painting classes at a community art center and with an artist friend. Family life took priority, and the painting supplies went back on the shelf. When her children were in school, she challenged herself to “get a job or get serious about painting.” She got serious about painting. She took additional workshops and began showcasing her work. Juried exhibitions and outdoor festivals followed, along with recognition. Primarily working in watercolor, she won prestigious awards and held leadership roles in art organizations.

In a move to Florida, Grace found her artistic liberation. She began to be more experimental. She began working in acrylics, which offered a much broader range of possibilities for experimentation. Slick shifted deeper into abstraction and then into non-objectivity. She “finally decided to stop giving hints -- no birds, trees, rocks, or anything.”

Slick understands, not from building her reputation, but cultivating her creativity, that dedication and levity are not mutually exclusive. Her dedication is evident in her early morning routine, rising before sunrise to paint in her home studio, which sits on the banks of the Halifax River in Ormond Beach. This dedication has resulted in a consistently strong body of work. The levity lies in the work itself, in the wickedly smart dichotomy that reveals itself in the metaphors of Slick's intelligent work.