Building Community SHE BRINGS ART AND PEOPLE TOGETHER
together to put on the California Craft Series, a biennial show at the Crocker. We did everything: We selected the pieces for exhibition, collected the pieces, built the display stands, hung the work, painted the pedestals and did the catalog. Now, we focus on raising money for the Crocker’s endowments.”
BY JESSICA LASKEY MEET YOUR NEIGHBOR
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’ve known I was an artist from the time I was a child,” Connie Spickelmier says. “I always loved finding a sharp pencil and a little pad of paper around the house. I would draw constantly.” Spickelmier’s strong sense of self has served her well throughout her career as both an artist and educator. The West Texas native—whose subtle drawl still softly accents her sweet speaking voice—taught drawing and painting, ceramics, design, computer animation and video production at San Juan High School for 34 years. (She earned her BFA in studio art and art education from Texas Tech University and her teaching credential from UC Davis.)
Spickelmier’s strong sense of self has served her well throughout her career as both an artist and educator. “My mother was always very supportive of me as an artist,” Spickelmier says. “Unfortunately for her, when I finished at Texas Tech, I literally picked a place on the map, which happened to be Davis, Calif., loaded up a U-Haul truck and moved out here.” Spickelmier’s get-up-and-go spirit has clearly rubbed off on
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The group also sponsors the I Can Do That! Artists-in-Schools program, which teams up professional artists and classroom teachers to help students achieve their artistic and developmental goals.
Connie Spickelmier
her daughter, a McClatchy High School graduate who now lives in Australia with her husband and two daughters. (“It’s my payback for moving cross-country after college,” Spickelmier says with an infectious laugh.) Though she might not get to see her grandchildren as often as she’d like, Spickelmier keeps herself plenty busy with her clay sculpture and watercolor work (which she
calls “whimsical allegories”), as well as with Creative Arts League of Sacramento, for which she’s served as president for the past three years. “I first got involved with CALS in 1986 as a young kid,” says Spickelmier, who was only 24 when she bought the Elmhurst home that she still occupies. “This group of Sacramento women artists took me under their wing, and we worked
CALS was founded in 1952 to find venues and host exhibitions for Sacramento’s emerging art scene. Now, the all-volunteer organization works with the Crocker Art Museum Foundation to raise money for the CALS Endowment Fund and the recently created education-focused CALS Lois and David Warren Fund. Spickelmier and her members keep the endowments funded with four key events throughout the year: the annual Crocker Holiday Artisan Market at Scottish Rite NEIGHBOR page 35