Discipline: Visual Art – painting

Marsia Alexander

Discipline: Visual Art – painting
Region: CALIFORNIA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1974
Marsia Alexander-Clarke was born and raised in Valparaiso, Chile, and came to the U.S. to attend high school in 1952. She received her B.A. from Park College in Kansas City in 1962, after which she traveled to New York to further her studies in art. In 1970 she went to California where she spent time developing her painting. From 1972 to 1974, Alexander-Clarke attended Claremont Graduate School, during which time her high relief paintings on paper gradually became three-dimensional. She received her M.F.A. in February 1974. A year later she was accepted at MacDowell for a two-month residency. Upon her return to California, Alexander-Clarke continued developing her sculptures, which she exhibited extensively in California and nationally. In the late 1980’s, she attended video art and poetry workshops taught by Nancy Buchanan, and was an active participant in Studio X productions at the Pasadena Community Access Corporation in Pasadena. Since then she has worked primarily in video. In 2001, she received an Individual Artist Grant from the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division and the Pasadena Arts Commission for her choral video installation, 6 in 1 to 64 CHOIR, which was exhibited in the “New Works, New Spaces” exhibit at the re-opening of the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena.

Studios

Cheney

Marsia Alexander worked in the Cheney studio.

Cheney Studio was given to MacDowell by Mrs. Benjamin P. Cheney and Mrs. Karl Kauffman. Like Barnard Studio, Cheney is a low, broadly massed bungalow. Sited on a steep westward slope, its porches are supported on wooden posts and fieldstone with lattices. Although it still retains its appealing character, the original design of the shingled building…

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