Today we’d like to introduce you to Courtney Nicole Googe.
Courtney Nicole, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
Growing up, I never stayed in one place very long. My dad was in the navy and I had no siblings, which meant I spent a lot time in my blanket-tent, built in some corner of my room or closet, creating toys and stories based on my own little world.
The longest place we lived was in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I graduated high school there and began undergraduate art classes at William Carey College on the Coast in Gulfport. It was a great campus, right on the beach. In 2005 I had two trimesters until I graduated with my BFA. Instead, Hurricane Katrina came. The campus was destroyed. Professors lost homes, students never returned, that campus was never rebuilt. The national guard let a few of us drive up the beach to the campus a week after the hurricane made landfall to see if there was anything we could salvage. It was like the universe took a giant wooden spoon and stirred up the coast until it was all mixed together like ambrosia salad. Nothing was where it should be.
My husband’s office building was completely gutted as well and we were wondering what to do. He got a job in Laramie, Wyoming and I transferred to the University of Wyoming after the birth of our first daughter. It took me an additional six years to get my BFA.
Now in Mississippi, I was concentrating in ceramics and sculpture. However, before I began classes at UWYO, in attempt to manage my postpartum depression, I taught myself printmaking… in the kitchen. Relief printing did more for me personally than the prescription medication! When the time came to enter the BFA program in Wyoming, I switched to printmaking.
During my time at UWYO, I was able to take advantage of the study abroad program and spent a month in northern India. Despite curry for breakfast six days a week, I fell in love with the experience and it reminded me that I don’t like staying in one place for long, rather I love seeking new places and adventures.
We moved to Arlington, Texas five years ago, after the birth of our second daughter. I attended graduate school at the University of Dallas in Irving. There I received both my MA and my MFA; and I am grateful for the experience, the professors (Phil Shore, Dan Hammett, Dr. Cathy Caesar, Estelle Fonteneau; especially Kim Owens and Steven Foutch), the staff, and the fellow graduate students.
Just this past July I attended an artist residency in Crete, Greece for two and a half weeks. I was honored and excited to be accepted as one of fourteen residents (artists, writers, photographers, and a musician) from across the world. While I was there I completed a few new pieces and I am so excited to continue working, inspired by Crete’s history, my own adventures there, and the wonderful community and people that I met. Currently, I am teaching art appreciation at a couple campuses in the Metroplex and printmaking at Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts.
We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I consider multidisciplinary artist although I usually introduce myself as a print maker. In my studio practice I often include drawing, collage, assemblage, photography, digital work, and performance in some manner with my prints. As mentioned before, I try to travel as often as possible to advance my own story and stimulate new imagery. In addition to the visits to India in 2011 and Greece this past summer, I developed a 5-day performance piece around a trip to Roswell, New Mexico in 2017.
Simply put, I want to live a life interesting enough that someone would want to share it with others. I seek out adventure, new experiences, and interesting people. I strive to live in the margins, or in that undefinable gray area between the traditional and the experimental, the expected and the surprising.
And I have a slew of even more (TRUE) stories that are fun to tell! This is just a sampling… For example, on my 10th birthday, I auditioned for the part of young Jenny in a little movie called Forrest Gump. I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast at the time, and I made the first cut. My mother still has a portion of the script that I was giving for my screen test. It was the bus scene… “You can sit here if you want…” And of course, I wanted to run away and join the circus- the trapeze was my favorite.
Or when I came in fifth place in a fencing tournament in high school, afterward I got the part of Hamlet in the high school spring production of Fifteen-Minute Hamlet, was told I was too profound in the delivery of my speeches, and got shoes thrown at me when I started “dripping magnolias” on stage. That summer I assisted a fencing summer camp. I don’t recommend getting too close to six-year-old with sabers!
Sneaking my pet hedgehog into my college Arabic class and trying to explain (in Arabic!) why I did that. Just about everything that happened in India… waking up with a giant frog curled up in the small of my back… speeding through the jungle at twilight (because it was hunting time for the tigers) while singing Backstreet Boys, “I Want it That Way.” … crashing into a woman on my broken bicycle and have her yell at me in Bengali… becoming severely dehydrated during a 24-hour train ride across north India, because I was too nervous to use the train toilet….
Traveling to Roswell, NM, and playing in the desert by myself. Getting lost at dawn in the oil fields of the southwestern desert; feeling the car start sinking in the sand… Taking my first pole dancing class, and realizing I should have taken some Dramamine first. I ended up falling in love with the movement, the music, the skill, and the strong women there…. Remember that desire to join the circus?
And in Greece: running around Athens for 8 hours without a map or a car…. Sleeping outside on the deck of the ferry to the islands just so I could listen to the waves of the Mediterranean Sea…. Having an anxiety attack in the Libyan Sea when I thought I could swim to an island…. Realizing I can do whatever I want, so long as I am willing to work for it. And so, can everyone else. Just because the world wants us, nay, needs us to be one thing doesn’t mean you have to listen! Live the life you want, not just the life you’re told to have.
This passionate philosophy of mine is translated in my art as I work to find balance between the expected, recognizable forms of the figure and our earthly boundaries; with the abstract, obscure forms I can only see in my mind… my desires, my fears, my memories, my spirit, my soul, which is more real than any concrete shell or world it must inhabit.
Science fiction, fantasy, circus, and carnivalesque themes inspire my surreal autobiographical illustrations which I construct with a variety of material. Assorted papers, charcoal, paint, and ink are used to create both 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional work. I am interested in pursuing the “image-object” and other presentations of art that exist in between- or, on the margins of- traditional expectations and experimental approaches. In addition to studio art, I also have some background in Ancient art history, basic Arabic, aerial dance, culinary arts, fencing, marine biology, and museum practices.
How can artists connect with other artists?
Be available. Step out of your comfort zone. Yes, you want to be in your studio making work; but, something that I was told many, many years ago has stuck with me: that you can’t make art about life if you don’t go live it. Live life, go to places, galleries, museums, community events… Introduce yourself, even if it’s hard. Be genuine. Don’t worry about “networking,” just focus on making friends and building relationships.
Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I have a website: cargocollective.com/courtneynicolegooge and an Instagram: @courtneynicolegooge where folks can view selected pieces as well as check out works in progress and “behind the scenes” inspirations and working in the studio. There is some work on Artsy, too.
I have had my work published in The Hand Magazine a few times and this fall I will be participating in two exhibitions for the Mid-America Print Council conference (MAPC). Since living and working in DFW, I have shown a bit all over Dallas, but often in the Oakcliff / Bishop Arts District neighborhood. Last year I completed a mural next to Emporium Pies on Bishop Ave. Earlier this year, my MFA thesis work was up at Jen Mauldin Gallery; in fact, Jen has become a good friend over the past year. Matt Bagley of Iron Frog Press introduced me to Steve Cruz at Mighty Fine Arts Gallery, who has since been a great supporter and I have had my work in his gallery a few times.
It was also great fun to participate in last year’s even in the Cedars district, Bring Your Own Beamer. Rachel Rogerson, executive director of the MAC, was kind enough to invite me as she knew I was beginning to explore combining printmaking and animation.
Caroline Belanger and Nancy Cohen Israel curated a show last year, and I was delighted to be chosen with 27 others emerging DFW artists at Open Space. Additionally, I was honored to be included in the spring exhibition Women’s Work at UTD’s new space: SP/N Gallery.
Contact Info:
- Website: cargocollective.com/courtneynicolegooge
- Email: courtneyngooge@gmail.com
- Instagram: @courtneynicolegooge
Image Credit:
Image Credits
Mudhouse Residency Studio / July 2018
Photographer: Dayvid LeMmon
Vertigo Charade SpeedBump2018 / May 2018
Photographer: Scott McDaniel
Courtney Nicole Googe / July 2018
West TX / June 2017
180 TX / June 2017
Southeastern Desert NM / June 2017
Southeastern Desert NM Camera / June 2017
Agios Ioannis Crete / July 2018
Photographer: myself
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