Today we’d like to introduce you to Dr. Cecelia Joyce Price.
Dr. Price, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I have taken most of the following text directly from my website at cjoyceprice.com.
WHISPERED INSPIRATIONS ART STUDIO – PAINTINGS INSPIRED BY GOD’S STILL, SMALL VOICE
In August 2003, after an exhausting week, I lounged in bed one Saturday morning and flipped mindlessly through the TV channels. For some reason, I stopped on a channel where a lady was painting, and I watched her intently. And then I heard it. The voice said to me clearly, “You can do that.” I sat straight up in the bed, and I wondered if I had imagined hearing it. Convinced that the voice was real, I ordered the set of paints right then and there by phone.
I told my husband about it later, and he chuckled at the story. By the time the paints arrived in the mail, I was convinced I had imagined what I heard, so I put the box somewhere without opening it. A few weeks later, my husband came home with a huge box. It was an easel. I opened the paints that day, and I have been painting ever since. To this day, I believe God was speaking to me through His whisper, inspiring me to paint. Now, I love creating scenes that communicate love in many of its forms.
It all actually made sense, though it never occurred to me that I would have this trait. As a teen, my father painted backdrops for his high school plays. In his early career, he was a high school art teacher, and in his twenties, he painted a self-portrait and a portrait of my mother. Those portraits have been hanging in their house for nearly 50 years. And so, I’ve always known that my father could draw and paint. But if you had asked me before 2003 if I could do the same, I would have laughed and said absolutely not.
In fact, in sixth grade, I recall drawing a particular piece for art class, and my teacher was not impressed. I wasn’t hurt by that experience, but I subconsciously decided that art wasn’t my thing. So I didn’t pursue it, and I did not take another art class until 2003. (The power of a teacher. But that is another topic.) I think the Lord decided to make it plain to me when I was 37—maybe if He didn’t tell me then, I might not have ever known.
Perhaps. But I am so glad He whispered to me that Saturday, and my father could not be more proud.
I studied for a short time with Jerry Yarnell, a wildlife artist, and I created some of my older pieces while I worked with him in and around Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Some of the older pieces on my site are scenes I painted using his books and videos. He was, and is, a phenomenal teacher in that his teaching style is easy going and effective. He gives all of his students permission to post and sell whatever they paint while learning from him.
Later, I searched for learning opportunities closer to home and discovered Visual Expressions Creative Arts School (VECAS) in Cedar Hill, Texas. For the last several years, I have been a student of some of the finest painting teachers in the area: Kelli Howie, June Holloway, and Robin Ingle who is the owner of VECAS.
In 2012, Robin invited me to conduct art parties and to become the children’s painting teacher. I agreed, and a few years later, I took on the teens’ painting class as well. Now, I enjoy inspiring young artists. They create and take home little masterpieces every week.
I have been a writer for Dallas Art News, an online publication that highlights the latest art scenes in Dallas Fort Worth and surrounding areas. See my contributions here: http://www.dallasartnews.com/author/ceceliaprice/. I have also been a member of the DeSoto Art League and Visual Expressions Art Gallery.
I love teaching, learning, and leading. I taught ninth grade English for five years, spent six years as an assistant principal, and I served 13 years as an upper elementary principal. I also volunteered as the director of Vacation Bible School at my home church for 13 years. For five years, I taught pre-service teachers in the Teacher Education and Administration Department at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, and I also worked full time on my doctorate there. In May 2017, I graduated with a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction and with a concentration in language and literacy. My areas of interest are teaching English language arts using the arts and other modes and pre-service and in-service teacher education.
I am a member of Concord Church in Dallas, Texas. Johnson T. Price and I have been married twenty-one years, and I love my friends and family, particularly my precious niece Joni, who is five years old and otherwise known as “My Punkin.”
Each year since 2010, I have designed Christmas cards and sent them to friends and family around the country. Some of the cards were hand-made individually – a lot of work, but it was a labor of love. I have made up to 160 of these to give away. Each was hand painted and assembled so there are hundreds of original works in people’s homes around the country. Other Christmas cards I have made were prints of paintings I completed. All of the cards – whether individually made or printed copies of my paintings – included my original poetry that relates to or is based on the Christmas story in the Bible.
Kelli Howie, one of my instructors and a good friend taught me to experiment with abstracts (I included a couple of these photos). I enjoy creating them though not as much as I enjoy painting figures/people and scenes. I have also done encaustics. Encaustic is a technique that involves using a heated wax mixture and paints to create a design on a surface. In fact, one year my Christmas card was an encaustic – it was one that I created individually for about 160 friends and family. I have included an encaustic landscape in the photos entitled “Midnight on the Lake.”
My website bio includes information about my other professional life as an educator. Now that I have graduated, I will be working in the fall at El Centro College, part of the Dallas County Community College District. My aspirations include publishing more articles, becoming an assistant professor, and, of course, painting, painting, painting and continuing to engage in meaningful projects related to my artwork.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
My biggest challenge is that I am a one-person small business, so I have no staff and little assistance outside of occasional volunteers. Usually, these volunteers are my life-long friends and my family members! This, of course, means that in addition to painting, I am responsible for finances, advertising, packaging and shipping, technology, filing taxes, purchasing supplies, and anything else that is required of running a small business.
Many times, I just want to paint, but other responsibilities come with the job. But I am not complaining. My painting journey has been a thoroughly blessed one filled with wonderful things about which I am very grateful. For example, my studio is a little haven I have built in my backyard – paid for in full. So renting or leasing studio space is never a concern. That is a great blessing!
Please tell us about Whispered Inspirations Art Studio.
I am very proud of the way my art has developed to represent my voice, and I am proud of the way in which my audiences have come to resonate and respond to what my art has to say. When I first became interested in painting, I selected subjects and methods erratically because I didn’t know what to paint, and I hadn’t established my style. I dabbled with wildlife, nature and landscapes, and also abstracts. And though I still like to experiment with these now and again, I eventually discovered what makes me unique.
Today, I paint mostly representational objects and figures that honor my experiences as an African American woman, an educator, and a Christian with an emphasis on family, children, and beauty. My uniqueness helps make the work that I do a ministry that has invigorated my paintings, and when I see clients responding to my work, I feel that my products have become and are still becoming a true reflection of me and my message.
Finding my voice has led me to engage in the kind of projects that widely distribute both my art and my message. For instance, one of my clients commissioned me to paint a very moving piece. This client is the mother of seven daughters, one of whom served in the armed forces and died of breast cancer. Many photos were taken at the funeral, and most of them were photos of the six remaining sisters serving as pallbearers for their sister’s casket.
The mother asked me to capture this image in paint and I did. She commissioned me to paint a second, similar scene, and I did that as well. You can see both of these on my site. These were commissioned pieces, as I have said, however, no money can equate the joy the mother and her family felt upon receiving these works, and I felt that I had also ministered to her through my work.
I feel as though my voice was also a large part of what made my first partnership project a success. This project was/is a movement to build the first primary school in Mpeasem Village, Ghana, West Africa. I partnered with Dr. Cynthia B. Dillard, an education professor at University of Georgia and founder of “Give.Build, Share.,” a nonprofit organization solely dedicated to raising funds to build community in that village. Dr. Dillard founded its first primary school which currently serves over 70 families, the children of whom are in kindergarten through third grade.
To assist in funding the expansion of the school to include 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, I painted my interpretations of candid photos Dr. Dillard took of children at the school, and I made prints of them. Half of the profits from the sale of all of these prints go to “Give.Build, Share” to assist specifically with the school’s expansion project. You can find details about this effort at http://givebuildshare.org/ and also at https://www.facebook.com/pg/mpeasemvillageproject/posts/.
You can see how I contributed to this effort by visiting http://givebuildshare.org/art-initiative/. The prints are sold from my website at https://cjoyceprice.com/event/98373/mpeasem-village-project. To date, I have donated just under $1,800 for this cause, and I hope to engage in other projects wherein my voice and my work benefit others in multiple ways. I believe that using my artist’s voice to bless others through giving sets my company apart from the rest.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I have several good childhood memories. I recall my family packing up the 1972 Ford Country Squire station wagon – golden yellow with fake wood paneling on the sides. And I remember my father driving us in that station wagon around the country in the summertime to see places like Disney World and Niagara Falls. Those experiences are what shaped my love for travel.
I also remember staying some summers with my grandparents in Lewisville, Arkansas, a small country town near Texarkana that has just one, possibly two stop lights. There, I grew an appreciation for simple joys like running around barefoot in the dirt and making mud pies with cousins. We ate red and “yellow-meat” watermelons while our legs dangled over the side of the porch. We shelled peas until our fingers were purple, we rocked on the porch swing, and we took baths in a huge metal washtub until the year Paw Paw had a bathroom built inside the house.
We were little, and my mother and my aunts were known to throw two or three of us cousins in the tub at one time to scrub off all of the mud and dirt. My Paw Paw had a mule-drawn wagon that he took to work in the fields. His huge vegetable garden provided that great-tasting watermelon, the peas, and also corn, squash, tomatoes, and other delightful produce. These memories shaped my appreciation for the simple things in life.
My favorite memories also include my experiences at Tyler Street Christian Academy where I was educated from 5th grade until high school graduation. Here I gained confidence and made friends, many with whom I remain in contact today. I was active – a cheerleader, student council member, and homecoming queen when I was a senior.
Contact Info:
- Website: cjoyceprice.com
- Phone: 469 454 8589
- Email: cjoyceprice@cjoyceprice.com
Image Credit:
Johnson T Price
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