All I Ever Wanted: James Surls & Charmaine Locke: Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center / Colorado Springs, CO
There is always a beginning.
I start my life from your birth.
From when You brought You from the swirls of light years.
You showed me the way from there to here.
There was time to lay before us a future,
So we did and it was and is counted and marked by distant intervals.
Forever and Always were close at hand and we could swim the Giving Waters
knowing certain, we would always be there.
Love is Singular in its focus and generates a powerful force.
We knew “Was and Is” has always been.
Was, Is and To Be appeared in our woods;
We stood by and under the oaks, pines, magnolia, holly and the sweet gums, with
Nature in burst and we in ready.
We took Yes to Be Forever. While turning each to the other,
Giving and Receiving in equal measure.
The building beam knows its balance.
And sets heavy on certain center and holds in place the years to come.
We drank from wonder and walked through moments of glory and splendor toward
life filled to its rim.
We stacked life upon itself, one on another
We lived wall to wall and two stories wide.
We stick danced in dream and pushed by the bridge.
All we ever really wanted was to go home with each.
— James Surls, Poem for Charmaine
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It’s Not About the Numbers, 2002 -
Seven and Seven Flower Large, 1998
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From the Pitcher, 2002
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Standing Knife, Pinyon, and Morning Glory, 2009
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Large Wall Flower, 2002
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All on the Block, 1996
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Me, the Needle, the Thread and Bowl, 1997
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Bridge with Nine Diamonds, 2004
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Seeing from the Pitcher, 2005
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Snake Head, 2010
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All I ever really wanted was to go home with you, 2010
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All I ever wanted was to go home with you, 2010
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I am in the Good Bye Glove, where the Big Wave is the Title Wave and what you get is what you gave, 2015
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When She is my eyes, 2002
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Her Universe Apart, 2014
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The giving of a seed bulb, 2005
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Dancing on the Water Together Making Magic, 2007
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (FAC) announces a major exhibition showcasing the art of James Surls and Charmaine Locke. One of their rare exhibitions together as husband and wife, All I Ever Wanted is a monument to the symbiotic relationship between their love for one another and their stunning bodies of work.
Born in East Texas, James Surls has been creating works since the 1970s. Along with his wife, artist Charmaine Locke, the two have lived in the Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado since 1997. Each partner acts as a muse for the other, and their relationship is an essential force of inspiration in their works. Producing primarily large-scale sculpture and 2-D works, the couple regularly focuses on themes of nature, abstraction and cosmic ideology, with the dichotomy of masculine and feminine qualities appearing in both of their works.
James Surls’ works have been featured in major exhibitions and collected by many major institutions such as the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Charmaine Locke’s works are in many public and private collections and have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions locally and internationally at institutions such as the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, TX, The Jung Center, the Strait Jesuit Art Museum, The National Museum of China in Beijing, the Museo de la Nacional in Lima, Peru, the Delhi in India, California State University, Maryland Institute, and the University of Hawaii.