THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 12, 1995 TAG: 9504110153
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Beneath the surface of this practical young woman beats the sensitive heart of an artist. It takes just a bit of probing to find it.
Darlene Ricks, a senior at Windsor High School, is a quiet, well-mannered young woman who works part time as a cashier at a grocery store, saves her money to buy a car, maintains a difficult course load that includes Spanish III and chemistry and already has enrolled at a local technical institute to take drafting, so she'll be assured of a job to finance what she really wants to do.
And what she really wants to do is create. She wants to be an artist. And a recent $750 scholarship awarded to her by the Brush and Palette Club, a group made up of local artists who live in Isle of Wight and Suffolk, will help her pursue that career, too.
Ricks is the hard-working daughter of Gracie and Irvin Ricks. She has three brothers, one sister. And she has brought the Brush and Palette Club's scholarship award back to Windsor High.
For years, it has been a tradition. One Windsor student or another has won. Last year, it went to a student in another part of the county. This year, Windsor art teacher Lois West is smiling again.
Ricks may be one of West's most unusual artists. With her practical approach to life, she'll probably never fall into the starving category.
Ahh, but there is a sensitive and spiritual side to her. It comes out in her work and erupts in talent.
``I like to do pictures that tell a story, relay a message,'' she says.
Take, for example, the painting Ricks entered in the club's art contest for local school students. It depicted the funeral of a friend, a girl who died in a car accident.
But it was from a different perspective.
``It showed a grave, with four guys standing around,'' Ricks says. ``But it was looking up from the grave. My friend ran off the road about this time last year and crashed her car. She died instantly. She was only 17. I wanted to do it through her eyes. Kind of in memory of her.''
Ricks attended the Governor's Magnate School with the Franklin girl. She's been an art student at the Magnate School for the last three years. She decided to spend her senior year back at Windsor High with West, and West has encouraged her to enter various contests.
She's done well each time, capturing an honorable mention recently in the Virginian-Pilot/Ledger Star's Student Gallery. In that competition, what caught the judges' eyes was a painting of a young man walking away bare-chested from a murder scene after he had just taken someone's life.
The image shows his heart in blue, like an X-ray image.
``I wanted to show that his heart was cold,'' Ricks says.
The picture was entitled ``Where Did the Love Go?''
In the essay that helped her win the scholarship, Ricks remembers that she wrote about how she would like to help others through her art.
``Maybe, if they look at it right, it will help change the way they feel about things,'' she says.
Several of her works show young people of every race and ethnic origin crossing barriers, finding friendship.
Soon after she graduates from Windsor, Ricks will enter ITT Technical Institute to study drafting. She feels sure she can get a job right away, as soon as she completes the two-year program.
It's the practical approach.
Then she wants to go on to the Art Institute of Chicago to study fine art.
Then the practical young woman, who remembers doing her own thing even with crayons when she was a little girl, can be as impractical, as spiritual, as she wants to be.
There's no telling what she'll do when she finally lets the creative spirit fly. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by LINDA McNATT
Darlene Ricks' sensitivity can be seen in her art.
by CNB