Katie Gibbs
Founding Member
Metal Art
Art Center Ukiah
Mark Gengoux
Autobiography of Katie Gibbs
Southern California girl draws from children’s art classes to architecture school at Cal and then Harvard. But love prevails. Off to France and a new life, no time for art, with three boys, Legos and crafts replace drawing and sculpture. Studies in urban design and working with a community design team satisfy a little of the artistic desire. Back in California, new job and a new material, steel. Building bridges, welding and making things from scrap metal, and finally investing in a plasma torch to cut wonderful shapes in steel plate. Art Center Ukiah is a new community organization in a long line of developing relationships with interesting people and working to make the community better.
Artist’s statement of Katie Gibbs
I’ve recently decided to follow a dream of artistic endeavor with the design of elements of décor such as gates, sculpture and wall ornaments in steel. These works should enhance the daily life of those who enjoy them. From my travels I’ve been impressed by the love of ornament in many cultures and feel that pattern and intricate form have a place in the post-modern world. I’m joined in my work by son Marc Gengoux whose innate sense of design matches my own.
Biography of Marc Gengoux
Born in the Alps in France, Marc is an exceptional artist. Proud that he never trained, free in his experiments with many media, Marc creates from the soul. He often works to music and expresses the sounds and texture of the work in his own. He works in oil or acrylic on canvas or wood or cardboard, whatever is at hand. He also sculpts in wood and steel and sometimes mixes the media. He has exhibited in a numerous of galleries in France, most recently at Galerie Cupillard in Grenoble. Marc lives in Le Sappey en Chartreuse in France, with his wife and two daughters, and is the head of the history department in Lycee de Graisivaudan in Meylan, France. He often spends the summer in Ukiah at his mother’s.
