Valerie Atkisson

I commissioned Valerie to create an oil painting based on high school senior portraits of my grandmother, my mother and myself. I provided her with the photographs and left the rest up to her. Knowing and trusting in her creative instincts and unique perspective on family history, I essentially gave her carte blanche. Valerie asked me questions about my mother and grandmother — where they grew up, what they enjoy(ed) doing, etc. — and requested additional pictures that might enhance her understanding of each of us as individuals and as family. She flawlessly selected and incorporated the images I provided to connect the primary generational portraits. New and repeat visitors to my home continue to praise the painting. At every gathering at my house, it is always a topic of conversation. Valerie also gave me a full-sized pencil drawing of the painting, which I had framed and gave to my parents for their anniversary. It hangs in their parlor in Georgia. I have to note, my three younger sisters are very jealous they don't appear in the painting.

– Dawn Rosquist

I met Valerie on a trip to New York City in 2002 and I was immediately struck by the simplicity of her style and yet how powerful her message is that each individual is meaningful to the “Fabric of Family.”

Outside a large plate glass window in my home is an old growth African Vitex Tree. The tree was planted near the house and has naturally grown outward with parts of the trunk that literally lay on the ground. The result is a tree of great beauty. I discussed with Valarie the idea of the tree being a backdrop for an art installation on the large windows to display my family history. We decided the traditional Shaker sampler with its threads and fabric would be a nice context to base our design around. She interviewed me about my family and took stories and family sayings and wove them into a beautiful art object in glass. Her design was sandblasted into a 4-foot by 1.5-foot glass sheet with a base of zebra wood. It currently sits on a 10-foot Mt. Lebanon Shaker Work Table with the tree as a backdrop. Eventually it will be sandblasted on the large plate glass window to full scale.

So much of history is hidden in books and computers with little contact to the outside world. I get to enjoy my family history each day. The light in the room constantly changes from sunrise to sunset and the reflection of light on my art piece gives me the movement of time. Ironically, as fluid as the glass seems it is a perfect medium to give a feeling of permanence to my family heritage.

– Gary Finlinson

Everyone who approaches Valerie's staircase mural of my parents' lives and ancestors is drawn to their visual biographies. It depicts key life events, their locals, and flows beautifully from scene to scene. The portraits and backgrounds are life-like and reflect movement. While unified, the variety of colors adds to the distinctiveness of each individual or group story. The overall effect is gorgeous.

– Curtis Atkisson

Oil painting commissioned by Dawn Rosquist based on high school senior portraits of herself, her mother and her grandmother, informed by other photographs and stories.

Hanging Family History is a three-dimensional map of Valerie's ancestry. Her vital information is written on the top triangle. Her parents' triangles are attached to her triangle. Their parents' are attached to them and so on for 72 generations, 2000 years going back to 9 A.D. The piece is made of copper wire and rice paper.

This piece wanders up the stairwell at a second house co-owned by Valerie's father and his sister. This ancestral piece illustrates their joint lines.

Patriarchal Line traces Valerie's patriarchal line back seven generations in the South through the Civil War to tobacco plantations.

Family in Norway is a wall painting of Valerie's Norwegian family history at the Queens Museum of Art. It is 80 feet long, 30 feet high and illustrates five generations of her great grandmother who immigrated from Norway to the U.S. in 1880.

This striking glass piece traces the Finlinson ancestry using a “shaker sampler” motif as if it is stitched into the glass. The original art and type is sandblasted into a plate of thick glass 18 inches by 36 inches.

This piece traces the artist's matriarchal line back 10 generations by landscape and portrait. The red flowers represent the female offspring each mother bore and the blue represent the males.

Valerie wrote out her entire known family history on the wall of Artist's Space in Manhattan during the three week exhibition. It took up 72 feet of wall space and many Sharpies.

Each copper rod contains the descendants and stories of one of my great grandparents kids.

Valerie collaborated with choreographer Marin Legget and composer Nathan Bowen to produce this show preformed at Merce Cunningham Studios in Manhattan.

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Jungle Totem is a personal timeline of the artist's life. The watercolors are cut out at the bottom of the piece and less cut out at the top indicating past and future experiences.

This is a personal timeline of the artist's life past and future.

One of many on-sight watercolors Valerie does of landscapes. This watercolor is of the midnight sun at Alta Fjord, Norway.

Johnson Descendants traces Valerie's great-grandparents' descendants. Each person's vital information is listed with a graphite drawing of them. In some places there is so much visual information it is layered with attached rice paper cameos.