By Marilyn Miller
Not many a professional can reach the age of 19 having already spent 16 years in her craft. But Mary-Evelyn King has done exactly that. She’s been an artist since the age of three.
The Louisiana Tech University Freshman recently entered a student art competition sponsored by the School of Design. A student “could enter up to five pieces of work, as long as the piece was completed in the classroom over the past year,” Mary-Evelyn explained, adding that she saw it as “an opportunity to become recognized for the pieces I’d done in class.”
“The professor set up a still life in the room,” she said. “I drew it on black paper, so I could use only one white pencil for the whole thing.” No going back. No erasing. “There were 38 different artists competing, each with the opportunity to submit up to five pieces, so there were 190 works submitted,” she said.
At the end of competition, the “outside” judges from the Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport judged Mary-Evelyn’s “Complaisant Carousel,” a 25”x19” white charcoal on black paper entry as “Best in Show” in its division.
She liked the win, she liked the cash, but most of all “it was very exciting for me because it was so unexpected. Usually upper classmen are selected – it’s uncommon for a Freshman to be selected.”
Mary-Evelyn, the daughter of Doug and Angela King of Minden, is majoring in Graphic Design. “There are so many different routes you can take with that,” she admits. So as soon as she has her degree, she’s headed for Nashville, Tennessee looking for a record label.
Wha..what???
No, she won’t be singing like the rest of her family, she’s hoping to find a creative team that is one person short.
“I’ll be talking to record labels and their creative teams who help music artists who are in the process of making an album. First you find out what they envision, then the creative team helps them develop (that look). You see the art before you hear the music, and that’s important. Everything is online today, so the first thing about a new album is getting someone to stop and take a look.”
Mary-Evelyn has found that she enjoys learning about what makes people stop and look. “Like different fonts (type-faces) can make people like or dislike something. If you see it (the art on the album) and it’s not too good, then you might not stop,” she said.
Colors also make a difference. Using the example of a Stop Sign being red and white because it is the most readable color combination, Mary-Evelyn pauses, “What’s really cool is that everything like that has a graphic designer behind it.”
Asked if she thinks a degree in Graphic Design will get her to Nashville, she replies in the positive. While a lot of graphic design today is computer-based, many ‘wanna be’ designers don’t have that hands-on drawing experience when they reach college.
“I already have the (drawing) experience. And now there are ways to take a picture (of a drawing) and transfer it to the computer, so that will help.”
Why drawing?
“I think that being a perfectionist pushes me toward drawing because it gives me so much more room to be detailed. I am creative, but I really love details,” she answers.
She does admit that her classes at LTU in Ruston are “forcing me out of my comfort zone (into different forms of art).”
“But at the end of the day, drawing is my favorite.”
Mary-Evelyn admits that she has been drawing all her life and loving it. She began when she was about three, but became serious at age 12, when she determined to practice every day, watched videos on drawing, and invested in some good pencils. “They really make a difference,” she said.
In 2019, Mary-Evelyn entered her first big competition, the Louisiana Peach Festival-sponsored art show. She took “Best of Show” with a portrait, and second place with a detailed drawing. She was told afterwards that “they couldn’t award first place to the same person.”
“Does that mean I really won first place with my detailed drawing?” she asked, a smile in her voice.
In 2022, the graphic artist entered the George Rodrigue Art Competition and won fourth place and a $2,000 scholarship. The statewide show had a theme of “Louisiana Foods & Culture.” Her drawing depicted her 10-year-old cousin, Meredith Bell, holding a crawfish. The drawing was all shades of black and white, except for the crawfish, which was bright red. She named it “Meredith Meets Mudbug.”
Mary-Evelyn’s family recently learned that “Meredith Meets Mudbug” is featured in the newly-released, “The Pot and the Palette” Cookbook II, sponsored by the George Rodrique Foundation for the Arts.
Mary-Evelyn is “older sister” to Allie King, and is granddaughter to Raymond and Benita Bell. She is a 2022 graduate of Glenbrook School.