Marie Sturken keeps working as Princeton artists applaud
By: Pat Summers
Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Marie Sturken worked with other Princeton-area artists to publish portfolios of their prints. It was an exciting time, she recalls: "Although none of us worked in the same way, we all learned the same process. There was a bond among us" one that is still strong today.
"This work gave a purpose to our lives," she says. "All those people I met then are still good friends and co-workers. We go to see each other’s shows and socialize. I think it’s all quite wonderful."
Ms. Sturken represents a kind of bridge between Princeton’s relatively quiet past and its bustling present. Long before Ralph Lauren and other such shops moved into town, Ms. Sturken was making friends, creating art and raising a family here.
A couple weeks ago, Ms. Sturken hung a show of her handmade paper works at the Princeton Public Library. Next week, she’ll talk about her work there.
She is a regular at New York’s Dieu Donné Papermill Inc., where she creates her distinctive paper works. A member of the Princeton Artists Alliance and other art groups and museums, she keeps up with the art scene she has long been a key part of.
To one observer, Ms. Sturken’s forward-leaning posture symbolizes her activity and commitment level. She seems to be reaching out to all the things she wants to do, all the places she wants to be.
"In art, age doesn’t mean anything. I relate to a lot of younger artists and they to me. We all have the same intense interest in what we’re doing."
A fashion artist long ago turned printmaker, and then handmade paper artist, Ms. Sturken describes an enviable world, one not always imitated by life. Too often in the real world, there’s compulsory retirement and ageism.
Instead, Ms. Sturken still finds zest in life and regularly proves it in action. Self-described as an octogenarian, she’s one of many veteran visual artists in the area, all still going strong.
Beyond her lifelong involvement with art, Ms. Sturken is a seasoned traveler and a music lover, regularly attending concerts and operas. But French is her special passion. She has studied, read and spoken it for years with a group of women, many of whom she first met in a Princeton Adult School language course.
"We discuss everything," she says, adding, "in very fast French." For their weekly sessions at their teacher’s home, they also read contemporary and classic French fiction. "Isn’t Princeton that kind of town?" she asks. "That’s the beauty of it."
Born in Danbury and raised in Stamford, Conn., Ms. Sturken was the middle child of five, and the only one who followed in the footsteps of her father, a commercial artist and master printer for Condé Nast. She studied in New York, quickly moving from fashion designing to drawing clothes.
Her first job was drawing McCall’s patterns, followed by a position in the art department of Abraham & Strauss, where she did drawings for newspaper ads. In time, she met and married Robert Sturken, an engineer. When he went to work in Wilmington, Del., that brought Ms. Sturken to Philadelphia, where she became the fashion artist at John Wanamaker & Co.
With her husband’s career moves to Westchester County, N.Y., and then New Brunswick, Ms. Sturken did more department store work. But as the family grew to five, it became harder for her to take her portfolio to New York City the perennial balancing act of family with work.
Barbara, the Sturkens’ first daughter, writes for Condé Nast’s Traveler magazine. Carl is a song writer and music producer, and Marita teaches culture and communication at New York University. (Bob Sturken has retired from his business.)
For a while Ms. Sturken painted with a group of women. Then, with the family’s 1962 move to Princeton, she met numerous other artists and learned printmaking. She describes it as the ideal medium for her because of its potential for working with ideas.
With the 1989 inception of the Princeton Artists Alliance, Ms. Sturken gained colleagues whose mediums were mixed, but whose interests were similar. "This was a time when we were all doing work and we had to market it. Some of us took our portfolios to New York for purchase by corporations and hospitals; we were always looking for galleries. We decided that besides being a support group, we’d have more of a chance getting shows as a group."
As a leader of PAA’s exhibits committee, she was part of the transition from shows that featured the best work by each member to themed shows, requiring members to address a common theme in their individual styles. The group’s acclaimed and much-traveled "Homer’s Odyssey" exhibition was the turning point.
Even now, Ms. Sturken relishes the memory of how Pam Sherin, then gallery director at Bristol-Myers Squibb, said "You’ve got a show!" as soon as she heard of it. And she expects PAA’s recent "Marsh Meditations" to have an odyssey of its own.
Ms. Sturken is "very much directed toward the group, with a good sense of its mission and dynamics," says Marsha Levin-Rojer, current PAA president. Citing Ms. Sturken’s attention to detail, even perfectionism, and her willingness to do anything needed, Ms. Levin-Rojer repeats another member’s description of Ms. Sturken: "She’s the pillar of the group. When others start to totter, Marie remains upright."
As times around her have changed, Ms. Sturken segued from printmaking to hand-papermaking. Often working with nitric acid and lacquers, and operating a lithography press in her home studio, she recognized the significance of Pratt Institute’s study on the health hazards in printmaking especially at home.
Soon after giving her press to Rutgers University’s state-of-the-art facility, Ms. Sturken discovered the "thrill of handmade paper," involving the safe and natural materials of water and pulp. "It wasn’t around when I was studying. It’s only become an important medium in recent years."
In a concentrated day at Dieu Donné, she can create a number of pieces. The colors and excitement there make it "the most fun you can have, and work!" Ms. Sturken says.
Joan Needham, Hopewell-based paper artist and sculptor, frequently partners her at Dieu Donné. She describes Ms. Sturken as "the most energetic person I’ve ever met," and chuckles at how they work on a concrete floor wearing rubber boots and aprons, using hoses to work the pigments on their paper.
"She rips things up and distresses and layers them; she’ll embed stitched paper and other materials," Ms. Needham says of her friend’s approach which also includes frequent laughter and breaks for lunch and dinner.
Ms. Sturken has focused over the years on stitching and fabric. Her content has to do with dresses, "but always with a different twist, like making surface changes I’m not a fashion illustrator anymore.
"I really don’t like anything that looks sharp and cut," she adds. Using an incense burner to make holes is one of her trademarks, and she typically softens the edges by burning them with a wand-lighter.
Over the last few years, Ms. Sturken’s work has been recognized with purchase prizes in national exhibitions. Recognition for doing what excites her is an added pleasure.
Her weekly Pilates session ("the perfect exercise program for me") is all Ms. Sturken has time for. "There’s PAA and doing shows and just creating art works or having them cooking you can’t just create a work; things have to gel."
"There’s so much more I could do, but I just can’t work it in," Ms. Sturken says. Anyone who knows her would understand immediately.
"Words, Stitches and Flax," Marie Sturken’s handmade paper works, will remain on view in the Reference Gallery (second floor) of the Princeton Public Library through Dec. 1. Photographs by PAA member Clem Fiori are also on view. An artist’s talk is scheduled for Thursday, Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Community Room.