Katherine Paape Gibbs

Associate professor Katherine (Kathie) Paape Gibbs has been fortunate to combine her love of horses, art and teaching in a career spanning more than three decades.

Growing up in Madison, Wis., she visited relatives in the country and rode a cousin's horse there whenever she could. "It was just like a magnetic pull—every time I saw a horse, it made me feel good all over. And there's a moment while riding when you feel yourself become one with the horse."

Gibbs got her first horse at the age of 22 and since then has always owned one or more. Horses, not surprisingly, feature prominently in her body of artwork.

Gibbs received a bachelor of science in art (painting and ceramics) in 1968 and K-12 art education teacher certification in 1969, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She taught first- through ninth-grade and special education art classes for schools in Illinois and Wisconsin before returning to UW-Madison to earn a master of arts in art education in 1976 and a master of fine arts in painting and drawing in 1978.

While completing her MFA degree, Gibbs interviewed for a job in the applied art department at Iowa State University.

"The first thing that struck me was the beautiful campus in the springtime," she said. "I had an interview with the drawing and painting and art education faculty, and was given a tour of the new Design College building, which wasn't quite completed."

She was especially impressed by a meeting at Dennis Dake's home with Nancy Polster and Tim McIlrath (all now emeritus faculty members). "I thought they were very genuine and seemed like nice people to work with. And they had a sense of humor, which is essential to me."

When Gibbs joined the ISU art and design faculty in fall 1978, she taught beginning drawing classes and supervised art education students doing their practice teaching. She taught art education until 1995, then served as the drawing/painting/printmaking area coordinator for several years and was co-director of the integrated studio/visual arts programs from 2002 to 2004. She served on the Focus grant committee from 1980 to 2010 and was an adviser for more than 30 student Focus projects. She was also very active on departmental committees and served as major professor for a number of graduate students.

For the past two decades, however, her emphasis has been on teaching the sophomore and senior drawing courses and working with graduate students.

Years ago, Gibbs found a definition of drawing by Jasper Johns that she has since shared with all of her classes: drawing is marks made by an implement on a background surface to produce an image. "So I broke that down and encouraged students to think about different tools, different surfaces, and different ways to make images," she said.

She also shared her own work with students, "not to produce miniature Katherine Gibbses but to describe how I became an artist, my process, and what kinds of awakenings I had along the way to produce my best work and grow."

Gibbs worked with equine imagery from her time in graduate school—where for her MFA thesis she created large simulated horsehides from paper and drew horse images with animal markers she found at a farm implement store—through the early 1990s. She then moved to other images, concepts and media, including oil, acrylic and spray enamel on paper.

Gibbs' work has been exhibited in numerous national, regional and local exhibitions, and is part of several public and personal art collections. She received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the Iowa General Assembly in 1989 and a College of Design Faculty Award for Extraordinary Performance in 1986.

Most recently, she has been painting landscapes and "extreme weather events" such as tornadoes and tsunamis.

"The turmoils in human life seem beyond our control and the events in nature are far beyond our control, but conversely you learn something from looking at the aftermath of a natural disaster," she said. "It makes you stop and think about life and death and our place in the world."

Gibbs will retire from ISU on May 15, 2010 but she intends to keep working as an artist. The new home she and her husband, Monte, are building northwest of Ames will include an art studio. "I’m going to need a couple of years to refocus on what I can do and what I have a desire to do, but I know it will somehow be connected to animals, nature and the land," she said.

Gibbs also plans to spend time riding her purebred Percheron, Jedi, and training their new black-and-white English cocker spaniel puppy, Molly. And she and Monte will continue to cheer on the Cyclone football and basketball teams.

Gibbs is ready for this next phase of her life and work to begin, but she will miss the daily interaction with colleagues and students.

"I love the students. They're motivated, very earnest and hardworking. I'll miss that relationship of watching students grow as young artists."