Gail Maurice Hoeck 1938-2007
"My life, my work, my play of yesterday and today has progressed and is still progressing as a series of learning experiences. At a young age, my mother who was a well known watercolor and oil painter, portrait painter and successful designer, inspired my desire to pursue all my artistic dreams. She instilled a positive attitude of trust and patience in developing my abilities. I studied fashion illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. After graduating in 1960, I did fashion ads, window displays and graphic design for department stores, newspapers and advertising agencies. In 1963 I went to work for Simplicity Pattern Company in New York. Whatever needed to be done I did it. During my vacation time I traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
I married in 1970 and was able to stop full time design work and concentrate on my painting career. While living in New York City, I painted with watercolors, landscapes of my travels, still life and other subject matter. At this time I took classes at the Art Students League and honed in on my painting skills. I took watercolor workshops with such noted instructors as Charles Reid and Charles Sovek. I soon started to show and sell my watercolors in outdoor shows throughout New York, New Jersey and New England. We moved to New Jersey in 1979, I started to paint with oils. My mother encouraged me to use my knowledge of drawing the human form and paint children in various activities of play. I also continued with my watercolors and began showing at the Chime Art Gallery of Summit, New Jersey. I have been fortunate in that my family and friends are so supportive in all aspects of my career and this has had a strong impact on the quality of my life today.
In 1992 we moved to Arizona and now live in Chandler. In the early part of the 1990’s I continued painting with oils and showed my work in small shops, group art exhibits and in outdoor shows. For the 1998-99 season I was president of the Scottsdale Artist’s League in Scottsdale, Arizona. A league of highly motivated and creative people, who through their love and friendship have encouraged me to share myself in many ways. Since joining the Scottsdale Artist’s League in 1994 and as an active member I have shown and sold my work in many exhibits throughout Arizona and am the recipient of numerous awards for watercolors, collage’s and oil paintings. In 2003, in a family show I showed my work along with my mother’s work at the Shemer Art Center, in Phoenix, AZ. I am a juried member of the Arizona Art Alliance; I have demonstrated with watercolors for various groups throughout Arizona and donated my work for charity. My work is in private collections nationally and online and Red Rock Collections of Tlaquepaque in Sedona, Arizona.
In 2005 I taught art at the Community Center in Chandler, Arizona. I teach in all mediums for adults and children. I taught a seven week watercolor workshop, held at the Scottsdale Racquet Club, Watercolor and Drawing at Westminster Village and hold workshops at the Desert Botanical Gardens. Artist Statement: To me, there is a oneness in all things of nature and even in things not of nature, where all the parts connect and interrelate to form the whole. How I think and see things as one, come from the deepest part of me and reflects my feelings of the world around me. On walls or paper, canvas or board, whether liquid or dry, I strive to visualize in my mind’s eye the whole shape of a thing and its parts, or a group of things and their parts as one. As I see the oneness in all things; balance, harmony, and rhythm become a natural part of my everyday living."
She wrote this before she lost her battle with cancer in 2007. She loved teaching what she has learned over the years to others. The cancer consumed her life before she could finish her work. She had many ongoing projects at once that I found myself holding on to anything unfinished. She taught up until the last possible moment that they would allow her to work. In March 2007, after months of remission the cancer came back too strong for it to be treated. She believed her body would heal on its own that she refused treatment until it was too late. She stopped teaching in July and passed away in September one day after her husbands 81st birthday.
