Speaker: Ginger Williams-Cook
Ginger Williams Cook is an artist known for her illustrative, whimsical portraits; contemporary visions inspired by wandering through the nostalgia dreams of dusty antique shops.
Ginger is on a lifelong creative journey, forever exploring new inspiration and artistic mediums. Growing up in a family of artists opened the door to art as a career, and, following formal art education, that path led to Paris, where Ginger immersed herself in the museum and creative culture of the city.
Ginger's art has traveled, too: her work was featured as the cover for the HBO documentary The (Dead Mothers) Club, and her quirky Golden Girls nesting dolls were featured on MSNBC and shared virally on countless blogs including Jezebel, and Buzzfeed.
As an arts educator, Ginger has been the Studio Programs Coordinator and Master Teaching Artist at the Mississippi Museum of Art and in 2012 won the Outstanding Museum Art Educator of the Year by the Mississippi Art Education Association. Ginger has found ways for art to speak to groups of all ages, from toddlers to the elderly. She's also explored art as therapy, designing art exercises for persons with early-stage dementia and their caregivers. Most recently, Ginger has been leading workshops on the role of creativity in self-care and mindfulness therapy, including destination retreats. Protecting time and space for art is the pulse that sustains Ginger while raising a family and maintaining her career as a working artist.
Storytelling is the soul of Ginger's art. She is currently illustrating a children's book and a book of Southern history, both slated for upcoming publication. She accepts commission work, most notably personalized pet portraits that capture not just a visual likeness but also the glimmer of the pet's unique personality. Her latest gallery work is collected as the Porcelain series, displayed at The Caron Gallery in downtown Tupelo, Mississippi.
Ginger lives in Jackson, Mississippi, with her husband Justin and children, Eloise and Oliver. She paints in a dreamy studio overlooking the shops and restaurants of Jackson's Historic Fondren District.