Conces Spencer, Liz (b. 1953)
Found 3 Works by this Artist
(b. 1953)
Lives and works in Houston, Texas
Liz Conces Spencer (American, b. 1953) Liz Conces Spencer draws from abstracted human, natural and cityscape forms, speaking in her work to an understanding that all life is interconnected and mutually interdependent.
Conces grew up in the refinery town of Pasadena, Texas, adjacent to Houston, and studied painting at the University of St. Thomas, earning her BA/Art in 1975. Intrigued by the visual tangle of urban/suburban life, she began visually interpreting what would become a lifetime study of figures and patterned landscapes. This reflection has crossed media lines from traditional painting to printmaking, sculpture and glass.
Upon graduation, she applied for and became a Winant Clayton Volunteer, traveling abroad and developing a summer art program for 300 underprivileged children in London. From 1982–1986, she developed curriculum and taught art classes at Houston’s St. Thomas High School and Incarnate Word Academy. She conducted art education programming for the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, the University of St. Thomas, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church and the City of Richardson, Texas. In 1999, Conces and the Wesley House, a community outpost of the United Methodist Church, received project funding from the Cultural Arts Council/Houston for her after school art program for northside youth. Subsequently, Conces taught children's classes for City ArtWorks, Project Row Houses, the Houston area YWCA, The Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and Young Audiences of Houston. From 2017 until 2020, she worked with youth across the greater Houston area through Harris County's Service Learning Program, providing participants the opportunity to complete community service through relevant art projects. Through her association with Young Audiences, she continues to work within the Fort Bend and Harris County Juvenile Justice Departments to bring art programs to incarcerated youth.
Conces has been a presenter at three of the annual Houston Art Partners conferences, which bring together arts organizations involved in teaching and arts integration, offering programs on John Biggers' mural "Salt Marsh", the confluence of coding with Piet Mondrian's geometric works and elementary science integration methods. She has conducted STEAM and humanities arts integration teacher training and professional development sessions in Aldine, Port Arthur, Spring, Pasadena, Iowa Colony and Houston ISD's. She has conducted classes at libraries and other public facilities in Galveston, Richmond, Montgomery County and Houston. She was Visual Arts Lead for the 2020-2021 Arts for Learning professional development in arts integration for teachers and teaching artists, mentoring new-to-the-field teaching artists. She is currently a RAISE scholar, having completed training in Social Emotional Learning and currently enrolled in training for Trauma and Healing through Arts. Her work with Young Audiences of Houston continues through residencies, workshops and professional development programs.
Freelance design work for a startup company in the infant industry led to her internationally marketed line of infant soft goods in the 1980’s. Until 1995, she was Art Director for Little Feet Industries, which manufactured licensed products for Gerber Childrenswear, Binky, Crayola and the World Wildlife Fund. Conces created, licensed and owns copyrights to over one hundred published designs in this industry.
Freelance illustration projects include a text published by Oxford University Press, menus and cover designs for local restaurants, a yearbook cover for the University of St. Thomas and competitive ad/promotional designs for local art festivals.
In 1996, Conces co-founded the White Oak Artists Collective, which organized art exhibitions for over seven years for local and regional visual artists. With collaborator Chris Magisano, a California-based jeweler and close friend, she now produces the Heights Artisan Market, an annual invitational gathering of fine art and craft. The event offers an annual sales opportunity to approximately 30 artists, artisans, musicians and authors.
Conces' own exhibition history began soon after university and has continued since that time, as detailed in the accompanying C.V. She currently exhibits in Houston with Archway Gallery, Texas' oldest artists' cooperative, and at her workspace at Mother Dog Studios. Her work has been widely collected, and since her introduction to architectural commissions by frequent collaborator Gene Hester, she has added permanent and site specific installations to her art activities.
LIz Conces Spencer has completed commissions for the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Camp Aranzazu in Rockport, Texas, the City of Houston, Silver Eagle Distributors, Cool Globes, the Houston Arts Alliance, the Houston Area Women's Center, Talento Bilingue of Houston, the Morgan Welch Inflammatory Breast Cancer Center, Habitat for Humanity, the Houston Independent School District, the Houston Congregation for Reform Judaism, and numerous private collectors. In 2020, she and Hester completed work on a 17-window new construction chapel at Camp Kappe, commissioned by the Catholic Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. During the pandemic, she completed a dimensional interior mural project for the Kroger Company, installed in Bryan, Texas, and with Hester, a chapel glass renovations for Service Corporation International. In 2021, she installed "Wish in a Bottle", a collaborative work with 600 Texas schoolchildren served by Save the Children and sponsored by Arti di Bvlgari and Young Audiences of Houston. After its tenure at the Children's Museum Houston, the work is planned to travel to public locations in Beaumont and Channelview, Texas, so that participating children and their families can see the work they helped create.
Current commissions include a Diversity Memorial celebrating African Americans' contributions to the U.S. space program, specifically those who worked at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The permanent steel canopy and capsule-inspired seating unit pays homage to individuals such as Charles Bolden, NASA's first African American chief administrator. With collaborators Jose Dennis and Gene Hester, Conces will complete the work in 2023-24 on site at St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church in Nassau Bay, Texas. She has also contributed a Station of the Cross for the Sanctuary at St. Thomas.
Mother to two outstanding children and grandmother to two more, Conces is married to musician Michael Spencer. The couple make their home in the Houston Heights with their parrotlets Walter and Ruthie and their cats Barack and Summer.
http://www.lizconces.com/