Partner With Us!

Get Involved

ALUMNI STORIES: MARJORIE KERR

MARJORIE KERR

Marjorie Kerr moved to Fullerton from Iowa in 1962 and began taking art classes at Fullerton College. Along with Florence Arnold and Dorian Hunter, she was on the committee to start the first “Night in Fullerton” celebration, a multi-disciplinary event that helped bring the Fullerton College Art Department into the larger Fullerton community.

One of the reasons for starting the “Night in Fullerton” was to prove to Fullerton businessman/art collector Norton Simon that Fullerton was an art community. Simon, who had gifted the Hunt Branch Library to Fullerton, which housed works by Picasso, Raphael, and Rodin, offered to build the City of Fullerton a world-class art museum. Shockingly, Fullerton leaders were reluctant to accept his gift, and eventually Simon took his collection to Pasadena.

From the 1960s to today, Marjorie Kerr has been actively involved in the local art scene, showing her works at Common Ground and Edge galleries in the 1980s, and more recently at The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Graves Gallery, and Hibbleton Gallery. Inspired by her printmaking and drawing classes at Fullerton College, she participated in the International Cartoon Symposium.

Marjorie has also done public art commissions for the Fullerton Museum Center and the Fullerton Public Library’s Children’s Room. Every year, she donates a piece of art to the non-profit All the Arts for All the Kids group, to help keep arts programs in Fullerton schools. She is still an active artist with a heart for local community, and sometimes exhibits with a group of fellow artists called The Bloody Marys.

“Art is a way of seeing. There’s still a satisfaction to making something, whether it’s a drawing, or writing, or music. And there’s a mystery to making something. You never know how it’s going to turn out. It can take on a life of its own.”

—Marjorie Kerr

Date of Birth:

September 1, 1933

Dates at Fullerton College:

Took art classes intermittently from 1962-1969

Department or Specialty:

Art

Local Art Exhibits:

1965

“Night in Fullerton” Hunt Branch Library

1988 Edge Gallery (Fullerton)

1991 “What Are We Seeking?” International Cartoon Symposium (Kagoshima, Japan)

1993 “Crossing Borders” International Mail Art Exhibit, Irvine Fine Arts Center

1998 Hunt Branch Library Exhibit (Fullerton)

2007 “The Bloody Marys” art exhibit at Muckenthaler Cultural Center

2010 Graves Gallery (Fullerton)

2012 “Recycled Lunacy” exhibit at Hibbleton Gallery

Source:

Kerr, Marjorie. Personal Interview with the author. 25 April 2012.

Photo Citation:

Photo taken by Phil Higson in Marjorie Kerr’s studio. 25 April 2012.