Patricia Beggins Magers is a native of Staten Island, New York. After receiving an undergraduate degree in art from Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, Magers began a career in museum exhibits preparation, book and advertising illustration, and commissioned portraiture. In 2005 she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from Georgia State University in Atlanta. She lives and works in Roswell, Georgia. Magers works in a variety of mediums—oil paint, encaustic, watercolor, cut-paper collage, mixed media and ceramic sculpture. She recently created a series of works depicting images and themes of the Old West derived from early sepia-toned photography and tintypes. She also has a collection of tiny pre-war lead figures, some of which are horses and riders. These toys, their paint worn from the imaginative play of children, are another avenue for her to explore western themes. The cowboys and riders act out surprisingly realistic scenes, or simply stand for their ‘portrait’ in all the seriousness of play. Artist’s Statement My practice of art, painting, drawing, sculpture, mixed media and collage grew directly from happy hours in childhood spent making things. Piano lessons yielded no musical understanding, but it did produce a smashing PlayDoh portrait of my frustrated teacher. Our busy, chaotic household full of eleven siblings sent me seeking quiet corners where I could perfect the ever-elusive recipe for flour and water and newspaper papier-mâché. My father enjoyed oil painting landscapes and he gave me an easel, paint and canvas when I was twelve, and the even greater gift of leaving me to figure it out on my own. “The Constituents” is a series of "portraits" of pre-war lead figures, tiny toys which I have been collecting for years. The actual figures are between 1" and 3" tall. The paintings vary in size from 12"to 36". I am attracted to them as subjects because of their beauty, the care with which they were made and because I admire how expressive they are despite their tiny size. They remind me of The Borrowers, a book I read to my children, about a family of tiny people who lived hidden in the house of normal-sized people. They only came out at night, to borrow whatever they needed, and took great care never to be seen by the big people. Each lead figure and animal shows the wear and tear of the play of long-ago children, which I love. By painting them in a realist portraiture tradition I want them to be seen as representative of aspects of ourselves.