Marilyn Biles’ dream was to become a fashion illustrator.
“I wanted to live in Manhattan and work in the fashion industry,” she said. “That was the only thing I ever really wanted to do.”
She took the first step toward that goal when she attended what was then known as Moore Institute of Art, Science & Industry.
“My only support in art was from my art teacher, who taught twice a week (at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington, Delaware),” Biles said. “She was very encouraging to me.” The art teacher, Anna Feeley Quirk, suggested Biles consider Moore.
After just one year at Moore, however, Biles went back home to Wilmington to work in a day care center.
“My father, in particular, did not want me to go, because (he thought) women shouldn’t go to school,” she recalled. “He just really thought women should get married and have babies.”
It is because she wasn’t able to finish her art training at Moore that Biles has established the Marilyn Biles Endowed Merit Scholarship. The gift will fund a scholarship award this fall to a student who demonstrates financial need, talent and scholastic ability.
“I wasn’t allowed to do what my heart wanted me to do,” Biles said. “If they have the talent and the desire and the willingness to put in the work, I would like to see other young women succeed.”
A CAREER IN ART
Biles would have graduated from Moore in 1957, but instead ended up working in what she called junk jobs.
“And then I ran away from home,” she said. “In those days there was no place for a woman to get a job where she could support herself.”
She ended up marrying a service man shortly after she met him, and lived in Germany for a time.
“When we got back to the States, I got various little jobs and put him through college, then whenever I could, I would paint, but it just didn’t happen very often in those days,” she said, adding that she was caring for three young children at the time.
Another transfer landed her in Houston, and that’s where she decided to stay when the marriage broke up.
Biles said jobs in art started coming to her. A friend suggested she apply for an open art teacher position at Duchesne Academy, and she was hired. She also taught at an after-school program at the Contemporary Arts Museum.
“It was perfect,” she said. “I was happy and I enjoyed teaching those children, and I still have my lesson plans from those days.”
She continued her art education by taking classes at Rice University with Basilios Poulos, and at the Museum of Fine Arts School of Art with Dorothy Hood.
BACK TO FASHION
Biles’ colorful oil abstracts, which she creates in her home studio, have become wearable art. About five years ago, her son suggested putting her paintings on scarves, and the Marilyn Biles Collection was born.
The scarves have now been transformed into flowing tops, tunics and wraparound skirts, and Biles has been invited to show her fashions at the Runway Fashion Show January 26 at Discovery Green in Houston. Models will strut the catwalk wearing several of Biles’ designs.
“I’ll never be in New York, but I’m having fun with it,” she said. “I’m loving what I’m doing.”
See more of Marilyn Biles’ art here.
