Margie Beth Labadie earned her undergraduate degree in Art from Temple
University, Philadelphia, USA and Tyler School of Art in Rome, Italy in 1982. Twenty-one years later, she earned her Masters of Fine Art (MFA) from East Carolina University in 2003 so she could teach. Her years between degrees were spent first in the world of fine art sales, then the graphic arts and publishing industry, and then in international tourism. Working in business and industry she experienced the introduction of digital technologies and the paradigm shifts they caused.
As a VP of customer service in the late 1980s, she saw how digital technologies increased the expectations of both clients and employers who expected faster turnaround times, higher quality and increased sales, all while she was learning the ins and outs of computer hardware and software. In the early 1990s moving into the travel industry, she watched as her tour company morphed from paper and phone communication, to needing a website and email. Communication between countries was lurching forward and companies weren’t considered real, unless they were on the Internet.
But when John showed her a few things in Photoshop in 1997, there was no turning back. After a decade in travel to Central and South America, she went to graduate school for art, but the digital kind. Now she is a lecturer in the Art Department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke where she has been teaching for 14 years in the digital area. Internationally, she has taught in universities and provided workshops on art, photography and creativity in India, China, Taiwan, Germany, and Canada.
Margie Labadie uses a seamless flow of digital and traditional techniques to create her fine art and illustration. Her life in art and teaching reflects her commitment to cultural preservation, social justice, and environmental conservation. Her artwork has been exhibited in more than one hundred international and national exhibitions in the Americas, Asia and Europe.
In 2017 Margie Labadie and author Tonya Holy Elk Locklear (Lumbee/Oglala Lakota) co-published Women of the Red Earth. In this cross-cultural book (and exhibition) Margie Labadie’s artwork presents visually striking, Native American objects that entice viewers to read Locklear’s new stories and poems of untold histories of Native Americans who continue to struggle in an overwhelmingly non-indigenous United States.
Margie Labadie is the Publisher of the Journal of Creative Arts and Minds (JCAM) and serves as President of the non-profit arts organization Jumbo Arts International in North Carolina.