With
a background in Sculpture and Dance as well as a love for the creature world,
Annie Hickman created a number of mostly one-woman shows which she has performed
world wide at theatres, festivals, schools, museums, and botanical gardens for
more than 25 years. After earning a degree in sculpture from the University of Illinois, Annie received the Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship from her Art Department. She moved to New York to work for master artist Marisol. Soon she had her first art exhibit at the Razor Gallery entitled "Houses for Live Insects." Annie's vision stretched to the dance world and she studied ballet, jazz, tap, acrobatics, singing, and acting. Becoming interested in costume design, she recognized a desire to create sculptural costumes and move in her own creations.... creating a transforming and complete art form.
Annie designed costumes and performed for the original corporate company in New York - Le Clique, worked for a summer making costumes for Henson Associates on Sesame Street Live, and designed and built costumes for Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and for Off-Broadway plays. Her first one-woman show, “The All American Bug Show”, took her across the country and as far as Australia and Japan. Together with her husband she has created other performances that have taken them to France, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali, and China.
When Annie was pregnant with her son Ozzie (now 18 years old), she needed to find a nontoxic material to create her costume head pieces. Previously she used toxic glues for her foam constructions. She took a two-hour workshop in basketry and asked the teacher if she could turn her basket into a bug head. The teacher laughed (but didn’t say “No!”) and Annie began making her headpieces using this organic, natural method. A number of years later she was asked to be the keynote speaker at a national basketry conference. Her current performance, Weaving The Wild, evolved from that presentation.