Residual Impact at the Jacoby Arts Center

RESIDUAL IMPACT

October 12-December 23, 2017

Artist Reception on October 20, 5 to 7 pm

I am honored to have been invited to participate in this exhibit with renowned potter Arthur Towata and Eastern Illinois University professor and sculptor Ann Coddington at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton, Illinois.  

Residual impact explores our interconnectedness to the environment, the imprint we leave in nature and somatic memory. It hopefully inspires reflection and encourages the protection of our natural resources.  

I have eight large pieces in this show which are beautifully balanced by remarkable knotted and netted sculptures by Ann Coddington and the incredible textures and shapes of Art Towata's pottery and paintings. The show is gorgeous and thanks to curators Sun Smith-Foret, Penny Schmidt and Jane Sauer, who brought us together, it is the first time in many years that I've been given the opportunity to "speak" to my environmental concerns within a show devoted to same.   I've included my statement below.

A peek at Dakota, shibori rusted silk, 92"x48" in the background through
Ann Coddington's netted piece (title ?) in foreground.

Broader view rear of gallery with a sample of all the artists' work in view.

As a printmaker over 15 years ago, I experimented with fabric to lift prints from rusty farm tools. It was love at first sight! I embraced organic printing, as I called it, because it inspired spontaneity and informed my ideas about process and content. Treating fabric as a vast landscape, I adapted arashi shibori techniques to wrapping rusted pipes, tucking leaves into folds to create additional resists. I prefer to work with silk because it is beautiful and deceptively fragile, but capable (to a point) of surviving the assault of rust printing. Rust is a gorgeous medium, offering an array of colors and exciting, unpredictable patterns when tempered by tea and tannins that defuse the corrosive power of the rust resulting in permanent and stable marks on the fabric. This unsettling recipe of rust and silk goes beyond mere design, however. It is a fitting metaphor for both the fantastic beauty of our earth and the assault on the environment that we are perpetrating to our own detriment. 

On Saturday, October 21, starting at 2 pm Ann Coddington and I will be participating in a gallery talk with demos that I hope will bring that statement to life for those in attendance.  If you click on the showcard above with text, you can read a brief statement of Ann's.  

Arthur Towata has been making pottery for many decades.  His work is the embodiment of his experience defined by the environment that surrounded his forced internment as a child during WWII at Manzanar.  On Friday evening, Oct 20, beginning 7:30, after the main gallery artist reception, there is a special event Hidden Histories with films and discussion on the Japanese internment camps where Arthur can share his very personal experiences.  

More photos of the exhibit can be found at the exhibit page for JAC here. 

I was also invited to populate the gift shop at Jacoby with a number of new scarves and wraps that I've been making such as this very large sheer silk wrap in which I incorporated elderberries.

52"x78" silk wrap with elderberries

The Jacoby Arts Center is located at 627 East Broadway, Alton, Illinois 62002.

Please visit the website for more information about Residual Impact and the concurrent exhibits in the east gallery as well as other events associated with the shows.