The Penland Gallery and Visitors Center proudly presents the second Focus exhibition of the season, a new body of enameled jewelry, sculpture, and mixed-media paintings by Jessica Calderwood. Now on view in the Focus Gallery, the show runs through Sunday, June 16th.
“Entangled (Magnolia Grandiflora),” enamel on copper, ceramic decals, china paint, sterling silver, 10 x 10 x 2 inches
“My most recent series combines flower/botanical forms with fragments of the human body in order to address the narrative of human life cycles: change, growth, metamorphosis, aging, loss. The choice to use flower and plant forms is multi-layered. Flowers have been used throughout history as symbols of the feminine. It can be found in mythology, literature, folklore and visual art. In addition, Western culture has an intricate system of flower symbolism that has been a way for humans to express and communicate complex emotions.
“I created these work to be intentionally humorous and ironic. These human/plant hybrids are large, voluptuous, headless, and sometimes armless. They are intended to portray a spectrum of concepts relating to gender and identity. The Flower People are at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated.” – Jessica Calderwood
Jessica Calderwood is an image-maker and sculptor who works primarily in the mediums of metal and enamel, using a combination of traditional and industrial metalworking processes to make statements about contemporary life. Her works are imbued with personal stories and vibrant color. She received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Arizona State University, with an emphasis in metalworking. Her work has been exhibited throughout the U.S. and internationally. She has participated in artist residencies with the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program and the Mesa Arts Center. Her work has also been published in Metalsmith Magazine, American Craft, NICHE, Ornament, the Lark 500 series, and The Art of Enameling. She has been an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh since 2008. Most recently, Calderwood is a recipient of a Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship.
“So Square”, mixed-media sculpture: ceramic, paint, enamel, copper, fiberglass, silk flowers, 4 x 2.5 x 2.5 feet
Click hereto visit Jessica’s website, where you can see more of her work. Click hereto visit the Penland Gallery website.
Penland’s Focus Gallery is a space primarily dedicated to single-artist exhibitions. Focusing on individual artists over the course of the year, it presents a larger selection of their work to gallery visitors and patrons. Click here for more information about the Focus Gallery.
The Penland Gallery and Visitors Center presents its first Focus exhibition of the year, a new body of work in drawing and painting by Tina Mullen. This show is on view in the Focus Gallery from Friday, March 22 through Sunday, April 28th, with an opening reception Friday, March 22, from 4:30 – 6pm.
“Crosshairs,” watercolor and graphite on nautical chart, 14 x 11 in.
“I find that I use it often – the phrase “out of the blue” – to describe events, ideas, and the way things strike me. I wonder if I use it more than others, or if I’m just less prepared than others and things catch me off guard. Regardless, I enjoy contemplating the notion that things happen unexpectedly. That some of the best things in life are unplanned, unscheduled, and come to us by chance – out of the blue. The real beauty for me is what becomes of us because of them.
In my work, “out of the blue” represents migration, journey and the stories that happen along the way. Many of the drawings are done on maps. Maps of places traveled, Maps given to me by friends and Maps that come with their own history. Represented are maps of some of the places that I love – Florida, North Carolina, and Oregon.
Other points of departure for my drawings might be a piece of paper found in an old book that contains the owners’ doodles or handwriting. Those marks, the age of the paper, slight rips or tears bear witness to a past unknown to me. I enjoy excavating through those marks, setting off on a new path – a new visual adventure.
Here’s to the journey.” – Tina Mullen
“Small Precarious Fate,” watercolor, pastel, and colored pencil on vintage paper, 18 x 12 in.
Tina Mullen is an artist who lives in Gainesville, Florida. She is also the director of Shands Arts in Medicine – a program that brings the arts to patients and families struggling with serious illness.
“I have painted and drawn pictures my entire life. I believe that the arts are a vehicle for transformation and personal expression, and my passion is to help others bring art into their lives in meaningful ways.”
Tina has been a drawing instructor at Santa Fe Community College and the University of Florida, as well as Interim Director of the University Galleries at UF. Tina is also a working artist who has exhibited her work throughout the United States. She has received numerous awards including the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Florida Department of Cultural Affairs. She has been a visiting artist at Penland, the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida and the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming.
Tina has a BA from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, and has an MFA from the University of Florida.
Tina Mullen
Click here to visit Tina’s website, where you can see more of her work.
Penland’s Focus Gallery is a space primarily dedicated to single-artist exhibitions. Focusing on individual artists over the course of the year, it presents a larger selection of their work to gallery visitors and patrons.
Click here for more information about the Focus Gallery.
The Penland Gallery and Visitors Center is pleased to present its eighth and final Focus exhibition of 2012, a collection of special hand-made scarves by Penland affiliated artists. This collection of over 50 scarves by ten uniquely talented textile artists includes a diverse range of techniques and fibers. Woven shibori, tied shibori, machine and hand felting, natural dyes, resist and vat dye techniques, machine and hand embroidery, machine knitting, hand-woven and specialty mill-woven cloth… and skill, skill, and more skill are combined to produce this very inviting selection of textiles.
The show is on view in the Focus Gallery from Friday, November 2nd through Sunday, November 25th.
“Enriched by my curiosity in the parallel, yet sometimes blurry line between jewelry and apparel, my work is fueled by a direct response to contrasting materials that when together, create complementary relationships. Traditional to jewelry, gold and silver are limited in the palate, fairly rigid and tend to hold their shape. Traditional to apparel, fibers such as silk can be dyed infinite colors, they are soft and tend to conform. Next to each other the contrast is heightened; it is bolder, more lively. Sheet metal seems incredibly stiff and strong. Silk appears light, delicate and vivid. Twisted thin wire is amazingly similar to the plied silk it is next to, yet functions so differently. Stone or glass beads unite, being hard like metal yet sharing color with fiber. Grids, both manufactured and organic are used in many variations, creating a surface that allows for different applications of the same materials – making evident qualities innate to them. These structures and supports are integral, sometimes they are left to appear as a visible design element, other times they disappear and only the handiwork – stitching, weaving, or knotting – can be seen. These pieces are layered, made to be worn, with the human desire to adorn at the core of their creation.” – Raissa Bump
Catharine Ellis, Lace Scarf, 100% cotton, hand gathered and hand dyed with natural plant dyes: lac, sumac leaves, mordanted with alum, iron, and titanium, woven at The Oriole Mill
“I construct fabrics by weaving threads on a loom. My original training was in traditional woven techniques, which led me to weave functional fabrics in natural fibers for many years. For the last number of years my career has been defined by the discovery and exploration of the woven shibori process. Woven shibori transforms a traditional stitched resist into one that conjoins with a woven application, providing a new freedom in fabric design. Woven shibori has challenged all that I know about weaving and has led me to investigate new materials, resists, dyes and finishing processes.” – Catharine Ellis
Carmen Grier, Stitched Scarf, multi-resist dyed and stitched wool
“The natural world is rich with eccentric surfaces and lush, layered hues. My goal is to express or reflect this deep beauty in my textiles. By manipulating fabric with dyes, shibori, screen-printing, drawing and piecing techniques, I coax the cloth into one–of-a-kind, handmade compositions – small poems that seek to represent the ephemeral and suggest the eternal.” – Carmen Grier
Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Black Cloque Scarf with Red Patches, shibori-dyed silk with needle-punched patches
“My work departs from traditional Japanese techniques and a stereotypical Japanese aesthetic…but I hope to retain some of the invention and skill found in Japanese indigo dyed Shibori. In the working “dialogue” of the studio, I incorporate western fabrics, tools, and dye techniques with traditional Shibori concepts. I have found parallels in forgotten western techniques of smocking, shirring, and ruching. Most recently I have explored digital printing based on scanned scraps of my hand dyed Shibori.” – Ana Lisa Hedstrom
Lisa Klakulak, ‘Untitled’ Body Textile, merino wool fleece, silk fabrics, cotton sewing thread; wet-felted, partial felt applique, felt-fused fabric, naturally dyed with Osage Orange wood and indigo extract, free motion machine-embroidered surface embossing
“Employed throughout antiquity for its protective qualities, felt is an ideal material to make visual commentary on our human vulnerability and the ways we seek physical security and mental defense. Lisa Klakulak incorporates both objects and images of natural materials as well as reclaimed human-made products that offer a sense of comfort and security in her work. Inspired by humanity’s age-old relationship with the community and time involved fiber processes, her primary use of fiber and natural dyes represents a fight for the threatened values of community responsibility, patience, physical activity, and an intimate relationship with our natural world. Lisa instructs workshops nationally as well as pursuing opportunities to work with children to integrate fiber art into the visual art curriculum and to raise cultural awareness and appreciation inspired by her international travels.” – Lisa Klakulak
“My work in functional fiber arts satisfies my need to contribute to and enhance the simple pleasures in daily life-warmth, comfort, texture and color….enlivening the senses. My raw materials are fine wool and silk and my process the ancient technique of felting practiced in a contemporary light. Felting in theory is simple – wool’s microscopic scales curl during the process of applying heat, pressure and moisture thus creating an interlocking fabric. Complex is my approach to composition-multiple layers blending rich tones and intricate patterns are felted then hand blocked and sculpted to achieve a harmony of color and form.” – Noellynn Peopos
Amy Putansu, Double Layer Silk Chiffon Scarf
Janet Taylor, Red and Purple Angles Scarf, silk chiffon, vat dye discharge
Penland’s Focus Gallery is a space primarily dedicated to single-artist exhibitions. Focusing on individual artists over the course of the year, it presents a larger selection of their work to gallery visitors and patrons.
