September In the Gallery: The Art of Craft
September In the Gallery: The Art of Craft
The September show includes wood, glass, metal, and clay by Ashley Benton (GA), Anna Boothe (PA), Tommie Rush (TN), John A. Taylor (WA), Derek Hennigar/ Ordinary Furniture (NC), Ken Sugimoto (CA), Jenifer Thoem (GA), Kliszewski Glass (CA), and introducing Brad Sells (TN).
Ashley Benton
Ashley is a mixed media artist living in Savanah, GA. She has been exhibiting her work for more than twenty years across the county and beyond. After graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design she followed her love of big mountains, clear rivers and blue skies to Colorado . There she continued to make art, raise a son, teach art, open a yoga studio, ride horses and travel to juried art shows. In 2014, Ashley moved home to Georgia and began focusing on gallery representation and small shops and boutiques. Currently she is represented by the Wally Workman Gallery, Austin, TX and the Ivy Brown Gallery, NYC. Visit her website.
Anna Boothe
Artist’s Statement: That which deals with human visceral response, compassion, vulnerability, and the metaphors that can be woven from these elements, are the conceptual grist for the sculptural work I have made over the last several years. As individuals, what kinds of veneers do we create, and why? What are the messages we project? Where do the perspectives that drive our responses originate and how can we steer them? What tools do we use to interpret the projections of others? Basically, I am curious about the relationships between our internal reactions and external projections, and ultimately, how we communicate with each other on conscious and subconscious levels. My work is an effort to reach an understanding of these inquiries. I set-out visual networks, or radii, that connect the various factors related to my investigations. The resulting pieces are meant to be icons, pseudo-mirrors, or even prosthetics, that aid in self-comprehension. The multi-part objects I create provide objectivity to issues or feelings that are often difficult to articulate. Many of the current works employ body parts, such as hands, hearts and brains. The hands represent holding on, letting go and giving as themes that recur in our everyday emotional lives. Hearts and brains refer to the tandem, yet often polarized, sources from which our reactions come. I attempt to create new contexts for these common symbols in an effort to reaffirm them, metaphorically, as essential ingredients of a balanced stance from which to generate healthy interaction. Glass, as a material, is appropriate for what I seek to express because it is capable of conveying the simultaneous strength and fragility, as well as the translucency, or degree of visibility, of these associations. I’m thirty years into my love affair with this elusive stuff and there is so much more to explore. Visit Boothe’s website.
Tommie Rush
Tommie Rush, a native of Mobile, Alabama, is a glass artist who lives and maintains a studio, Tomco Inc., in Knoxville, Tennessee. She began her early studies in ceramics which ultimately lead her to working in glass. By 1980, Tommie Rush began to share a studio space with renowned artist Richard Jolley, of whom she married several years later. Through tireless experimentation and the development of custom blended glass mixed in the studio, Tommie Rush has created a unique and identifiable style which has been celebrated in over 75 exhibitions and was honored in a retrospective exhibition at the Mobile Museum of Art in the spring of 2011. Her work can be found in numerous private and museum collections throughout the United States including the Sheldon Art Museum and Sculpture Garden in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Renwick Gallery in Washington D.C., the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville, Tennessee, among others. Most recently Tommie Rush completed a glass and welded steel site specific commission for the headquarters of Scripps Networks in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a tireless supporter of the arts, Tommie Rush has served on several national boards including the Glass Art Society in Seattle, Penland School of Craft, Asheville, North Carolina, and currently with the American Craft Council located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is very active with her local arts community.
John A. Taylor
Artist’s Statement: My studio practice revolves around pottery, ceramic processes, color, pattern, and the figure. I make ceramics, paintings, and works on paper. I use very similar methods of building surfaces with ceramics as well as in my painting. Line, pattern, and color all come into play, I enjoy the formal elements of art, and I enjoy the “building of a surface”. Many times the figure emerges, the figure is a reoccurring subject in my work. And there is humor in this figures life.
My painting process begins with many layers on the surface that are scratched or drawn through. After hardening consecutive layers are applied and removed. I enjoy the intuitive nature of my painting process. I use a variety of materials including watercolor, oil and urethane.
Work on paper, technically a form of painting. These mainly start as Trace Prints. A plate is inked and paper laid on the surface. I then draw on the back and the pressure from the pencil picks up the ink on the other side of the sheet. After the ink dries I go into the drawing with watercolor and a fine pen. The surface of pure pigment from the watercolor produces a vibrant color surface.
Ceramics and ceramic processes suit me just fine. I enjoy the feeling of clay, the touch of the soft clay in my hands, throwing on the wheel, the melting of various natural minerals in the kiln, and, always, the unexpected kiln delight! My ceramics can be divided into to groups, Tabletop and Objects (including the large jars).
The tabletop work is made of stoneware or porcelain, slip, stains, and glaze. They are made for and are fully functional for every day use with food service. Food safe glazes, tough stoneware clay, made for use in the kitchen, microwave oven, and dishwasher. The work is made in the manor of a studio artist, these are not production pots. I make, trim, and glaze each piece. There may be a repetition in the themes, but each pottery piece is original.
Objects are work I make that tend to vary with experimentation. These cross off into working with skeletal structures to long time pottery motifs. The large Jars have been a long time favorite of mine. In the past I called them “story vessels” They have evolved from my life in the northwest.
Derek Hennigar
Artist’s Statement: My work, in solid native woods, mixes established joinery, carving, and finishing techniques with my own Ordinary design perspective. While many pieces are one-of-a-kind and others are individuals of small series, all are made to last for generations, even to improve with age.
I originally called my work Ordinary Furniture as a response to the history of industrial furniture manufacture in my native North Carolina. As my designs have evolved and techniques improved, Ordinary Furniture has become an even more ironic name, but still one that acknowledges that no activity in human history is more common or important than gathering and cutting wood.
Ordinary Furniture is my solo wood shop, located in Polk County, North Carolina since 1993. Born in Asheville, I started working as a carpenter in Raleigh while attending NC State University, and I continue to learn about trees and how to use them. I strive to contribute to the millennia of woodworking before me and count among my influences modern sculpture (organic to geometric), wooden boat building, Scandinavian furniture design, and the Appalachian craft tradition. I work much of the wood I use from local logs.
Ken Sugimoto
Ken Sugimoto’s work is sculptural metalwork. He makes it unique with an organic form that is achieved by hand-forging the steel. He starts by heating the steel in a forge. He then creates a form that is inherently organic by hammering the forged steel by hand. The key elements of his work are tension and balance. Visit Sugimoto’s website.
Jenifer Thoem
Jenifer is a multifaceted creator, encompassing roles as a maker, collector, and storyteller, specializing in pottery, sculpture, and assemblage. Her work delves into the intricate connections between individuals and their surroundings, a reflection of personal experiences, thoughts, and emotional responses to life’s circumstances. Texture captivates her, particularly the common urban and environmental textures often overlooked in daily routines – manhole covers, children’s shoe soles, car tire treads, tree bark, and industrial machinery grunge. These elements serve as the narrative palette, recounting the artist’s journey and aspirations, with a mission to inspire connection, evoke memories, and prompt contemplation in our fast-paced world. Visit Thoem’s website.
Kliszewski Glass
Welcome to the whimsical world of Kliszewski Glass, where color and texture combine to enhance your surroundings. For over fifteen years, Bob & Laurie Kliss have produced a line of glass art that has strived to enrich the lives of art lovers everywhere. We take pleasure in each handmade item we produce and wish continued enjoyment to those who have included us into their art filled world. Visit their website.
Brad Sells
Brad Sells has been a full-time wood sculptor and the proprietor of Bark Studio in Cookeville, TN since 1999. Follow Sells on Facebook.
