OF AN ERA

Janet Ballweg

What Lies Beneath 10x6Bowling Green, OH4-color polymer plate intaglio$650janetballweg.com
So much of life is spent waiting, in anticipation of "a moment." This state of expectation, characterized by a sense of mystery, potential, and psychological tension, is the basis of my work. I find particular interest in the dualities inherent in our understanding of narrative events - dualities that suggest an odd coherence between what is reality and what we perceive it to be. Past/present, dream/reality, emotion/logic intertwine in an attempt to provide some insight or explanation for what is, was, or might be.

Cali Banks

Mother
9x11

Brooklyn, NY

Archival print with thread detail

$650

calimariebanks.com Born and raised in Syracuse, New York, Cali M. Banks is an interdisciplinary artist of Lenape/Munsee and Scottish descent. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Banks holds a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in photography, and a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Technology and Global Health Studies from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Banks has been a classically trained dancer for over twenty years. Banks explores the reclamation of identity through performative photography and videography. This duly explores the ideas of public versus private narratives, which acts as a catalyst for discourse addressing the familial and the feminine. The aesthetics of her work can be described as raw and intentionally unpolished. Being interested in constructing intimate experiences, she creates immersive multimedia installations, photographic prints, and performances.

Cali Banks

Father 10x11Brooklyn, NY Archival print with thread detail$650www.calimariebanks.com Born and raised in Syracuse, New York, Cali M. Banks is an interdisciplinary artist of Lenape/Munsee and Scottish descent. She is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Banks holds a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado Boulder, specializing in photography, and a Bachelor of Arts in Art and Technology and Global Health Studies from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. Banks has been a classically trained dancer for over twenty years. Banks explores the reclamation of identity through performative photography and videography. This duly explores the ideas of public versus private narratives, which acts as a catalyst for discourse addressing the familial and the feminine. The aesthetics of her work can be described as raw and intentionally unpolished. Being interested in constructing intimate experiences, she creates immersive multimedia installations, photographic prints, and performances.

Brandin Barón

Memory Palace 17x21San Francisco, CA llustration and relief print on paper with ink, gouache, chalk pastel, and colored pencil. Print 2/3. $800www.brandinbaron.comI'm a mixed-media artist who frequently draws inspiration from art history to redefine contemporary issues and aesthetics. “Impromptu Anthem” manipulates the historical output of Norman Rockwell and Jacopo Pontormo to redefine relationships around racial and cultural diversity in America. “Reconfiguration of Remington's The Parley, I” reconfigures Frederic Remington’s art-making to include gay and interracial bodies within the history of the American West. “Los Noctámbulos” utilizes the eternal spirit of Monument Valley to define the tangibility of human existence. “I Wanna B a Cowboy (Nat Moustachioed)” draws from 19th century Western cowboy portraiture styles to assert the female form into that genre. “The Writings’s on the Wall” borrows rendering styles from the ancient “Book of the Dead” to illustrate contemporary socio-political anxieties in America “Memory Palace” constructs an enclosed space to house trans-historical instances of trauma performed upon black women.

David Barnett

Family Tree Ferris Wheel 25x14x13Tarrytown, NY Mixed Media$6,500Combining found elements with those fashioned by my own hand, my work encompasses two- and three-dimensional collage as well as sculptural objects. Infused with a rich sense of history, the essence of my work lies in the age-old struggle between nature and the man-made industrial world. My challenge is to convey that sense of conflict in a way that resonates with the viewer. I incorporate Victorian era botanical imagery, ancient anatomical diagrams, and vintage mechanical components along with natural materials. Whether it’s a rusty piece of metal, branches from an oak tree, or tiny turquoise-tipped rooster feathers, the right juxtaposition reveals itself to me—the more absurd, the better. A character is born and a narrative begins to unravel. This process can evoke visions of the past resulting in a menagerie of ethereal winged creatures, human and animal hybrids, and fanciful flying machines. In this era of mass-production and instant gratification, it’s my hope that these intimate

Bobbi Baugh

The Lord Giveth and the Interstate Taketh Away57x41 DeLand, FLTextile collage / Art Quilt$2,450bobbbibaughstudio.comI create collaged art quilts using surface design techniques to tell stories. My studio practice involves creating imagery with acrylic paints and mediums on fabric. Works combine monotype printing, resists, relief prints, screen printing and transfer of original photos to muslin. This low-tech, hands-on language of expression suits my interest in digging into the layers of meaning in the narratives depicted and implied. The works submitted for this exhibition explore stories from the past. “The Lord Giveth…” was inspired by a walk through a rural town in South Carolina that had been largely forgotten when the interstate took visitors elsewhere. “Is a Day Without Sunshine” was inspired by an abandoned packing warehouse near my home in Florida. Research revealed that it represents the end of a thriving era in this part of Florida in the early 1900’s. “Lillian’s Expectations” is a portrait of my Grandmother, whose life embodied the norms and patterns of women in an earlier era.

Susan Barrett

Towards Poughkeepsie 1 (Ghost) 16x2Sleepy Hollow, NYWatercolor $500sbarrettart.comMy paintings are reimaginings of my accumulated memories and observations. For years I have been taking photographic notes and collecting imagery that serve as a collective library of subjects to draw upon when creating paintings and collages. I develop a bond with my subjects, often creating a series based on the same place. Houses and structures become bystanders to a drama of sorts in an urban/suburban landscape where humans and nature are enmeshed into one. This conversation between the imagery is at the center of my work. https://sbarrettart.com/ https://www.instagram.com/susanbarrettart

Susan Barrett

Towards Poughkeepsie 2 (Tatoo)14x20Sleepy Hollow, NYWatercolor $450sbarrettart.comMy paintings are reimaginings of my accumulated memories and observations. For years I have been taking photographic notes and collecting imagery that serve as a collective library of subjects to draw upon when creating paintings and collages. I develop a bond with my subjects, often creating a series based on the same place. Houses and structures become bystanders to a drama of sorts in an urban/suburban landscape where humans and nature are enmeshed into one. This conversation between the imagery is at the center of my work. https://sbarrettart.com/ https://www.instagram.com/susanbarrettart

Susan Barrett

Towards Poughkeepsie 3 (Crossing) 20x20Sleepy Hollow, NY Watercolor $500sbarrettart.comMy paintings are reimaginings of my accumulated memories and observations. For years I have been taking photographic notes and collecting imagery that serve as a collective library of subjects to draw upon when creating paintings and collages. I develop a bond with my subjects, often creating a series based on the same place. Houses and structures become bystanders to a drama of sorts in an urban/suburban landscape where humans and nature are enmeshed into one. This conversation between the imagery is at the center of my work. https://sbarrettart.com/ https://www.instagram.com/susanbarrettart

Stacy Bogdonoff

Restoration Renovation 36x24Kent, CTDigital photography on linen; paper, silk, wire$1,800https://www.instagram.com/stacybogdonoff/ https://www.stacThe concept, “Of an Era” (art that refers to nostalgia or shows a firm identity to a time and place) speaks directly to my art. I make two and three-dimensional art using textiles and mixed media, exploring the themes of “Home and Shelter” and how those change as we age and move through life. The three pieces I’m submitting were all completed within the last four years, a period of international social upheaval and anxiety with Covid, and personal tragedy with my loss of a sibling. Ordinary material, combined in unusual ways, becomes the motivation for my work. I am inspired by rust, tattered fiber, bent wire, laser cutting, digital printing, decaying leaves, and raw linen. I use single ply silk thread and foot long steel needles. Curiosity, material exploration, process, and technique are always driving the concept. I find my way slowly; two steps forward, one back. Making art creates the space I need to breathe.

Krystle Brown

Industry 51x60x84Jamaica Plain, MAVideo Installation$8,500www.krystlebrownart.comMy work explores the connections between economic class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor. Combining these themes, I have a multimedia practice that explores the inherent power dynamics in these topics. The work that I create is deeply personal, while it is simultaneously universal. Through my parent’s untimely deaths, I make work incorporating their financial documents and personal ephemera. I research familial narratives that cross oceans, unwinding ancestral identities that often conflict with one another, and the generational trauma of both colonizer and colonized. My work about economic class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor questions this belief in the American idealization of the past. Instead, we are suspended against an uncertain future. Hauntology describes a future that cannot arrive, caught in a time loop of warped nostalgia. My work sits at the confluence of remembering/reliving pasts while enduring the hope and pain for better futures.

Krystle Brown

We Didn\'t Use These Anyway60x36x2Jamaica Plain, MALinen napkins, coffin nails, parent\'s debt collection letterNot For Sale www.krystlebrownart.comMy work explores the connections between economic class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor. Combining these themes, I have a multimedia practice that explores the inherent power dynamics in these topics. The work that I create is deeply personal, while it is simultaneously universal. Through my parent’s untimely deaths, I make work incorporating their financial documents and personal ephemera. I research familial narratives that cross oceans, unwinding ancestral identities that often conflict with one another, and the generational trauma of both colonizer and colonized. My work about economic class, ancestry, place, environment, and labor questions this belief in the American idealization of the past. Instead, we are suspended against an uncertain future. Hauntology describes a future that cannot arrive, caught in a time loop of warped nostalgia. My work sits at the confluence of remembering/reliving pasts while enduring the hope and pain for better futures.

Elizabeth Caputo

Birthday Cake 7x5x8Massapequa, NYnewspaper, paper bags, wire, sponge, and acrylic paint$350Nostalgia brings up many feelings. Maybe a simpler time, maybe a feeling of what is lost, or something you wish to forget. When you look to the past, you travel back to where you come from, or how it all began for you.

Charles Crabb

Graffiti Meets the Gilded Age 12x24Clifton, NJPhotograph$500https://www.behance.net/ccrabb0ea7 I am drawn to a moment’s compositional nature of line, texture, tone, lighting and context, more so than a photographic opportunity’s documentary aspect. I try to render moments to reveal the way that I see and feel about them. While we emphasize tonal characteristics that attract our artistic subconscious to interpret a moment, we don’t precisely capture what we feel about a scene. When I create a photograph, I understand that others will find new meanings in it. I maintain awareness of the camera’s influence on capturing an image, and I am careful to understand the camera’s limitations. Then, using developing tools cautiously, I try to uncover tonal aspects of an image that bring out undiscovered aspects of its design; the image becomes a design of an encounter with a moment. My photos reflect my environment; they form a record of the scenes where I live and travel that I feel will tell us a little more about how we visually relate to our surroundings

Alonzo Crawford

Liberty Defined 41x30Washington, DC Acrylic $5,000https://www.facebook.com/events/374351086604352/407651689940I am a retired professor from Howard University, where I taught undergraduate and MFA students filmmaking. My undergraduate degree is in Advertising and Design from the University of Cincinnati. I wanted to be a fine arts painter, but as an African American, I faced radical racial discrimination and felt advertising was a more promising career. After UC, I taught art at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Dayton, Ohio--my hometown. Dunbar is an underserved all-black school where students knew very little about the power of art and the careers it offers. I enjoyed showing the students how art could change their lives. Perhaps I was too good at my job--during school desegregation, the Dayton school board ordered me to leave Dunbar and move to an all-white school. When I refused, the board fired me. Drawing is fun and rewarding--learning proportions, perspective, form, texture, and the mysteries that light and shadow at play in how we see the world.

Alonzo Crawford

Leap to Freedom in The Middle Passage24x18Washington, DCAcrylic $3,000https://www.facebook.com/events/374351086604352/407651689940I am a retired professor from Howard University, where I taught undergraduate and MFA students filmmaking. My undergraduate degree is in Advertising and Design from the University of Cincinnati. I wanted to be a fine arts painter, but as an African American, I faced radical racial discrimination and felt advertising was a more promising career. After UC, I taught art at Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School in Dayton, Ohio--my hometown. Dunbar is an underserved all-black school where students knew very little about the power of art and the careers it offers. I enjoyed showing the students how art could change their lives. Perhaps I was too good at my job--during school desegregation, the Dayton school board ordered me to leave Dunbar and move to an all-white school. When I refused, the board fired me. Drawing is fun and rewarding--learning proportions, perspective, form, texture, and the mysteries that light and shadow at play in how we see the world.

Ben DiNino

Comp Posed 4 11x8Collaged Paper Minneapolis,MN$250www.bendinino.comThe work I'm submitting comes from a series of collages I've been working on called "Comp Posed". These works use as source material a variety of vintage posed photos of fashion models and movie stars from the 1940s-60s. I love the colors, shadows, and the over the top set designs of these images. I remove the models' faces, and usually most of their bodies, to focus more on the surrounding negative spaces. I enjoy highlighting what were intended to be overlooked background spaces and reassembling them into abstract compositions. The bits of vintage clothing, snippets of hairstyles, and general colors of these images hint at a past time while the confusing and absurd compositions position them into a more contemporary light.

Afi Ese

Grandma's Pancakes 36x24Oil PaintingCypress, TX$1,500www.AfiEse.comMy in-process collection of works explore an artistic juxtaposition of southern rural life as good and bad nostalgic narratives of resilience during times of abuse, tragedy, and assimilation as well as family, triumph, and advancement. Each piece is an invitation for the viewer to find the joy and pain within the pieces' compositions and, hopefully, themselves. This work has come out of lockdown during the 2020-21 COVID-19 pandemic quarantine period and my isolation has produced a stream of consciousness that is constantly interpreting past events in present time. The focus is self-reflection and forcing the world to see us.

Lenore Fiore-Mills

My Aunt’s Housedresses26x32BatikDunmore,PA$900www.fiorebatiks.comBatik Paintings by Lenore Fiore Mills www.fiorebatiks.com batiknick@verizon.net My landscapes and cityscapes are created with a resist process known as batik. However, I have utilized the process and contemporary subjects to produce harmonious compositions. My early work consisted of simple designs and limited colors but I have elevated the craft to a fine art through my individual technique. As a result of many years of persistence at mastering the art, I have developed a representational, intricate style. Visualization of the outcome is necessary because there is no erasing in batik. Even knowing this, there is an element of surprise when the wax is removed after the application of alternating layers of wax and dye. I derive my inspiration from personal experiences. Sometimes I seek out historical venues and reenactments, secret gardens, cultural celebrations and festivals, remote ocean and river shores. Many of my compositions are simply reflections of ordinary life.

David Greene

Selfie at Sungate16x13photographyDobbs Ferry, NY $275https://dcgphotos.smugmug.comWhen I was 12, I was given a brownie camera and dark room paraphernalia by my Mom’s then boyfriend, a portrait painter and professional photographer. A walk-in clothes closet became a temporary dark room as I first learned I liked photography. Then life got in the way. Teaching and coaching for 38 years. Marriage. Family. At some point, photography morphed into travel slide shows on a Kodak carousel. Eventually, I retired, turned digital, and opened my world up to more travel and new ways to photograph. I learned how Ansel Adams would use technology to express himself today, and I started viewing the world of photography differently as I traveled around the world. A photograph is often called a “slice of time”. A photograph can capture and hold that one precious moment for all eternity to be shared by others. This work represents how I want to share slices time of different generations and of history.

Jeffery Hartman

Gone #918x24OilNorth Bergen, NJ$1,000www.jeffreyhartmanart.comThe Gone series of paintings are based on old family photos. Most of the people and all of the times and places are gone from our lives.

Craig Hill

Untitled from the “Super Freaky Memories” serieS12x12
Collage and decollage on paperGambier, OH$300www.craighillart.com"Super Freaky Memories" is a series of framed mixed media collages on paper that explores the borders between fantasy and reality. These works on paper utilize both collage and decollage techniques and have become a process-based approach to image making. Mixing and layering found paper and painted paper, I create abstract compositions that highlight the juxtaposition of color, form, and texture. Also by allowing fragments of imagery borrowed from popular culture to show through, I create collages that lie on the shifting border between legibility and abstraction. These multifaceted works are composed from cut or torn fragments from children’s coloring books or comic illustrations, and paper remnants. They often incorporate Disney characters and other recognizable cartoon icons. Images that are normally considered innocent and harmless are placed in illogical juxtapositions, resulting in a hybrid image that reads as a suspense story of the unconscious.

Andreea Alunei

Angst 7.25" x 7.5" x 0"Watercolor Middleton, WI$380This small selection of watercolor paintings was inspired by photographs of intimate moments in the artist’s life, some silly and some snapped out of boredom. Photographs create and conserve memories that might otherwise be lost. They also tend to be treasured as nostalgic relics that evoke feelings of nostalgia. The process of turning photographs into paintings changes and distorts the original image in a way similar to how memory changes the facts of our past. Memories, like paintings, are reconstructions of reality filtered through people's personal experiences, moods, knowledge, and beliefs and not perfect snapshots of events. These images explore the similarity between processing memories and creating art, as well as give snapshots into the digitalized, angsty, disillusioned, and self-expressive millennial experience.

Takeisha Jefferson

Until 36x24x.5Archival Print Garden City, MI$2,500Finding artistry in her 23 Chromosomes. Takeisha's artwork gives life to forgotten and unknown members of her family. Her portraits present historical narratives that challenge the canon. This can be seen with her series “Birthright: Africa America and The Veiled: Revelations. Takeisha finds inspiration from her ancestors, elders, and her four children. Takeisha uses the intersection of history, current events, and hope for the future to tell these stories through her lens.

Steven Justice

The Muzak Man48x36x2Oil On Canvas Rochester, NY$2,400www.stevejusticestudio.comI paint satirical cartoon portraits, even if my painting's subjects occasionally lose top billing and become subordinate to another character or some other theme I discover. I pay honor (or sometimes dishonor) to a pantheon of hero geniuses, creators, seekers, crack-pots and hangers-on, and although most of my subjects are characters from the past, nostalgia is not my intent. I feel I'd be painting myself into a coroner if it were. The past is history and the future is mystery -- we must accurately interpret the former to effectively prepare for the latter, something we don't ollow through on very well .

Koon-Hwee Kan

Scan for Everything Today15x34x2Digital Photocollage
Kent,OHNot for saleMy work is about the present dilemma challenging a specific geographic region--Southeast Asia. Under the grand narrative arc of Modernity in the previous century, the portrayal of Southeast Asia together with its exoticized or diluted cultural practices, has always been at odds with the ideals of the West. This marginalized but reputable backward region in need of progress was once part of the extensively travelled Spice‒Ceramic Sea routes, across which all voyagers sailed when the trade winds changed direction. These supposedly vulnerable people in need of salvation had historically promulgated and enriched several world religions, for example, Therevada Buddhism with its sophisticated meditation techniques.

Sarah Shinhyo Kim

Before the Pandemic20x20x3Airdry clay and resin River Edge, NJ
$4,500www.sarahshinhyokim.com As an artist who values human communication and relationships, the inspiration for my recent work comes from the increasing popularization of ‘emoticons,’ or ‘emojis,’ in the past decade. In my practice, I explore different facets of this social phenomenon. On the one hand, emojis act as vehicles of individual emotional expression, revealing a simplified, yet honest feeling about our everyday lives. On the other hand, their universal and semantically rich nature allows us to transcend cultural and linguistic barriers, while at the same time reflect and comment on complex social issues. In my work, I aim for the harmonious consolidation of various emotions and expressions. I draw clusters of little faces portraying different states of mind, which are eventually shaped into a unified larger image. My artwork shows that despite everyone’s uniqueness and differences, balance and harmony can be achieved in human relationships.

Carol Mannas

Prairie Memento MB22x15
Linocut: 4 plate 5 color printCalgary, Canada $525www.mannasart.ca\Where I grew up in the Prairie area of Canada there were grain elevator markers at every small town. At these towns, vertical grain storage building were built and dotted the landscape from Alberta east to Manitoba. We could navigate by their locations and were rooted to the prairie landscape by their presence. In the last 10 years, the wooden grain elevator structures have been replaced with metal silos in larger more central locations so it has been necessary to demolish the grain elevators from the landscape. A few still remain, but the markers from my childhood are mostly gone. 'Prairie Memento' is my ode to this unique lodestar on the prairies. A visual anchor that connected the three prairie provinces to each other and distinct from the rest of Canada needed to be memorialized. The color choices were to capture different times of day from sunrise in Manitoba, to midday in Saskatchewan and finally dusk in Alberta.

Diane Messinger

Groups 45x60Acrylic on PaperTruro, MA$2,500www.DianeMessinger.comMy work is about the subconscious revealing itself There is much about not only my past but the present and future expressed.. Generational?? Of course because my work is concerning my life and my life at present is 74 years. A younger artist would have less life to draw on. Not an impediment to be sure.

Mihai Bogdan

As Is23.5x15.5Archival Pigment PrintHouston, TX $1,200www.bogdanfotoart.comOver the past ten years, Bogdan Mihai has chronicled the decline of the historical thermal baths in Herculane, Romania. His pictures were seen by a group of architecture students from a nearby university who were charged to attempt to save this crumbling landmark. They suggested that Bogdan come to Herculane to capture one final view of the structures before the restoration teams began their work. In September of 2019, Bogdan traveled to Romania, and was granted full access to all the buildings at the site. He took the very last photos of the spa. The teams moved in, carted off the rubble, covered the holes with tarps, and tried to shore up the walls and ceilings where they could. The site is now boarded up, and awaits funding for restoration work to begin. While this collection of photographs depicts the decline of a historical treasure in Romania, it also remind us of our responsibility to future generations. Little remains of the Roman baths in Herculane, and the 19th century

Edward Mills

Lost Generation18x14Collage on Board Brooklyn, NY $2,500www.eimills.comLINE + SHAPE + COLOR ARTIST: EDWARD MILLS The Message of a painting is shown as the concept or idea of each work. My tools in painting are line, shape, value, color, edges and texture. Painting can reveal and provide form as well as act as a signifier, create atmosphere, control image and provide expression. The instinctive qualities of balance, rhythm and harmony achieve the “unity of effect” in each painting. Materials in painting can be illuminated to show degrees of smoothness, coarseness, grain, consistency, and weave or elasticity. The relationship between light, surface, and texture can be implied, simulated or hidden.

Paige Mostowy

Mother and Daughter 4ftx4ftx2ft2 channel audio, frames w/ 4 transparent photos, tableWestport, CTNot For Sale www.paigemostowy.comThe artifacts of my family’s past were not objects or places, but stories. Constantly fluctuating and passed down from person to person until finally those pieced together histories became truths. The stories I heard would begin or end in some tangent regarding an instance or person that was never fully resolved. The end lingering with a sense of sorrow, regret or complete disdain with the person wrapped up within a recollection. We spend our lives with not only the people we surround ourselves with, but the objects we live with every day. The residual effect of possessions and their associations scatter names and incidents as time passes and impressions fade. Every moment built upon what a person has created or chosen to abandon. Instances which pile regret onto longing and longing into a moment which can never be returned to. Preservation of the self and the family creates something that is no longer what it was and is unable to return to what was once was.

Paige Mostowy

She never learned to help herself5ftx2ftx18inchair, thread, embroideryWestport,CT$1,000www.paigemostowy.comThe artifacts of my family’s past were not objects or places, but stories. Constantly fluctuating and passed down from person to person until finally those pieced together histories became truths. The stories I heard would begin or end in some tangent regarding an instance or person that was never fully resolved. The end lingering with a sense of sorrow, regret or complete disdain with the person wrapped up within a recollection. We spend our lives with not only the people we surround ourselves with, but the objects we live with every day. The residual effect of possessions and their associations scatter names and incidents as time passes and impressions fade. Every moment built upon what a person has created or chosen to abandon. Instances which pile regret onto longing and longing into a moment which can never be returned to. Preservation of the self and the family creates something that is no longer what it was and is unable to return to what was once was.

Seema Lisa Pandya

Tabla Drip Bulge 28x28x18Reclaimed tabla drum heads, india ink, wood, Brooklyn, NY $4,500www.seemalisapandya.comStudying the classical Indian tabla drums, my teacher proclaimed, “matter is vibration and vibration is reality”. Since nature is vibration, I look to natural phenomena such as biology, sine curves, fractals, and music for my artistic expression. This has inspired me to create various art works ranging from interactive kinetic sculptures, slatted light void sculptures, amoeba shaped fractal paintings, to biologically inspired sculptures. My ‘Tabla Sculpture Series’ utilizes discarded ‘pudi heads’ (leather skins of the South Asian classical tabla drum) as a sculptural material. Each pudi had been touched energetically by musicians for 1000+ hours until the heads become worn out. Tabla teachings are passed down through many generations and traditionally women were not allowed to learn. In this new era, women do perform and I learned for 4 years. Artistically, I reclaim this material (already embodied with vibration) giving it new life with a nod to its biological vibrational roots.

Geri Patterson-Kutras

Friends 62x57Fiber Art Morgan Hill, CA$9,500www.geripkartquilts.comAs young girls we jumped rope together, laughing and sharing secrets about school and boys and all the things that occupy young, growing girls thoughts. As we grew our secrets changed to dreams and hopes for our lives. When our lives took the course of young wives and mothers we shared the happiness and difficulties of becoming young women. When war brought changes to our lives we clung to each other braving the challenge to survive yet another day. As years passed our friendship grew stronger, cemented by time, endurance and the knowledge that only comes when one knows regardless of how tough times are there is always that one person to remind us of our strength to find hope in next day. Our friendship has endured through laughter and tears and now as we walk together, a little slower, we find comfort in our daily routines together. Our lives are full with the memories that we hold and the thread of dear friendship that has sustained us through this life of together.

Sharon Shapiro

Receiver,202148x50Colored pencil, graphite, collage, and transfers on paperCharlottesville, VA$4,800www.sharonshapiro.comMy work results from a continuing endeavor to establish a sense of place in a world where meaning shifts and memory fails. Using nostalgia to attack and revere these recollections simultaneously, I challenge the viewer to differentiate between mythology and history. By applying opposing forces in subject matter, I chronicle the complexities of growing up female in the American South, presenting a contemporary viewpoint on femininity and feminism. I utilize visual disruption to create a curiously discordant scene that tilts the viewers' relationship to the subject. Beauty serves as a temptation for the viewer. Upon closer inspection, cracks in the artifice reveal obscured narratives and hidden meanings. I confront the past alongside the superfluous temporality of the current 24-hour news cycle. Inspired by personal events, local lore, and pop-cultural references, I present the viewer a world, both private and universal, in which time coalesces and collapses.

Jon Taner

Blessed Be 14x18x10Moulding, Acrylic Brewer, ME$1,800www.jontaner.comThe work I've entered into this juried exhibition was inspired by my drive in and out of Paterson, NJ using the same route each day for years. The description given in the guidelines for this exhibit are so much about the mixed media assemblages I've entered. The fact that I grew up in Paterson as did my mother and father and his parents who settled there from Eastern Europe carries with it a certain sentimental attachment. My pride in the "Silk City" still remains even though its glory years are long gone. With its ongoing shift in population and culture there are still the old aspects of the town that show through the multiple coats of paint and the graffiti. The ornate column of an old department store, a church, a loading dock, a bar, or other establishments that have survived decades of change. Although my creations are not exact replicas of the sights, they do strike a chord that awakens a memory of something familiar form the past.

Britt Thomas

The Flower Pot (from the Frozen Families series)16x14.5Metallic Pigment Print Houston, TX$800www.Britt-Thomas.comBritt Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist from Southeast Texas who specializes in lens-based media. Captivated by disconcerting themes of pretense, imitation and falsehoods, she is interested in unearthing and examining these topics within American history, culture and society. With a concept-driven mindset, she tailors her creative process to each distinctive project. Whether approached through craft-inspired sculpture, digital media installation or straight photography, she aims to evoke an uncomfortable, strangely familiar experience that simultaneously reflects and dissects reality. After earning a BFA in studio art from Lamar University, she completed her MFA in photography and digital media at the University of Houston. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, with recent exhibitions at the Galveston Arts Center in Galveston, TX, Aggregate Space Gallery in Oakland, CA, Amos Eno Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, and CICA Museum in South Korea.

Blair Treuer

Isaac/Lone Thunderbird 50x49x4Fabric and Thread mounted to wireBemidji, MN$10,000As the only white American in my Native American family, my work is about my reflections as an outsider and the emotional rollercoaster I often ride as I stand fixed on the outside of the cultural experiences of my husband and children, but privileged enough to look in. It’s not simply about the pieces of Ojibwe culture I’ve been allowed to see, but instead what it’s allowed me to see within myself, and even to recognize what cannot be found there. My portraits explore intimate parts of my life and center on the juxtaposition between my white culture and my husband’s traditional indigenous culture, and have ranged in topics from drug abuse, social ostracization, body image, femininity and masculinity, sexual abuse and exploitation, aging, transitioning from childhood to manhood and womanhood, with spirituality deeply woven into their narratives. My work is vulnerable, honest and personal, but often makes universal connections. Even when my work is dark, it’s filled with hope.

Meg Tweedy

Something Borrowed 11x14AssemblageDarien, CTNot For Sale I am a conceptual artist, working in acrylics, assemblage and encaustics. My work is very personal, relating to nature, people, places and things I know intimately. As a writer, I am always looking for the story in my work. Many of my pieces are inspired by or incorporate family members, heirlooms, poetry, my past. I am drawn to objects that have a history. My submitted pieces are a rocking chair addressing the joys and sorrows of generations of mothers, a letter home from a WW2 POW, a family tree spanning generations, a family wedding dress worn by two women 100 years apart, and a family portrait left to the next generation with a poignant letter. I am a member of the Silvermine Guild of Artists and am an exhibiting artist at the Rowayton Arts Center (RAC) I have also been accepted in juried shows at the Art of the Northeast at Silvermine, Ridgefield Guild of Artists, the Carriage Barn Arts Center in New Canaan and the Stamford Art Association, among other venues.

Katie Virag

Desaturated 6x6x6Found objects, permanent marker, paint, and wallpaperBuffalo, NY$2,000www.katievirag.comFor safety reasons, I was not allowed inside my grandparents’ houses as a child. My paternal grandmother was a hoarder, completely filling her house with stuff, revealed to me only through the slats of her blinds. My maternal grandparents were also hoarders. After filling one house, they bought a second, and filled that one. I set foot in my paternal grandmother’s home for the first time when I was 20. I have still never seen the outside or inside of my other grandmother’s houses. I often found myself imagining what my grandparents’ houses would look like if my family were “normal”, creating a picture in my head based on old TV sitcom homes and stories from my childhood classmates about visiting their grandparents. I am currently creating a living room based on this alternate reality, full of found thrift store items with dated patterns. I am “removing” the color from these items by painting over them to create a cartoon coloring book image, blending together the real and the not-real.

G.E. Vogt

Daydreamin' Blues III
Collage - magazine, Alice in Wonderland textSan Diego, CA$300www.aworldinpieces.comI create art because I love to tell a story – in choosing certain elements for a piece, I seek to cause an impression, or a visceral reaction, or make a statement about a difficult narrative. We live in a time of increasingly complex stories: of non-stop stimulation, information, and connection that despite its increasing diversity is also becoming increasingly divided and antagonistic. It is as much incredibly exciting and overwhelming, as it is thrillingly global and deeply individual. Collage became my medium because of its ability to take advantage of this glut of information by juxtaposing a variety of sources or materials, particularly ones that seem disparate at first, to intertwine together a story of a complex relationship, whether it is on a broader, global scale, or that of a single individual struggling with their own personal world.

Jerry Wein

Richie 14x18Photograph Milton, NY$150 Photography has become fully intertwined with my life over the years. Visualizing photographs is part of my overall perception – how I experience the world. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is welcome when I am actively shooting or mentally open to creating and it fuels a curiosity about the structure (how things fit together) and character (what they are like) of the world I see, including both natural and built objects and subjects. At times it is unwelcome and difficult to shut off. I have a large and diverse portfolio that is hard to characterize is terms of genre. I tell stories, both narrative and abstract. Photography is a combination of vision and execution, and I strive to grow in both areas. But execution is more objective, mechanical, and learnable. Vision is subjective, rare, difficult to nurture, and is where I seek to differentiate my work. I want my photographs to show the viewer something they may not have seen at the point of capture.

Lily Wieleba

Free7x7Etching Durham, NC$175My art tells the stories of the people, places and times in my life that I love and that define me. I use printmaking as a way to hold onto memories, people, and places I can no longer tangibly hold or experience, this means taking a memory and including every little detail I can remember from it, dragging in elements to help emphasize the importance of the moment. My process begins with pictures of the people, places, and moments I want to create an etching about. Sometimes I collage images together, and sometimes I use a single picture as my main reference, and add little details I can remember from other moments with that person or in that place as I draw into my plate. I try to emphasize that with all of the intricate details I add into my prints; every little detail has meaning to me in some way and I want the viewer to feel that as well. I want people to get lost in my prints the same way I get lost in them while creating them, feeling surrounded by undying memories.

Thomas C. Jackson

Sketch for 2184 1/2 Page 18916x13x1.5Pencil on paperCedar Rapids, IANot For Sale www.thomascjackson.comIn 2008 I began drawing real people from life with ink on paper. As I honed my drawing skills, I also developed a premise for a graphic novel: “What would the world be like if the current forces in society were taken to their logical conclusion?” That was the starting point for 2184 ½. I didn’t want this work to be a group of small, loosely related images. It had to be big—a coherent epic story, because I believed the country was heading in dangerous directions. The premise became more complex, and I teamed up with Fritz McDonald, a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Over more than two years of discussion and individual work, the story focused and crystalized. To date we have a complete script that I have fully sketched. I am currently working on finished pages. The future, as depicted by our story, is not a bright, clean, airbrushed environment. It is a place where there is a lot of abandonment and decay interspersed by updated recreations of the past.

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