Dream Vessels

These artists look at vessels with a more spiritual eye.

Laura  Krugh
This piece was a challenge in technique, skill, and patience.  Though I was able
 to adopt the age-old method for creating a web, I was required to work with the nuanced form of my own unique process finding a balance among diverse components.

Biography: Laura appreciates the ability of art creation to: entertain, diversify, educate, empower, enlighten, and strives to bring these aspects into her own work. Laura is currently Arts Education Coordinator at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center; she has taught art classes for youth at the Art Center, as well as at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Often times, her artwork incorporates drawing, painting and collage. She and her brother co-create experimental paintings under the guise of Multicolored Inks. She holds a B.A. in Architecture from Miami University of Ohio, and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.

 

Dreams, Caught, & Held

 

Jo Stealey

For me the natural environment has always been a source of inspiration and the connection between the physical and the ethereal worlds. Other interests include functional vessel objects and the role these items play in our lives. For this series I have paired these interests with expressionism in a spirit of serious, yet playful whimsy. Influences are manifest as sculptural forms that suggest function but simultaneously deny any ability to function. The goal of this series is to highlight the role magic and imagination can play in our lives if we just allow it to be present.

Coming from a background of ceramics and weaving, I learned to make paper over 20 years ago. Influenced by these media, I have always had a love for functional clay forms, as well as traditional textiles, particularly baskets. As a result, a vessel series was developed out of handmade paper, which has become the hallmark of my work. All the works contain handmade paper produced in my studio. Most of the “painted”, “printed” or “drawn” elements were done in the papermaking process itself, although some coloration is done during the finishing of each piece. Additional elements are applied to complete each piece.

Biography: Jo Stealey, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia where she is head of the fiber program and was awarded the endowed Middlebush Chair for Arts & Humanities (2010-15) for creative research. She currently serves as a board member for the National Basketry Organization (NBO) and writes for the NBO Review Magazine on basketry. She often teaches workshops, lectures on contemporary fiber and exhibits her work nationally and internationally. In 2011 she attended Kart Zgloszeni, an international basketry festival and symposium in Nowy Tomsyl, Poland as a member of the American delegation (through NBO) where she was one of the keynote speakers.  She is currently in the process of curating a national traveling on the History of American Basketry, 1900-2015.

Current exhibitions include: a solo exhibitions at Perlow-Stevens Gallery, Columbia, MO (2013) and Albrecht-Kemper Museum at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum, St. Joseph, MO (2012), International Fiber Biennial at Snyderman Gallery (2012, 2014); Small Expressions (2011) and the Sioux City Art Center 62^nd Juried Exhibition (2011); The Regional Arts Commission show (2011) in St. Louis and the Jacoby Art Center in Alton, Ill (2011). Her work is shown regularly at SOFA, through Snyderman-Works Gallery. Other notable exhibitions include: one-person exhibitions in Granada and Benalua, Spain (2008) and Sheldon Galleries of Art St. Louis (2009). A set design for Eklektica, a music ad performance art team in Spain was completed in 2009 and continues to be performed at music festivals throughout Europe. Her work has been included in such traveling exhibitions as, Contemporary Baskets: No Boundaries and A New Era of Sculpture, in Taiwan.

Recent workshop venues include Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN (2011-12, 2014), Penland (2014) and The Ranch, Seattle, WA (2012). She has also taught at La Escuela de Arte, Granada, Spain (2008) as well as at the National Basketry and International Surface Design Association conferences.

Examples of her work can also be seen in Fiber Arts Design Books III-VIII as well as issues of Fiberarts, Surface Design and Shuttle Spindle and Dyepot magazines and of course her website: www.jostealey.com. Jo was trained as a potter and weaver, but has made sculptural vessels using handmade paper for more than 25 years. She has recently begun to incorporate other natural materials into her work such as river willow and processed leaves.  Her work encompasses both 2 and 3 dimensional formats. Her imagery draws upon her experiences through travel and everyday life.

 

Dream Keeper

Revisit these blogs for more spiritual vessels;
Empty Vessels 4/8/13, Ancient Symbolism 11/26/12, New Zealand Creation Story 11/5/12