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Past Exhibit Highlights |
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Friday, June 6th the Pendleton Center for the Arts opened an exhibit for three regional craftsmen. Bill Piper, Claude Birt and Ed Brannon. The exhibit, “Art/Craft: New Intersections”, showcased wood, metal and clay in contemporary interpretations that blur the distinction between fine craft and fine art. |
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Bill Piper has lived in Walla Walla most of his life. He taught art appreciation, drawing, design, printmaking, painting, sculpture and pottery at Walla Walla Community College for more than 25 while keeping up his own studio work.
His sculptural work has been in bronze, carved stone (marble and limestone), cast concrete and welded steel, in both figurative and abstract or non-representational styles. |
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Claude Birt is a potter and in his thirteenth year of teaching art at Riverside High School in Boardman, Oregon. Raised in Kansas, he studied art studio and education at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana. Birt utilizes Raku, a low-fire pottery process developed in Japan in which the ceramic pieces are removed from a gas kiln at 1800 degrees and then placed in a garbage can filled with combustible materials like newspapers or sawdust. The smoke from the burning material reacts with the glazes and the clay body. The piece is then quenched in water.
“I enjoy Raku because each firing is unpredictable and different. It’s a mystery at times, with colors that ‘dance’ across the piece and then disappear all in a matter of seconds,” said Birt. |
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Ed Brannon was born on a farm in North Dakota, and so, he claims, has earth in his blood. He has worked in clay, a media that he believes embodies all the visual arts of painting, drawing, design, printmaking, sculpture, metal smithing and photography, for forty years. He’s been teaching art at Green River Community College in Auburn, WA since 1973.
“Once the clay is fired to 2350 degrees Fahrenheit, (as every object in this exhibition is), the piece will be part of our personal and worldly culture for thousands of years,” said Brannon. “Once fired, the clay will not rot. My signature will be a part of my history.” |
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The exhibit was made possible through the generous support of Lorie and Al Baxter.
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Kathelene Galloway The Belted Galloway’s July 11 - August 1, 2008
This exhibit is made possible through the generous support of Burns Law Office.
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Kathelene Galloway is making her mark on the northwest art scene.
“I am an artist who draws” she says. “Whether I am making prints, working in paint or writing I have a mark-making mentality. The mark is the residual of my action, which under the best conditions etches away a space for viewers, including myself, to think.”
An exhibit of her work will be on display in the East Oregonian Gallery at the Pendleton Center for the Arts beginning Friday, July 11th and running through August 1. The public is invited to an Opening Reception July 11th from 5:30 -7:00 for a first look at the work and to visit with the artist.
After studying art at Boise State University and receiving her Masters of Fine Art degree from Indiana State University with an emphasis on drawing, Galloway settled in La Grande, Oregon where she has been on staff at Eastern Oregon University for several years.
“Making art is, for me, about examining and translating my world” said Galloway.
Her current body of work combines her computer skills with traditional printmaking techniques, allowing her the freedom to compose as freely as she does in her pencil sketches.
Galloway studied a wide range of non-toxic printmaking methods with the late George Roberts at Boise State and she continues to explore them today. The solar plates she works with today employ the latest in technology, allowing her to achieve a printing surface that provides outstanding photographic clarity.
Solar Plate Photogravures are layered and collaged to create striking images that explore her mother’s history as a young woman growing up in Hitler’s Germany and the family’s attempts to bury the past.
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“My intention in this work is to erode the glossy façade histories constructed around my understanding of family, expose the estranged factions within my family group, and replace and embody myself with it all.”
Galloway exhibits nationally and her work is featured in both the Opus 6 Gallery, Eugene, OR and The Indigo Gallery, Joseph, OR. Her work has been acquisitioned into the collections of the Fra Angelico Museum of Spiritual Art, The Rose Hullman Institute of Technology, Indiana State University, The Grande Ronde Hospital and can be seen in many private collections.
Her work is also featured on the covers of both The Rock’s Cold Breath, translated from the Chinese by Jodi Varron and Troubled Intimacies: A Life in the Interior West by David Axelrod. She has received many awards ands institutional research grants and serves as the Vice Chair of the Oregon Ink Spot Print Exchange.
This work was made possible in part by Eastern Oregon University’s Faculty Scholars and Sharing the Learning Grant Programs.
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Michelle Acuff: A Topology of Thinking Jan. 24 - Feb. 20, 2009
In this innovative and unexpected exhibit, Acuff addressed the canonical architecture of the East Oregonian gallery through the assembly of forms and images from a diverse array of sources, including historic sculpture, the field of cognitive science, MRI imaging, and YouTube. The installation explored models of thinking and literacy, the cultural shift from text-based knowledge to digital knowledge, our corporal navigation of space, and its relation to materiality.
Michelle Acuff holds a B.A. from Augustana College and a M.A. and M.F.A. in Sculpture and Intermedia from The University of Iowa. Her work has been exhibited in contemporary galleries and museums across the country and she currently serves as Assistant Professor of Art at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington.
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This exhibit was made possible through the generous support of Cayuse Technologies, owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. |
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Meredith Re’ Grimsley: Honey and Pearls Feb. 27 - March 27, 2009
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Artist’s Statement
“There is a basin in the mind where words float around a thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.” Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
Recognizing my own sense of loss and gratitude, I discovered a spiritual need to create art work that reflects the balance, and simultaneous existence, of joy and pain in my life. My work manifests as a passion for book, paper and fiber arts. Multiple segments, actions, or elements represent pages and books. Garment contours symbolize the body as flesh and vessel. By blanketing the surfaces of pieces with personal journal writings, Bible verses, images or patterns which reflect and affect my choices, behavior, and faith, a sense of identity and spirituality emerge. With my work evolving into symbols serving faith and sacrifice, I strive to understand and expose the need for, purpose of and cycle of repetition in human traditions, speech and relationships. I expose the warmth of spirituality and the loneliness that drives me to seek God. While acknowledging instances of misused religious fervor and manipulation of scripture, I strive to present, and represent, an open heart, forgiveness and humility. All of my work investigates the use, evolution, deterioration, and interpretation of the written, spoken and body language. An individual’s history dictates each individual’s comprehension of his/her environment. Words are tied to each of us inevitably marking our perception and ability to communicate. Even though the mind and body may be alienated, the soul yearns for contact, fuels the imagination and searches for truth. I whisper about my own search, with obscured text, pattern and imagery, to my audience. Exploring underlying currents which impact personal perception, my work examines conversation and body language through mixed media/fiber art, installation, wearable art and performance. Multiples reveal my attempt to slow time looking at each gesture, frame by frame, as though recorded on a film strip. I investigated my own use and understanding of language and challenged myself to judge my own actions with deliberate scrutiny. Recently, I have begun to examine personal faith and communication while omitting, or de-emphasizing, the text which, until this point in time, has coated the surfaces of my pieces. I confront my fears, loss of innocence and intolerances allowing me to reach for a deeper psychological connection with the viewer through both revolting and comforting imagery. Juxtaposing beauty and restriction, my most recent work confronts my parallel questioning and celebration of my spiritual practices. Each object made and hand embroidered stitch reflects moments of meditation over spiritual betterment, spiritual growth and a longing for grace. The “bindings” represent strength of will, integrity, growth, and a connection to my Southern roots. Verbalizing the intent of an artwork gives the viewer an anchor from the artist’s imagination to which to cling. As a visual artist, I understand the nuances, and the importance, of my audience’s personal response to my artwork regardless of my intentions. I hope, as Zora Neale Hurston describes above, that the imagery will connect to the “depth of thought untouched by words and deeper still” for each person who views my work. |