IN THE WINDOWS- ART QUILTS

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I have known Gwen for over 40 years.  She and I were roommates late in our college years.  She got a degree in Interior Design while I got mine in Fine Arts. She went on to a varied career including institutional interior design and, ultimately, library science.  In the last few years she has returned to her first love: color.  Using the skills of quiltmaking, she investigates how color and form influence each other.

2018-2019 Art Quilts

By

Gwen Schagrin

These works were inspired by a variety of situations: a guild challenge, workshops with art quilting gurus, techniques in books that I wanted to try, improvisational reworking of patterns combined with a new approach to three dimensions, and scrap piecing.

As always, I am motivated to create and explore by improvisationally manipulating color, form, composition, and balance.

The teaching and works of Rayna Gillman, Pam Beal, Jean Wells, and Cindy Grisdela have inspired and guided me.

In the Windows- KATE SCIANDRA

Kate Sciandra

Artist’s Statement

One thing that unifies all my work is the theme of deeply seeing, being

seen, and the intimacy that results.

During the countless hours spent as a figure model, being an object for

others to find aesthetically and artistically useful, I became obsessed with

capturing the compositions that would reveal themselves to me while I

worked. I began to have a fascination with what it means to be seen and

to simultaneously be the seer, like an optical illusion where from one side,

the object becomes the viewer and then with a shift of the eye, flips back

again.

Having both the regular experience of my body being the subject, and

having worked in the healing profession with the bodies of others as my

subject for over 20 years, I have a deep understanding of the body as

something both intimate and abstract. This pairing has translated and

evolved into a way that I perceive, and then reflect the world at large.

Creating a balance of universality and specificity, I work to capture objects,

places, and people in ways that penetrate their nature, while also creating

an image that has an aesthetic distance, sometimes reaching into the

abstract. This generates a tension that is compelling for the viewer,

drawing them into an even deeper relationship with the subject and the

work itself.

Blue Guy, aka Rick, goes to My Blue Heaven

A small Blue Guy update

It is raining hard today, yet Blue Guy, AKA Rick, is carrying on. I fear he will have no papery skin left after today.

Last night my drawing co-op brought him in to draw.  We discovered that not only did he have no brain, but that he had a gaping hole in his chest, where his heart might have been. Much discussion ensued, leading us to conclude that perhaps he had landed in the Land of OZ.

Blue Guy has a name

The snow melted.  The sun shone and Blue Guy's pants/skin began to fall off.  I predicted a date for his funeral.

But more snow came.  He gained a name, RICK, thanks to a Sharpie tagger.

The snow melted again, and Blue Guy, aka RICK, was more bones than skin.

But the sun is shining again.  The snow is melting again   And RICK got some flower pants!

The Ballad of Blue Guy is coming to an end

Blue Guy mysteriously came to live at the gallery in February, just before the "Big Snow."  He arrived one morning, blocking the front door to the gallery.  Actually, he looked like he was trying to peer in...or take the mail from the slot!

I moved him over to the un-used side entrance, where he stood for a few days.

But then the first biggish snow arrived and he moved over by the fence.

For a while, he lay on his side,  imitating a Henry Moore sculpture.

 Then, the truly "Big Snow."  I thought I was going to lose him then for sure.

 A friend and I excavated him.  He WAS worse for wear, but still had life in him.

He hung around the fence gate some more, needing more and more support.

Like many of us, he fell this winter, broke some bones.  But still he persisted.

People took selfies with him.  Some propped him up.  Some laid him down.

But now the time has come to say farewell.  He lost his head in the rains yesterday.

Someone kindly propped him up again, hanging his near useless arms over the fence.

He will move to his final resting place April 11, in time for his kind city transportation to the landfill.  I invite you to pay your last respects!  I think we all gave him a lovely last few months. 

WINDOWS ON CEDAR-Alice Savitski

The Price We Pay

by Alice A Savitski

The price we pay to keep a secret
The price we pay to stay silent
The price we pay to look the other way
The price we pay to say, "It’s not my business."
The price we give to hold back
The price Christ gave for us to be forgiven
The price that was paid for us to feel grace
The price that is given to all of us (Psalm 16:8 AMP)

The price we ALL pay.

This body of work has been created to illustrate the heavy price paid by victims of domestic abuse. Even after the abuse has stopped, the suffering continues for many. For some the pain is permanent. Speaking as a victim of domestic abuse, I must work through my memories, emotions and endure the psychological disorders I have as a result.

I currently live a peaceful, calm and balanced life - but some days my past will haunt me. In 2012 I was committed for attempted suicide. Treatment helped me greatly and gradually I began to feel safe again, but the psychological burden of the violence I suffered will still rear its ugly head and I will start to remember these harrowing events in a “flood of emotions.” This body of works began in June 2015. The first memory arose on a warm summer morning where I found myself panicking from the ghosts of my past. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. For ten short minutes, in the clutches of sheer terror, I had no idea where I was. This body of works I hope will display those feelings and the recovery progress.

Glitter: The unconscious mind
Circles: Cycles of abuse
Bird(s): One bird signifies victims of abuse being set free, or the knowledge of hope. Two birds signify partnerships (for good, bad or indifferent). Three birds signify the Holy Sprit, God and Christ.
Lines: My and/or abused victims’ experience of post-traumatic stress disorder, mental illness, limited finances and psychological problems after leaving the abusive relationship.
Splatter paint: My feelings of entrapment, isolation and shame

I am an emerging mix media artist who is creating body of works that educates the public about domestic abuse and how it impacts all of us. As a victim of domestic abuse, I have been able to overcome violence through prayer and the Holy Spirit. I work through past experiences by creating beautiful healing sprit-driven bodies of work to display my physical and mental emotions. In 2012, an unknown donor gave me a gift of self-awareness and self-love treatment at North Memorial Mental-Health Clinic. Because of this donor, I have a new outlook on life, and I know that I AM WORTH it. NOT Worthless. Within weeks I’d learned many amazing life skills such as boundaries, to forgive others and myself, how to work through my feelings without committing suicide by talented compassion therapists.

Over the past five years, I have made great gains in my personal life; I have exhibited at Healing Art shows at hospitals and clinics in Southern Minnesota, HealthPartners Hudson Hospital, WI and art galleries in Minneapolis, MN. Presently prints of my work are being sold through Art Force, located in Minneapolis, please contract for items sale

LEARN MORE about Alice