November Show — Recalling Past Joy

11th Annual Resident Artists Exhibition

Special show website: recallingpastjoy.myportfolio.com

With special guest – MWMO/Art to Change the World collaboration
https://www.arttochangetheworld.org/mississippi-management-and-watershed-project/

Show dates:                  November 4–30
Opening Reception:    Friday, November 11 from 5-8pm, including open studios
Gallery Talk:                  Saturday, November 19 beginning at 2pm

As has been our practice for the past eleven years, we began meeting about this show last summer, in June.  Of course, we had all been hard at work in our studios for the months before that, so we began looking for commonalities in the work we were making.  The spirit Covid-19 hovered nearby, and eventually we settled on the notion of looking for the positive lessons we could carry away from those two years of seclusion.

There is a Buddhist teaching suggesting it is possible, (and more than that – advisable), to view any obstacle to maintaining spiritual balance as an opportunity.  Not all, or even most of us are Buddhists, but each in our own way did work to discover how to regard our studios as a place of refuge, creativity – and joy – while we endured the distance we were keeping from each other.

More often in past years, we worked with our studio door open, easily wandering into each other’s studio space and talking about work, exchanging ideas, relying on each other for insight.  Gathering to begin work on this show felt like a return to that collegiality, like we were recovering something that had been, for a while, lost.

As always, the work in quite diverse – painting and photography, printmaking and letterpress printing, sculpture, collage and gourd art.  And as always, this show focuses on work completed in the past year, attesting to the commitment and fortitude of our artists.

In addition, we are pleased to announce the premiere showing of Mississippi River Pearl, by our ten guest artists in a project funded by the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization’s Stewardship Fund Program in collaboration with Art to Change the World. The project led ten people to collect trash along the Mississippi River and participate in an immersive curriculum collaboratively developed by ACW founder, Barbara Bridges, and the participants themselves – including a scientist, journalist, mayor, teachers, and artists.
Please see link for  more info: https://recallingpastjoy.myportfolio.com/mississippi-river-pearl