A Literary Landscape
Jenny Dowd
Last week I traveled to Bozeman, Montana to install an exhibition of my new work at the Ecce Gallery. The show also features work by Shannon Troxler and Valerie Seaberg. Shannon and I installed the work and gave a short talk about our inspiration and process during the opening reception on October 14.
Shannon is inspired by books and her love of reading. The layers of encaustic, oil and drawing bring the characters from these books to life.
We had some fun with the installation, I brought a lot of extra "hillettes" (little porcelain hills with flowers) and we scattered them around her encaustics.
Valerie and Shannon collaborated on a series of vessels; Valerie made the clay forms and wove horsehair around the tops, while Shannon brought the surface to life with birds painted in oil on gold and silver leaf.
I have been creating porcelain sculptures that tell stories and highlight the lives of inanimate objects around us.
Do vases get jealous when one vase is selected for a beautiful bouquet? Could flowers have memories of the fields they came from before landing in a vase?
"That moment" is composed of several small pieces in an attempt to capture the very instant a connection is made between two people. Or, in this case, flowers and an empty vase noticing each other for the first time.
That moment
Porcelain, wire, ink
I saved a little space in the gallery for a new idea I've been considering. What if hills and flowers dreamed of flight?
I imagined hills and hillettes with flowers looking up to a sky full of puffy clouds. One day, flowers and hills merged with the clouds as they learned to fly.
Where the ground learns to fly...
The exhibition will be on display until December 3, be sure to check it out if you are in the Bozeman area. The Ecce Gallery is in the Emerson Center, which is also a great art destination in Bozeman with lots of galleries, studios and other art happenings!