I start each morning in the studio, sitting on a sofa looking out big glass doors to the southeast, overlooking a field of mixed grasses with a small spring fed pond in the center. The pond is a constant, but different every day. Sometimes the wind blows across, rippling the water. When it’s still, the water is reflective. It freezes, sparkles in the sun and thaws. Eagles fly over nearly every winter day. In March a cacophony of migrating blackbirds come in droves, migrating, looking for food, landing on the cattails that surround the pond. Ducks land in droves in the evenings. Many deer come across nearly always west to east, a hawk family hunts every day. The field greens up, frogs start singing, an occasional coyote passes by. In late summer the prairie grasses rise and begin to turn, sunflowers bloom, winds shift, migrations begin again.

In this way, all my work emerges from the pond in the field.

– Jane Booth

Jane Booth built her studio on the rural Kansas prairie sited to overlook the landscape and sky that inspire her. Booth paints from the inside out, from her meditation of life experiences then out, through the physical activity of pouring, pushing, and brushing paint. Her painting begins with raw canvas on the floor of her studio or outside on the concrete, where paint and water can be poured, pooled, and pushed with a broom. The atmosphere of the painting begins with color, vast and saturated or thinned and fog like. A calligraphy of gesture akin to dance informs the composition. Only later, once the canvas is up on the wall, do gestures and forms emerge evolving in conversation forming a visual language that is Booth’s alone. Large scale paintings are the norm for Booth often ranging upward of 15′.

Jane Booth’s paintings are in public collections throughout the country including: Kansas University Hospital, Kansas City, MO; Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cisco Systems, H& R Block World Headquarters and Hilton Hotels, as well as the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia, MO.

An exploration of experimenting with textile materials and combining different textile techniques such as weaving, quilting, and embroidery. The intertwining of these elements creates a narrative, a platform on which I use to create my stories inspired by myths within America and from other folklore from across the sea. The creatures in my work have been warped, changed, and altered. They are reimagined to tell a new story.

Though traditionally, I am a printmaker, and I began to explore the art of textiles after being introduced to weaving through the use of a small frame loom gifted to me by a dear friend. It was a great tool for me to create and I enjoyed the flexibility and ease of being able to make my designs. I loved the ability to be able to draw using yarn in its various textures, colors and different properties that bring to life these fabled creatures. Often the creatures would be inspired by the material, and it gave great influence on how they were created. I also began the art of quilting and became fascinated by the elaborate geometric patterns and designs of quilt blocks. The history of the quilt block designs and the stories they told, inspired me to create and design my own. The quilting patterns and designs add and embellish the woven creatures. The combination of weaving, quilting and embroidery have been bastardized in a playful mix of fascination and whimsy while working with the material in creating these stories of these creatures of myth.

Artist Statement 

Throughout my work I have been captivated by storytelling using visual representation as a vessel to talk about my life experiences, and other topics such as industrial farming. My love of drawing is present throughout my work in the different mediums I work in. I am a printmaker and I practice in lithography, intaglio, and monotype. I expanded my art practice to working with textile mediums such as quilting and weaving. Through my art mediums I tell my stories and capture the feeling of how I see the world through my eyes.

Bio

Sadie Goll was born and raised in eastern Iowa. She studied printmaking at the University of Iowa and received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in 2019. She completed her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas in 2022. Throughout her undergraduate and graduate career her work has been focused on industrial hog farming and her

experiences with the industry as she grew up in Iowa. She works in a variety of printmaking techniques such as lithography, intaglio, relief and monotype. Her recent work has been using textiles mediums such as weaving and quilting.

Time is a Circle: Generational Craft Practices, includes the work of Mona Cliff, Wansoo Kim, Hùng Lê, Jada Patterson, Jason Wang, and Aleah Washington.

The public is invited to the exhibition’s opening reception from 6 to 8 pm. The exhibition includes work by Mona Cliff, Wansoo Kim, Hùng Lê, Jada Patterson, Jason Wang, and Aleah Washington, and runs through February 3, 2024.

For centuries craft practices have been passed from generation to generation keeping traditions alive and preserving history, while building communities through the making process. These shared practices are a testament to the resilience and perseverance of many cultures throughout the world.

The six artists in the exhibition use craft traditions to carry on generational practices while unearthing aspects of their own histories within a broader historical and artistic context.

Mona Cliff is an Aniiih, Nakota, and Eastern European artist whose beadwork and fabric applique are the foundation of her practice and heavily based in generational knowledge. Hung Le combines textile traditions with photography to examine his family history in the backdrop of the Việt Nam War and their immigration to the United States. Material culture and personal histories are at the center of Jada Patterson’s work. Using braided sweetgrass, Patterson references ritualistic healing and imparts power onto the mundane object. Wansoo Kim uses traditional ceramic Korean vessel forms and unorthodox ornamentation, to invite viewers to consider the revealed and the hidden, the internal versus the external. By embellishing the inside of his vessels, he reminds us to examine what is beyond outward appearances. Jason Wang draws on his Chinese heritage to create functional ceramic vessels that revolve around experiencing community. His textured teapots, cups and saucers, are intended to create a sensory experience that invokes a strong emotional response to further dialogue about identity, mental health, and mindfulness. Aleah Washington explores identity, environment, and community through her abstract wall hangings and functional ceramic work. She shares personal memories and reflects on shared histories using bold color on her quilted wall hangings and stitched pattern designs on her ceramics.The artists in the exhibition demonstrate a command of craft and a deep understanding of their role in safeguarding craft traditions and histories.

Belger Crane Yard Gallery presents Ways to Train Songbirds. The exhibition includes work by five artists who are members of the Sticky Gold Collective: Ben Galaday, Padyn Humble, Matt Mitros, Danni O’Brien, and Matthew Wicks.

“There are numerous ways to train birds of prey, yet songbirds are incredibly challenging. Many ornithologists consider songbirds to be exceptionally intelligent but not always the most trainable . . . the same could be said about artists.” —  Sticky Gold Collective, August 2023”

The Collective, formed by Matt Mitros in 2018, includes artists from a range of backgrounds who share an irreverent appreciation for the intersection of craft and art. While the artists do not align to a common theme or subject, they share a quasi-humorous tone and campy bravado regarding material usage and illusion.

Padyn Humble is a sculptor from Montana whose work investigates social norms and the way they influence identity. He utilizes Western iconography and his inspiration stems from influences like cartoons, truck stop souvenirs, and queer pop culture. Matt Mitros uses a visual language of botanical pastiche to depict the emotional relationship between plants and machines. Themes of survival, growth, and metamorphosis are prevalent in his work through visual displays of conflict and celebration. Danni O’Brien’s work is rooted in play, collecting, and constructing and is informed by an education in assemblage sculpture, fiber arts, and ceramics. Her fantastical cast-offs from upcycled materials marry construction and wood working with traditionally feminized and domesticated systems such as stitching, beading, and rug making to compose dually hard and soft objects. Danni O’Brien and Ben Galaday wield nuanced abstraction to engage the viewer with blurred dreamlike compositions. Galaday’s work, however, is a dark counterpart to O’Brien’s flamboyancy. Oscillating between demoralizing and seducing, Galaday taps into the truths of the human condition creating kaleidoscopic approximations of life, death, decay, rejuvenation, and apathy. Matthew Wicks uses kitschy, everyday symbols such as suits of playing cards or domestic objects to subvert ideas of hypermasculinity in Western culture.

Altogether, Sticky Gold Collective questions various aspects of gender, orientation, and societal expectations through a mixed media approach to ceramics, while relieving the viewer of certain preconceived notions that come with “traditional” craftsmanship and material expectations embedded within the canon of ceramic art. This exhibition will remain on view through December 30, 2023.