(Above: A quilt called Shelter is part of a show titled Habitat at the Maude Kerns Art Center from Sept. 13 through Oct. 1; the artist is Jean Wells Keenan. The Mayor’s Teen Art Show also is on display.)
By Randi Bjornstad
A richness of texture and color will be on full display at the Maude Kerns Art Center for the last half of September 2021 as 32 artists — members of Oregon’s Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) — show their creations in the Henry Korn Gallery at the Maude Kerns Art Center.
The quilts will share the art center’s space with the annual Mayor’s Teen Art Show in the Salon Gallery. Both shows open on Sept. 13 and run through Oct.1.
The art of quilting
Kristan Collins’ quilted creation, BeAware, examines the intricacy of a honeycomb and the skill of its tiny creators.
Michael Fisher, executive director of the Maude Kerns Art Center, acted as juror in selecting the pieces in the art quilt show, titled Habitat. Fisher describes the exhibit as a “celebration of place, a reflection of the natural beauty and man-made creations that surround us.”
The artists in the quilt show had wide latitude in interpreting their own visions of “habitat,” constrained only by the classical characteristic of quilting that consists of layering and stitching together different materials, either in the traditional manner or by sculpting the materials in other ways to create additional depth.
One example of stretching the concept of a quilt in that manner comes in a piece by textile artist Kristan Collins, who used fabric, threads of both silk and cotton, along with acrylic mirrors, wire, and and stiffened buckram to evoke her interpretation of a honeycomb, as experienced by a bee.
Her purpose, Collins said in her artist statement, is to encourage viewers to “gaze at this interpreted honeycomb (and) reflect on all that is around you. It serves as a reminder that our world is dependent on this elegant microcosm of life.”
In another expression of using quilt-making techniques to achieve much more than a traditional bedcover — and perhaps also a commentary on the concept of “home” that has become paramount during the past year-plus of pandemic isolation — artist Jean Wells Keenan created her piece called Shelter by combining sticks with a variety of fabrics to create nestlike swirls such as might be fashioned deliberately by birds or naturally by the action of coastal winds.
“Working with twigs to build a comforting enclosure with a circular form was my challenge and discovery all at the same time,” she said.
St. Joseph Market of Colors, a photograph by Tennepah Brainard
Art through the eyes of teens
The 22nd annual Mayor’s Teen Art Show includes 37 pieces of artwork by 13 artists from eight schools. The students chose a wide variety of mediums to create their entries, as varied as acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, markers, photography, digital art, paper clay — clay augmented with cellulose fiber — and mixed-media.
Among them will 19-year-old Tennepah Brainard, who attends the Institute of American Indian Art, in Santa Fe, N. Mex., and is showing her work in the Mayor’s Teen Art Show for the last time. Brainard has been in the show for three years and has five photographs in this year’s exhibit.
Cumulus Woman, by Skyleigh Mckibben
Similar to the views expressed by several of the quilt-makers, she says she hopes that “people will rethink the everyday things they see, without really seeing, through my photography.
WheelHaus Arts student Skyleigh Mckibben, 17, also has multiple pieces in the show. One is called Cumulus Woman, in which she paints delicate clouds reflected in her subject’s eyes, a wordplay on the phrase applied to dreamers, “head in the clouds.”
For her part, 14-year-old Bella Tocco, a student at Monroe Middle School in Eugene, contributes a rendering of a pitcher of fruit created with colored pencil and marker that she calls Majestic Still Life.
Majestic Still Life, by Bella Tocco
Tocco used art exploration as a means of comfort during the isolation of the pandemic. “Using the simplest instruments — colored pencils and Markers — I was able to create something beautiful,” she said, “something to be proud of.”
One entry in the teen art show will be selected by Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis to receive the Mayor’s Choice Award. Several other prizes also will be awarded.
At Maude Kerns — Habitat and The Mayor’s Teen Art Show
When: Sept 13 through Oct. 1
Where: Maude Kerns Art Center, 1910 E. 15th Ave., Eugene (corner of 15th and Villard streets)
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturday when exhibits are on display
Information: 541-345-1571 or online at mkartcenter.org
New Beginnings, a quilt piece by Mary Arnold, is part of the juried Habitat show at the Maude Kerns Art Center
