She holds a BS, MS, PhD in Biology and MFA in Sculpture and has received many national and international awards for her sculptures. "Living, natural forms are always integral to my work. Gesture, immediacy and intensity are key elements of my working mode and resultant art. I prefer to work rapidly and with intense focus in squishy, responsive media such as ceramic clay, plasticine, wax or plaster. Each medium gives expression to different aspects of my sculpture. Ceramic clay brings out the whimsical, while the exigencies of working in fast-setting plaster lead to bizarre, abstracted forms.
Catherine has a lively story about the two sculptures shown here and I'd like to share that with you.
"Seemingly, most Kansans have been involved in haying. It is an amazingly labor-involved way of fixing solar energy in a sustainable crop of grass in order to produce food (cows, goats, etc) and transportation (horses and their kin). Producing small square bales of brome hay for horses is perhaps the most labor-intensive.The grass is cut in the hottest,driest days of the year, strewn in orderly rows on the stubble, then baled by machinery that drops it out the backside like a grasshopper on your favorite vegetable. These "droppings"/ bales then are slung onto wagons by young (men mostly) in orderly stacks as they walk along with the wagon. The hay is put up into barns to supply "flakes" (sections of bales) for hand feeding to cherished horses.Our supplier employs a team with specific jobs when the giant truck and its trailer with a few hundred bales arrives."'Kansas Apollo' is about a young man on this team who was at his physical peak and was glorying in it! This was his golden summer. Despite the fact that hay is dusty and full of prickly skin-rash-producing things, he was stripped way low to the waist, wearing his chinks with the strap like a Highland piper's sporran in the appropriate place. Ironically, he was doing a job so easy I! can do it...tossing bales from the stack on the trailer to the guys below that were loading them carefully on the elevator.I saw a lot of humor as well as beauty in his pose.
"'104 degrees' is the adverse. This is what the Kansas Apollo will likely become.Balding, overweight and exhausted, accompanied by his faithful cattle dog, "104" is suffering in the heat. The team knows it and knows that he has paid his dues and will get up again and do what is necessary, fulfilling his role. They respect his wisdom and eye him carefully, wondering if that is not their future also."
“The New Impressionists” a group show featuring works by an elite group of painters. The exhibit includes three artists new to SouthWind Gallery: James Pringle Cook and DeAnn Melton, Tucson, AZ; and Neil Patterson, Bragg Creek, Alberta Canada; and three returning artists: renowned artist Stan Herd, and gifted fellow artists Debra Clemente, and Zak Barnes, all of Lawrence, Kansas. The exhibit will be open until September 15, 2010.
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. SouthWindArtGallery.com
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