About Us

www.elainebradford.com

Elaine Bradford is a mixed-media artist who lives and works in Houston, TX. When she was young, Bradford was taught to crochet by her grandmother and has worked with this craft throughout her life: “The repetitive process of taking a single strand of yarn, looping it together with a hook, and creating a fabric is like a magic trick. It’s simple in execution and produces astounding results. The act of making sweaters brings to mind hours of labor, societal histories, and concepts of comfort and warmth.”

The artist’s recent work involves the surreal combination of crocheted sweaters and taxidermy animals. Bradford says, “These ‘trophy’ animals are such odd objects to begin with, putting them in custom sweaters makes them that much more peculiar. . . The materiality and familiarity of the crochet allows the viewer to be drawn in and have empathy for the trophies. This absurd domesticity resurrects these inanimate objects and brings them into a new life.”

Bradford holds a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group shows throughout the United States and several recent solo shows in Houston, Austin, and St. Louis. She is a founding member of Box 13 ArtSpace and is a member of the Artist Board of DiverseWorks and the Programming Committee of Lawndale Art Center, all in Houston. Bradford was the recipient of a 2008 Individual Artist Fellowship Grant from the Houston Arts Alliance.

www.edelyria.com

Originally a landscape painter, ceramic artist Elizabeth DeLyria translates the concept of landscape into the functionality of clay. She says, “Clay is Earth. Even the processes used to manipulate clay occur in nature: stains, smoke, the graceful flow of slip on the surface, like silt in a river. Stones, birches, dunes, lakes—these are also Earth, and yet fundamentally different.”

DeLyria uses the versatility of clay to suggest these different forms of nature, her pieces serving as reminders of the unity of the world around us. The mineral of clay becomes a tree; the three-hundred-million-year-old fossil surface of a rock becomes the fluid, sloping surface of clay. At the same time, the functionality of her vessels serves to emphasize nature in our daily lives. “When something is made out of wood that’s not wood, we start to notice wood again. Working with clay means you can eat cereal out of a landscape.”

DeLyria holds a MEd in Art Education from the University of Houston, with an emphasis in Ceramics, and a BA in Painting from the University of New Orleans. She served as a U.S. State Department Cultural Envoy to Russia, exposing educational practitioners to American teaching methodology throughout Russia. She received the Robert Rauschenberg “The Power of Art” Award, was invited to participate in the Teacher Institute of Contemporary Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and was chosen by the Texas Commission of the Arts as the “State Featured Teacher” of 2006. From 1996 to 2009, DeLyria taught ceramics and metalsmithing at Alief Hastings High School and is currently a teaching consultant throughout Texas. DeLyria’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by galleries in Michigan and Texas.

jessicadupuis.tumblr.com

Jessica Dupuis is a ceramist who views the physical forms of sculpture as a journal, or architectural spaces that are open for the viewer to explore. She describes her work as “temporary; it exists as long as it can withstand the space it occupies. The forms in my current work are evocative, fragile and vulnerable, but equally solid and strong as if they were eggshells standing on their own without a protective support.”

Dupuis uses the combination of clay and discarded materials, such as newspaper, cardboard boxes, and apple cores, to construct objects that are light and fragile, but packed with strength and power. The forms reveal a history that evolves from experimentation, memory, and time. She is an artist who relishes in the idea that, through the art-making process, she can be an explorer, an inventor, and a poet.

Dupuis holds a MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BFA from Alfred University. She is a recipient of the ISC’s 2010 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award.

www.kelloggfurniture.com

A native of Houston, TX, Clark Kellogg has been interested in woodworking and furniture making since he was 14, when he and his father started building small projects in the family garage. Kellogg holds a BA in Studio Arts from University of Virginia, where he concentrated on printmaking. He is formally trained as a furniture maker, graduating from both the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship’s Nine-Month Comprehensive program and the College of the Redwoods esteemed Fine Woodworking Program. He has exhibited on all three coasts, and his work has been featured in Fine Woodworking magazine.

Kellogg currently focuses on one-off, functional pieces. “For me it is less about the design of an object than what that object needs to be doing,” he says. “I love making small, quiet pieces that solve one problem really well, rather than a piece that tries to be everything for everyone.”

Pamela Sager grew up watching her grandmothers knit and quilt and completed her first quilt when she was 19. She was also influenced by her engineering father and grew up with a fascination for the artistic use of building and manufacturing materials. This fascination, combined with her love of textiles, led to a career as an interior designer and, later, as a fiber artist working primarily in industrial felt.

“I enjoy the challenge of working in three dimensions and constructing workable pieces within the parameters offered by the systemic qualities of felt. . . The conventional uses for industrial felt are endless. I am finding so are the artistic uses. The inherent properties of industrial felt, such as density and strength, make it a suitable medium for pieces where form is a priority. I also enjoy using materials in unconventional ways.”

Sager holds a BS, Magna Cum Laude, in Interior Design, from Northern Arizona University. Her work was recently exhibited in the Houston Area Fiber Artists’ 2009 Juried Exhibition at Archway Gallery, where she won the “Juror’s Choice Award.” She is a member of the Houston Association of Fiber Artists and Studio Art Quilt Associates, among other professional organizations.

www.kraewilson.com

Narrative is key to accessing Kristi Rae Wilson’s multimedia wearable and installation-based works. Her goal as a storyteller and arranger of objects is to allow the viewer to have a transformative experience through imagination by interacting with the specific object she has altered. The role of the body is critical in her work. Physical interaction with her altered materials allows the viewer to understand and absorb her intent.

Wilson received a MFA in Jewelry/Metals from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, where she was the recipient of the Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship and the Brodie Material Grant. Her work has been included in international and national publications and exhibited throughout the United States. The Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) awarded her the Educational Endowment Scholarship to participate in the Jewelry Opere Workshop (Netherlands), where she studied with contemporary jeweler, Ruudt Peters.

www.lisawilsonstudio.com

Lisa Wilson is a metalsmith and jewelry designer who creates a range of work, from sculptural objects to one-of-a-kind jewelry. Drawing her inspiration from patterns in the natural world, she uses an array of traditional and contemporary metal-working techniques in her creative process.

Wilson often embeds thought processes and statements within her work for the viewer to decipher. She says, “I make art because it is an effective means of communicating complex or abstract ideas. I strive to achieve a balance between pure aesthetic value and content within my work and believe that the effectiveness of one is always affected by the quality of the other.”

An Ohio native, Wilson recently earned her M.F.A. in studio art with a focus in metalsmithing at Miami University in Oxford, OH. As an emerging artist, Wilson has exhibited work in local, national, and internationally competitive juried exhibitions.