Opening Reception
Friday, August 2, 5:30 – 7:00 PM
A few of the artists will discuss their work
during an informal artist talk at 5:30 PM.
Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents In Residence, an exhibition of work created by the eight artists who began their residencies at HCCC in 2012: Tarina Frank, Chanda Glendinning, Susan Fletcher King, Jessica Kreutter, Susannah Mira, Jaydan Moore, Robert Thomas Mullen, and Rachelle Vasquez.
Each fall, the In Residence exhibition celebrates work by resident artists, derived from or inspired by their residencies at HCCC. This exhibition demonstrates the high level of creativity and skill reflected in each resident artist’s work. While engaging the greater world of contemporary craft, the HCCC Artist Residency Program gives its selected resident artists a studio space within an environment that encourages collaboration, experimentation, and a forum in which to exchange ideas and receive advice from peers.
Tarina Frank is a Houston-based artist and certified high-school art teacher working primarily in metals and paper. Begged to be touched, Tarina’s jewelry pieces are for a hands-on society. The series, Paper Fan Rings, reflects her interest in jewelry and mechanisms: each ring’s revolving axis sparks kinetic potential. Following her HCCC residency, Tarina will move to Stockholm, Sweden, where she will pursue an MFA degree at Konstfack University.
Ceramist Chanda Glendinning’s work, made during her residency, addresses concepts of disposability within our society. Composed of glossy slip-cast porcelain components derived from a found object, orange construction barrier, and carpet, her installation rids everyday materials—industrial and domestic—of their original functions, allowing them to be seen as design products. Engaging within this theme, Chanda’s installation, This: One: Here, was first introduced in a show at Spring Street Studios (Houston, TX), held in conjunction with the 2013 NCECA Conference.
Susan Fletcher King is a Houston-based fiber artist who has branched out from traditional quilting. Calling upon her background in graphic design and illustration, she mixes her quilted imagery with additional media, such as paint, dyes, specialty threads and embellishments, to give an edge to her illustrative quilt art. Inspired by a diverse range of flora and fauna, King captures an invigorating semblance of the organisms she depicts through her assemblage style.
Jessica Kreutter is a ceramist who works with discarded objects. Representative of her oeuvre, Interior Growth encapsulates the ideas of loss, memory and their transformation through time. According to Kreutter, traces of use and decay hold time in suspension and connect the found object to memories of a body long gone. Realizing this fragile moment via clay material, Kreutter imagines what materializes from the residual shadows of what has been lost and the fragmented phantom body that remains bound to the object. As a combination of flesh, bone, animal, and nature, the clay body begins to invent itself, as it both absorbs and imitates its surroundings.
With a master’s degree in environmental art from the University of Art & Design Helsinki, Susannah Mira utilizes manufacturing sidestream to create intricate geometric constructions that give form to notions of progress. Mira’s work relies on massive quantities of discarded industrial items, such as fabric, foam, paper, and plastic. (Note: Mira will have a solo exhibition, Room Divider, concurrently on view at Lawndale Art Center, Houston.)
As a recent MFA/MA graduate of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s jewelry and metal arts program, Jaydan Moore focuses on the heirloom and its potential to evolve in meaning as the object moves through the world. By collecting found silver-plated tableware, Moore commemorates the history of each found silver object by printing the recto and verso of each platter, highlighting the markings of its wear. Reifying memories embedded within each of the found platters, tea services, and silverware, Moore deconstructs and marries their decorative patterns. His process and sculptural silver-plated pastiche reveals the value and memories projected onto these objects via individual ownership and use. This fall, Moore will move to Richmond, VA, to accept a yearlong Fountainhead Fellowship at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Metalsmith Robert Thomas Mullen draws inspiration for his jewelry from his cultural and environmental surroundings, ultimately interpreting his memories in tangible form. Working with native and exotic woods, Robert incorporates a breadth of found objects—everything from shattered windshields to animal teeth to a calcareous growth taken from a feeding tank at the Houston Zoo—as souvenirs. The brooches featured in this exhibition focus on the objects and memories he has collected while living in Houston and working at HCCC; each brooch has a unique and memorable narrative tied to it. This fall, Mullen will travel to Estonia to work with jewelry artist and mentor, Tanel Veenre.
Rachelle Vasquez is a Houston-based artist and certified art teacher who works primarily in the fiber arts. She picked up crocheting on a whim in 2006, and it quickly came to feel like a natural extension of herself. While heavily process driven, Vasquez’s recent work stems from her research and historical interests relating to the heroism of animals during times of war, as well as the memories of her former pets. Through elaborate tapestries and crocheted representations of animal skins, Vasquez memorializes animals, humanizing them in a way that distinguishes their identities.
(1) Tarina Frank, “Paper Fan Rings.” Silver, nickel, brass, paper, copper. 2011. Photo by Tarina Frank. (2) Chanda Glendinning, “This: One: Here.” Porcelain, construction barrier, carpet. 2013. Photo by Chanda Glendinning. (3) Chanda Glendinning, “This: One: Here” (detail). Porcelain, construction barrier, carpet. 2013. Photo by Chanda Glendinning. (4) Susan Fletcher King, “Schooling Through the Jellies.” Commercial and hand painted cotton fabric, silk and cotton threads, transparent acrylic paints, foil, various other yarns and embellishments. 36” x 48”. 2011. Photo by Rick Wells.(5) Jessica Kreutter, “Interior Growth.” Porcelain, abandoned object. 2011. Photo by Jessica Kreutter. (6) Jessica Kreutter, “Interior Growth” (detail) Porcelain, abandoned object. 2011. Photo by Jessica Kreutter. (7) Jessica Kreutter, “Interior Growth” (detail) Porcelain, abandoned object. 2011. Photo by Jessica Kreutter. (8) Susannah Mira, Installation component. Laser cut plywood. 2013. Photo by Susannah Mira.(9) Susannah Mira, Installation component. Laser cut plywood. 2013. Photo by Susannah Mira. (10) Jaydan Moore, “Sediment/Sentiment” (detail). Found materials. 2012. Photo by Jim Escalante. (11) Robert Thomas Mullen, “How I See/Saw Houston” (front). Texas ebony, brass, cubic zirconia. 2012. Photo by Robert Thomas Mullen. (12) Robert Thomas Mullen, “How I See/Saw Houston” (back). Texas ebony, brass, cubic zirconia. 2012. Photo by Robert Thomas Mullen.(13) Rachelle Vasquez, “When Winkie Comes Marching home” (detail). Photo courtesy the artist. (14) Rachelle Vasquez, “When Winkie Comes Marching home” (detail). Photo courtesy the artist.
