Rena Wood is a fiber artist from St. Louis, MO. She received her BFA in fiber from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2006 and earned her MFA from the Department of Craft/Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013. While in graduate school, Rena received a graduate thesis assistantship and a research grant for travel to London to participate in a workshop at the Royal School of Needlework. Rena has completed artist residencies at the Craft Alliance Center of Art and Design in St. Louis, MO; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN; and the Stephen Pace House in Stonington, ME.
Working primarily with textile materials and processes, Rena’s work “gives physical form to the ephemeral sense of memory.” Often using vintage materials, she combines her own history with that of a previous maker. “The time I spend working is marked by each stitch, each knot, and each repetitive act of my hands. I construct and deconstruct my materials to show a suspension between formation and falling apart, the acts of remembering and forgetting, and to represent time passing and time stopped.”
During her year-long residency at HCCC, Rena plans to expand her studio practice to develop large installations with textile materials and spend time on her labor-intensive stitched work. She will be with HCCC from September, 2014, through August, 2015. For more information, visit www.renawood.com.
