“Small Comforts”
New work by Peggy Hanson & Emily Haskell
July 21 – Aug 20, 2016
This exhibit features embroidered drawings by Peggy Hanson and ceramic houses by Emily Haskell.
Peggy Hanson Artist Statement:
I enjoy looking at the world in terms of images I can create with embroidery floss. Once an idea occurs, I search for drawings of the image I have envisioned. After sizing it appropriately, I transfer the image onto the linen and begin stitching. Embroidery is very forgiving and that’s one of the many things I love about it.
Emily Haskell Artist Statement:
I love to play with texture and color using carving, underglazes, and glazes to alter the surface of my work. The not quite predictable results in firing keep me intrigued and delighted; if a glaze crawls, crackles or has a weird texture-I seek to incorporate it into my work. My work since college has revealed that I have a bit of an obsession with things that provide shelter (boxes, umbrellas, blanket, etc.). These tiny abodes in this exhibition allow me to indulge that infatuation, while also playing with surface texture and color.
Members Gallery
New work by Karna Hauck & Katherine Norrie
July 21 – Aug 20, 2016
Karna Hauck Artist Statement:
The concept of mindfulness challenges us to focus, without distraction, on whatever is right before us. My intention is to be mindful whenever I am engaged with my art. As a public school art teacher, intentionality is a practice that I often get to observe in young people. There is both a beauty and vulnerability in these moments and our teacher/student roles at times reverse. I become the learner of what I observe to be an uninhibited creative act. This open approach to creativity is delightfully familiar to me as an artist and informs my art making process.
However, mindfulness can be difficult to achieve. When creating this series, I found myself naturally drawn to birds. This seems to be a recurrent theme in my life. For me, birds symbolize a curious freedom with the physical space they occupy. They enjoy a vantage point that is not my own and I imbue their world with limitless discovery. I see a kinship between my students’ unfettered approach to artwork and my imagined life of birds. And with their lesson, now I fly.
Katherine Norrie Artist Statement:
Katherine Norrie has been a visual art teacher at Northfield High School for the past 17 years. Norrie grew up on a farm just outside of Hector, Minnesota (roughly 85 miles west of the Twin Cities). Norrie went to St. Olaf and graduated in 1999 with a studio art major and a K-12 art education license. Norrie finished her Masters degree in education in 2005 at Hamline University. Norrie enjoys printmaking, jewelry design and mixed media pieces that incorporate pen, watercolor and acrylic paint. Norrie focuses on her love of flowers, the ideas around raising two young boys, as well as her rural Minnesota upbringing to create her current pieces. She lives in Northfield with her husband Jonathan and their two young sons: Emmett (9) and Wyatt (6).
Being a teacher is a wonderful thing. I get to help young people find their path and passion and I help to steer them in the directions of their dreams. I am often amazed at how many students are touched by visual art and it is often the only part of their hectic teenage lives that gives them pleasure and focus. At the end of the school day it is hard to find my own creative drive because I feel like I have just given it away to 100+ students for nine months. It is during the summer months that I am able to focus on my artwork and really recharge my batteries for the next school year. I have taken week-long art classes at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design for the past five years and these classes have been an amazing opportunity for me to explore what my own art making is all about. I have been able to explore printmaking, digital art and mixed media collage which have all found their way into my current ideas
I am excited to show you what I have been up to for the past few years. I have been busy raising two boys and much of my work has been inspired by the tangled-mess that motherhood has brought into my life. Before I had children I had a much more defined and clean-cut view of what my life would be, and since having a family with small people I realize that nothing can be planned or perfect. I guess that fact of life being a roller coaster of changes was always true and always present, but having a young son up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache or a summer deer tick infection are things that can’t be planned for or comprehended before it is part of your life. My pieces are soft, beautiful, meditative, tangled, messy, intricate, and colorful which I believe is all part of motherhood and my life at this point!
Exhibition Sponsor:
