Internship Update - Week 10?

I haven't done an internship update in a while, so I figured I'd get you up to speed on what I've been up to! 

Things have really picked up for me as an intern. I'm helping out with the Arts/Industry program now, so I'm transcribing interviews with artists in residence. There have been nearly 400 artists, so I have my work cut out for me! It's been really awesome listening to what the artists have gleaned from the program and how things they did in the residency made an impact on the rest of the career. One of the artists talked about how before she worked in the factory, she almost always worked on the pottery wheel exclusively and that the factory really opened her eyes to mold making and expanded her knowledge base in pottery. It's really fascinating hearing so many points of view on the same program. It's all in the same place with relatively the same structure, yet every artist has a completely unique experience. Those experiences really come out in the interviews and I like being able to share in those memories.

Another thing I've been doing is helping install exhibitions. The first exhibition install that I observed was Kate McDowell. She created these toads during her residency with Arts/Industry and the install process was pretty intense. The toads were really fragile and had to be attached so that no one could just pick one up and walk off with it. It was a really interesting process to watch.

Photo courtesy of John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan. Artist: Kate MacDowell

With Lauren Fensterstock's exhibit, I was able to take a more active role and help with placing grass as part of her installation Celebration of Formal Effects, Whether Natural or Artificial. It was a really amazing experience to be able to work closely with an established artist. I'm also preparing for my senior seminar gallery show with my peers, so it's been an eyeopening experience to witness what happens in the gallery during an install of an exhibit. 

John Michael Kohler Arts Center is in the process of installing a series of new exhibitions under the name Uncommon Ground, which has a lot to do with ecological art. If you've been following the blog at all, you know that's my thing! One of the exhibits in this theme is John Grade's Capacitor, which is such an amazing idea, I'm going to save it for it's very own post. I've been helping install that and it's been a crazy, complicated process but it's definitely going to be worth it! 

Here's a sneak peek of what we're dealing with. I've been posting stuff on my instagram page pretty often so if you want to check it out, my name is _jenny_bee_. 

What's John Grade got going on? Guess you'll have to wait and see!

Other than helping install and transcribing interviews, I've been doing research on objects in folk art like memory jugs and smoking stands. 

I've been pretty busy here, but it's so great. I'm learning a lot and having fun!

Artist Spotlight - Jeanne Opgenhaffen

At first glance, what do these pictures remind you of? What do they look like they are made of? Close up of skin cells, repeating patterns in nature? Paper sculptures?

Remarkably enough these pieces by Jeanne Opgenhaffen are handmade, colored, porcelain tiles. Her large murals are created my thousands of tiles, overlapped in different shades and tones. 

According to her website, Opgenhaffen draws inspiration from the earths layers and rock strata. She attempts to bring movement into her pieces, like breeze blowing through a field. I really see that in her work. You can tell she is inspired by the natural world: rocks, the earth and geology. 

She is based in Belgium and continues to create her murals, along with other realms of ceramics. Living and working in Belgium, Jeanne has been exhibiting her internationally recognized work with natural and colored porcelain since 1980. With awards and exhibitions in Australia, Germany, Egypt, England, Isreal, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Slovaikia, Taiwan, and USA. 

"THE RIVER AS WILD AND BEAUTIFUL AND TORRENT AS ANY ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET PICKED ITS COURSE, ONCE AGO AND BEGAN ITS MASTERWORK"

I really like how Opgenhaffen uses color and the layers to create a sense of depth within her work. I keep looking at the picture above, expecting it to move and change.

 This piece is called "As Darkness Falls"

Characters and numbers

Commission from the Flemisch Community 1997. The mural work is an installation of a mass of printed porcelain cuttings, where in digits and characters appear, signs, figures and contrasts of dark in a sensible field of white. Like inscriptions on a noble support.

It's this kind of abstract work that really stirs me. I love the simplicity, the beauty and the subtle connection to the natural world.

Artist Spotlight: Mary Nohl

The Fox Point Witch!

Just down the road from my university, down a curving hill and past the blue waters of Lake Michigan lies the Mary Nohl Art Environment. (Also known as The Fox Point Witch's House and the Mary Nohl House) 

Born in 1914, Mary Nohl graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago and taught in junior high schools around the area and eventually opened her own ceramics studio for 10 years. 
After her parents died, Mary Nohl received an inheritance which allowed her to create a massive collection of folk art, including statues and architectural features. After Mary Nohl's death, the Kohler foundation acquired the property and began cataloging the hundreds of pieces that she had made from 1961-2001, the year of her death. Although she donated many of her pieces to the John Michael Kohler Arts Center when she was alive, they've also acquired her house after her death and are working hard to preserve and conserve it (as well as make it available to the public - fingers crossed!)

The whimsy of the home jumps out at you when you drive by. The house has bright, wooden reliefs of blue, turquoise and red.  The house is surrounded by concrete sculptures with different natural elements mixed in- like driftwood, rocks from the beach and glass. She drew much of her inspiration from the lake right outside her house. One of the things I admire about Mary Nohl is her perspective that everything could be a medium. She transformed everything from her lawn to the inside of her house; making it go from drab to expressive. The house is a private residence and the other people in the neighborhood don't really like having people hanging out and looking at the house. That's why it isn't open to the public, unfortunately. 

Although she is most known for her concrete sculptures outside fo her home, she also worked with...

Wood
She carved faces out of wood and made them into a playful fence. She eventually hung the wooden faces from the trees surrounding her yard, because vandals were stealing them.

Metal
She created jewelry! Often depicting people in boats, likely inspired by her home on the lake. You can actually still buy her designs at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center store page.

Woodcut & Printing

In the book Mary Nohl: Inside and Out, there are many pictures of her woodcuts. I was unable to find any pictures online, unfortunately. They are of people and rooms and streets, likely to be Maryland; where she was an art teacher at the time. If you look at Van Gogh's bedroom painting, they look a little like that. With wiggly, expressive lines and energy bouncing from the images. 

Ceramic

After she traveled and taught, she became a potter and opened her own studio and sold her own designs. You can see the clear beginnings of her whimsical style that would later define her concrete works: curious faces and expressive bodies.

This is an intern for the Kohler Foundation making an inventory of some of the ceramic items in Mary's home after her death. 

Mary Nohl also painted, drew and experimented with all sorts of mediums in between. She truly is an inspiration to artists who want to try everything. There is much more that I can say about Mary, but instead I will end with a quote from her:

"No amount of disorder will induce me to give up my front row seat on the changing moods of Lake Michigan- the ice hills against the blue water in the winter, and the afterglow of the sunsets in the summer, and the infinite variety in between."