It’s been a busy fall semester and I am finally finding some time to update you all about our most recent exhibit, the 2020 Faculty Biennial. It won’t be in the gallery much longer, so if you are planning on viewing it in person, make an appointment soon. Over the next three weeks I will be giving all of our online friends information about the exhibiting artists as well as images of all the work. Keep an eye out for more!
In this post I sit down with Rachel Prior to ask a few questions about her work. You can also get a closer look at the pieces she included in the “Recent Grads” exhibit in the second video.
Information for each piece, listed in the order they appear.
“Dollhouse”, oil on canvas, 2019, 31×35 inches, $750
“A Thousand Sordid Memories”, linocut, watercolor, metal leaf, and pen, 2019, 17×21 inches framed, $100
“Self-Portrait”, oil, glitter, and rhinestones on canvas, 2020, 20×25 inches framed, $400
“Interior Space”, linocut, watercolor, metal leaf, and stickers, 2019, 25×21 inches framed, $150
“Pink Dream House”, oil and metal leaf on canvas, 2020, 21×27 inches framed, $400
In this post I sit down with Marissa Gibson to ask a few questions about her work. You can also get a closer look at the pieces she included in the “Recent Grads” exhibit in the second video.
Information for each piece, listed in the order they appear.
“Iris IV (Lion’s Mane)”, watercolor, 2019, 13.5×16.5 inches framed, $200
“Iris VII (World Premier)”, watercolor, 2019, 13.5×16.5 inches framed, $300
“Iris VIII (Crazy in Love)”, watercolor, 2020, 13.5×17.5 inches framed, property of Whitworth University Permanent Collection
“Spotted Sandpiper”, watercolor, 2020, 18×14 inches framed, NFS
“Resplendent Quetzal”, watercolor, 2020, 12.5×15.5 inches framed, NFS
“Blue-gray Tanager”, watercolor, 2020, 15.5×12.5 inches framed, NFS
“Wilson’s Warbler”, watercolor, 2019, 18×14 inches framed, NFS
In this post I sit down with Katelyn Rinehart to ask a few questions about her work. You can also get a closer look at the pieces she included in the “Recent Grads” exhibit in the second video.
Information for each piece, listed in the order they appear.
“Organic Motion”, ceramic and underglaze, 2020, 10.5x17x5 inches, $700
“Waves”, ceramic and glaze, 2020, 6×10.5×5 inches, $80
In this post I sit down with Rebecca Young to ask a few questions about her work. You can also get a closer look at the pieces she included in the “Recent Grads” exhibit in the second video.
Information for each piece, listed in the order they appear.
“Mulligan”, oil on canvas, 2020, 30×36 inches, $650
“Balance”, oil on canvas, 2020, 30×36 inches, NFS
“Joy”, oil on canvas, 2020, 30×36 inches, $650
“Poise”, oil on canvas, 2020, 30×36 inches, $650
“Amity”, oil on canvas, 2020, 30×36 inches, NFS
In this post I sit down with Daniel Miller to ask him a few questions about his work. You can also get a closer look at “Mr. Blue”, the piece he included in the “Recent Grads” exhibit.
The “Recent Grads” exhibit, which is the first exhibit of the 2020/21 schedule, includes five artists from Whitworth’s 2020 graduating class. This video is a quick preview of the exhibit. In the coming weeks we will be posting a more in-depth look at each artists work as well as a brief interview with each participant. The final day of this exhibit is October 30, 2020.
Visits to the gallery are available by appointment only. We are currently open Mon.-Thurs. 1-3pm and Sat. 10am-2pm. Please call 509-777-4826 to schedule a visit.
As an HCI major with editing and journalism minors, to say I’ve done my fair share of website and periodical design would be an understatement.
News and magazine layouts are some of the most fulfilling pieces of design work I’ve done. In addition to my work at the Whitworthian, I took an internship in the summer of 2019 at The Spokesman-Review, designing web layouts for their Further Review features, and I quite enjoy designing fictional magazines and websites on my own time.
The magazine cover shown here was a fun project. The design process included first picking a theme and “mood”, then the name reflecting that, then the colors and fonts, and so on. The result is a brand guide I could use to produce further issues of Nosh—although I’ll not wax poetic about my love of brand guides here. See last week’s post for that!
The website mockups here are another project I used to challenge myself with mood and branding. The objective was to create three different moods using only color. Everything else—fonts, photos, logo—are the same. This, too, shows the importance of consistent branding and vision when approaching a design. (There I go again with the brand guides…)
I made this teapot when I was a junior in college. I wanted to create an artwork that was expressive and unique but also functional. As I built up the clay, I learned a lot about myself as an artist and I had a chance to experiment with different ways to create textures in clay. One of my favorite parts of this teapot is the spout. The design on the spout was inspired by woodworking patterns I found on Pinterest. I feel that this piece accurately represents me as an artist. I deeply appreciate that with clay I can create art that has a functional use in life.
This pot was made as a challenge to myself as I was learning how to throw clay on the wheel. I wanted to see if I could accomplish something that would challenge and push my skills. This is still by far the largest piece that I have made on the wheel.
I made this vase when I was first learning to throw on a wheel. This piece started off as an experiment with raku to learn more about the technique. I enjoy raku because it is a more traditional way to fire ceramic pieces.
For this piece I was exploring melting glass into a ceramic form. In high school I experimented a little by placing marbles into the bottom of a vessel before being fired for the second time. For this project I used broken pieces of fused glass instead. Overall, I think it worked much better. The colors blended better and are more vibrant. On the outside of the vessel is carved “Warren G 20’” referencing what dorm I stayed in my first year while attending Whitworth.
For this vessel I focused on varying the texture in preparation for another, much larger piece. In the end it turned out just how I wanted, so I kept it. The aspect of this piece that is most favorable is the sleek line between the glazed and the unglazed areas. In addition to that the varying shades of yellow throughout the exterior of the piece compliment the bare stoneware.
This was made for the kitchen in my college house. Having seven guys means a lot of cooking so a utensil holder was useful. This design was in process as the Pandemic set in, so I was unable to refine it to perfection. However, the flaring lip coupled with the rolls on the exterior add to the holders form.
Costa Rica’s high-elevation cloud forests are rich with diversity. Birds found there are often found nowhere else or are restricted to a narrow range of habitat in the highlands of central America. The birds are colorful but easy to miss in the high canopy. Ecotourism helps bring people closer to the amazing species found in the cloud forest, which in turn helps conserve the delicate ecosystem. The opportunity to observe these birds in Costa Rica is one I will not forget and will continue to explore in my lifelist series by illustrating the diversity I saw there.
The resplendent quetzal is a stunning iridescent green bird. Adult males have long tail streamers and bright red bellies. Quetzals rely on wild avocado trees, colloquially known as aguacatillo, for food. They carefully select the ripest fruits, swallow it whole, and regurgitate the seed. When they drop the seed it can germinate and grow into a new tree, helping to regenerate the forest and provide food for other birds and animals that eat them. Quetzals are frequently found in indigenous central American culture because of their unique appearance.
Collared redstarts are a part of the large group of New World warblers of the Parulidae family. They are curious and energetic, flashing their lemon-yellow belly and rusty crest amongst the lower story of the cloud forest.
Blue-gray tanagers have a habit of gleaning for insects by looking underneath leaves and branches. Their plumage is a soft gray, tinted with many shades of blue that are especially prominent in their wings. Their large dark eye gives them a sweet, inquisitive expression that is a joy to paint. This one is depicted on the flower stalk of a Billia hippocastanum tree. The bright sunset pink of the flower contrasted nicely with the muted blues of the bird.
Brilliant hummingbirds are one of Costa Rica’s specialties, and the lesser violetear is no exception. Compared to the tiny Anna’s and Rufous hummingbirds I’m used to seeing in the northwestern US, these blue-green hummingbirds seemed huge. I was fascinated by the way they fanned their banded tail in territorial display at feeders or prime flower spots. Their namesake violet “ears” added to their display. Learning to differentiate between the green hummingbirds as they raced between the trees was challenging but these were one of my favorite species.
Mariah Athletics Retail Store
To round out this presentation, I decided to design an environment I hadn’t yet explored: retail. I transformed my own logo and branding into a fictional “athleisure wear” store called Mariah Athletics. This project combines my love of black and white with my identity as a student athlete, and stands out from other stores because of the use of script.
The graphic style of the store design combines simple, geometric elements with brushier fonts and accents to create a high-contrast, eye-catching environment. I wanted this environment to be a mix between high-end athletic wear stores, like Lululemon, and a messier, graffiti like style. The simple color palette and the sans-serif font in the logo and sign give the high-end vibe, whereas the script font and graffiti textures provide a bit of an edge.
For almost half of my life, I have wrestled with a form of OCD that is fixated on my skin and hands. Being an artist and having this disorder has created a vexing dichotomy: I see my hands either as a tool that can be exploited by my OCD or one that can create beautiful things. Much of my personal digital illustration work explores this complicated relationship. Visually inspired by the cutouts of Henri Matisse, these bright colors and whimsical shapes create overtones of hope and healing, as well as a sense of escape from the feelings of anxiety that often accompany this disorder. This visual aesthetic of color and playfulness bleeds into a lot of my other work as well. When I design something, I want it to remind people of the joy and beauty in the world that exists alongside whatever struggles they are encountering. I pull my illustrations into my design work to bring in an element of human touch and connection that we so desire.
These works both tell stories related to struggles with mental health, and how those struggles can feel for individuals living with anxiety or depression. “Mr. Blue” is meant to reflect how depression can make an individual feel like a ghost of themselves. It also shows the effects of untreated mental illness over time, with the figure becoming more and more overwhelmed by depression. “Anxiety” is meant to illustrate what it’s like inside the mind of someone who lives with anxiety. Specifically, the constant internal conflict of making the right decision, when ultimately it feels like there is no true solution to the problem being faced.
