Salina Art Center

Artist Exchange has been a wonderful program for me. It has provided exactly what I hoped for when I first applied: a guiding force to help me complete a large series of prints, a motivation as well as an inspiration, and a built-in group of colleagues.
— Rachel Epp Buller

The Artist Exchange program is a mentoring process that enables local and regional artists to teach and learn together while engaged in challenging, innovative work over the course of eight to ten months. The 2007–2008 participating artists:
Ann Resnick (Wichita) mentoring Rachel Epp Buller (Newton)
Conrad Snider (Newton) mentoring Peggy Medina (Salina)
Cindy Zimmerman (Salina) mentoring Richae Morrow (Salina)

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Ann Resnick
Loss is inevitable…and taking note of our collective and individual loss is equally inevitable. Creating elaborate extemporaneous memorials at the site of every untimely death and every natural disaster has come to feel like a genetic imperative. We may argue about whether a pile of teddy bears is actually a suitable tribute to the dead, but we’re not likely to argue about the impulse to make monuments.

Adieu is the result of the impulse I have to pay attention to the passing of friends and relatives. I want their lives to be memorialized, too. Additionally, I want to recognize that the loss of individuals, whether they’re known to us or not, is a shared loss. We know the impact of losing thousands of young men and women in wartime is a tragedy to their families; we don’t know what the repercussion of that loss is to us—we can only imagine future monuments.

I looked to the past for inspiration in creating Adieu. The 19th century provides a fertile field for commemorative work (think hair wreaths) and arcane symbolism. Adieu uses 365 screenprinted cut paper zinnias to represent “thoughts of absent friends,” making reference to the Language of Flowers (defined in Wikipedia as “…a Victorian-era means of communication in which various flowers and floral arrangements were used to send coded messages, allowing individuals to express feelings which otherwise could not be spoken.”)

It is the act of remembering and thinking of absent friends that propels the installation of this piece. But it is undoubtedly the energetic, thoughtful, and constructive conversation with the participants of the SAC’s Artist Exchange Program that led me in this direction, and will sustain me for years to come. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to work with Rachel, Cindy, Richae, Conrad, Peggy and Connie. I hope our association will continue forever!

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Rachel Epp Buller
The Food Landscape is a conceptual project that visually narrates the end of my breastfeeding journey.

Based on a food log that documented everything my youngest child ate, from the time she started solids at 9 months until the time she weaned at 17 months, the silkscreens employ her foods as the actual inks to chart her gradually changing nutritional intake.

The early months show little evidence of the food, when she had just started to eat, while the later months reflect the increasing percentage of solids in her diet. Bound into books by month, the nearly 300 prints function variously as an aesthetic record, a critical inquiry, an illumination of domestic roles, and a symbolic beginning as well as an ending.

Artist Exchange has been a wonderful program for me. It has provided exactly what I hoped for when I first applied: a guiding force to help me complete a large series of prints, a motivation as well as an inspiration, and a built-in group of colleagues.

My mentor, Ann Resnick, and I have had a fruitful, ongoing dialogue about our work, both in person and through our private blog. She has challenged me to think in new ways about my work and has often suggested solutions to potential artistic problems, in regard to The Food Landscape and to other projects as well.

I have appreciated the conversations of the larger Exchange group as well, finding in my colleagues a diverse modeling of what it means to make art.

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Conrad Snider
Throughout my career I have worked toward an understanding of clay as a material—integrating what I find beautiful about the material with ideas I am interested in communicating, working with forms that range from vessels and figurative pieces to handmade tile murals. Each type of work feeds a different part of my personality.

The forms are made utilizing clay’s natural attributes: its mass, sensuallity, how it rips, and its ability as a record keeper. It is my intent to minimize my impact on my pieces. I try to allow the clay to speak with its own voice. Although I start with a picture in my mind, I don’t want the finished form to look overly manipulated, but rather as though the clay has been nudged in a direction.

Aesthetic and conceptual elements are part of all the work in varying degrees depending on the focus of the piece. Scale is also an element, intended to encourage a physical, tactile interaction, in addition to visual and emotional exchange. Objects that are too heavy to pick up, our own size or larger, tend to create an opportunity to interact differently. We are forced to walk around the work and encounter it—not always on our terms—thus reducing our sense of dominance over objects, as well as the world around us.

The Artist Exchange program proved to be an excellent catalyst to help me take a step forward. I am a very physical person. Because of this aspect of my personality, my work has often been primarily about form. While there has always been a surface component to it, this was an opportunity to do much more experimentation with the glazed surface.

Along with these glaze tests, I made the decision to make some forms that were much simpler and would allow for the surface to be a priority. The six-foot vessel is an example of this. I also included the four-foot jar to show the interplay between the new glazes and some of my other forms.

I have done 480 glaze tests and hope to do a total of 1,600 before I finish.

I have enjoyed the opportunity to interact with a new group of artists and appreciate being involved in the Artist Exchange program.

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Peggy Medina
My interest in architecture and history influences my work. I am fascinated with small details and sometimes get too caught up in the planning of them, but I also love the feel of the clay and can get lost “in the zone” while creating organic, free-flowing forms, which are unplanned and intuitive.

I started with a very definite concept of my final project, which would include ceramic boxes. Along the way, I discovered that I would rather allow myself to experiment more, choosing to incorporate my two distinct and opposite styles of work. My theme became the interaction and contrast between human-made and organic forms and the concept that eventually nature will prevail.

In the final hanging piece, Conterminous, I wanted to step outside the idea that the boxes needed to be made of clay. Mark Dion’s Artist at Work lecture at the Art Center Cinema this past March influenced me. My idea was that humans would try to organize and display these organic forms, but nature would defy its human containment and categorization.

My intent with my artwork is to engage the viewer by providing enough mystery that they can create their own story.

Being chosen for the Artist Exchange program has been an exciting and life-changing experience for me. Conrad Snider, my mentor, has not only inspired me with his work, but he has been available for much-needed technical support. His most significant contribution was during our initial meetings when he influenced me to examine my previous work and consider what work was the most honest for me. This caused me to take a different path than I had planned and to incorporate my organic work into the boxes. Because of this, I feel I experienced much more artistic growth.

One of the best and unexpected treasures from the program has been the group activities. These group sessions provided a forum for dialogue and an extended network of artists to draw upon for support.

This program has helped me to create goals, have deadlines, and be accountable. It has caused me to establish positive work patterns. Overall, it has had a tremendous impact on my personal growth and has given me a “jump start” on my artistic development.

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Cindy Zimmerman
The questions Richae and Peggy and I encountered again and again during our dinner get-togethers were: How to do your work?  Where to do your work?  When to do your work?  These questions spiral through the lives of artists, re-emerging with changes in our circumstances and those of our loved ones.

We recall the joyous times in art school when everyone around us was working on the cultural enterprise, and valuing it as worthwhile against the flatness of a larger culture of passive consumption. Everyone has a public life, a private life, and a secret life. We want our art to have a place in all three lives, resilient through circumstantial changes.

This bunker, entitled Axis Mundi, grew out of a desire for fluid, communal, and even nomadic workspace. It fights the attachments to old production and nostalgic fascination that engender inertia. The belief in an artist’s need for solitude is recognized, mocked, lamented, and taken to an extreme. The desire for protection confronts a need to be transported, transfigured, transformed.

The performance, entitled Scanning the Archives, is part fiction and part documentary of an attempt to organize 30 years of unkempt archives, images from life and work, and samples lifted from the litter that swirls around us all.

Rachel, Conrad, and Ann helped to interrogate and expand original concepts and identify resources for development. Connie encouraged and nurtured a rich dialogue between us. Opportunities provided by SAC were strengthening experiences. Thanks to all.

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Richae Morrow
For my part of this exhibition, I am engaging in process in three parts:

How I see my environment
It’s the small things that most often captivate and hold my attention and memory. The things most people readily pass by without a second thought become my basis for abstract imagery. I see these subjects everywhere; it’s impossible for me to turn it off. Thus, the resulting paintings are disparate in imagery, but are linked by the common way they’ve been “sighted.”  This project is a way for me to somehow “catalog” what I see.

How I physically create my paintings
Making art isn’t easy. It’s work. I will be painting during regular Saturday and Sunday hours at the Art Center during the run of the show. Be forewarned, this will be my working studio, so some intermittent dancing and singing may take place (feel free to join in!).

How painting itself has changed the way I view color
Notes, sketches, and painted color swatches will adorn my space. Feel free to peruse. These colors were noted at different times, remembered, and have become important to me without regard to any object. They may or may not become a part of my paintings here.

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Cindy Zimmerman and Richae Morrow, joint statement  
The Artist Exchange program is great because…..we are accountable for our work and our reflections…..we have a leader who listens and learns with us…..we see work together and discuss it…..we discover that questions are more important than answers…..we make work infused with an educational intent…..we share strategies…..we are freed of isolation…..we become allies more than mentors…..we invite the public on our journey…..we self-curate our final exhibition works…..we meet visiting artists…..we eat great food…..we grow…..we change…..we are paid for time and materials, like any worker should be.