NEGATIVE Exhibition

NEGATIVE

AT INTERSECT June 6 - August 28 1

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The older I get, the more convinced I am that the space between people who are trying their best to understand each other is hallowed ground.

Mr. Rogers

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What first comes to mind when you hear the word “negative?”

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Contradiction?

Rejection?

Something upsetting?

Something bad?

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What about negative space?

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What is it about that dance of light and dark, of filled and unfilled space that can be so incredibly radiant?

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Positive space cannot exist without its inverse.

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But what if negative space is not so negative?

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What kind of radiance could negative space in daily life generate?

What kind of discovery could boredom yield?

What kind of emptiness can facilitate fullness?

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Hello!

My name is April. I am the designer and curator of this exhibition. I work here at Intersect. I do all kinds of things.

I’m a studio artist and also a graphic designer. I handle the website and designed our logo. I also do the layout designs for all of our gallery guides, including this one.

Layout design was partially the inspiration behind this exhibition.

Negative space is crucial to a successful, balanced layout.

I had been practicing this skill for years when I found myself admiring a piece titled Mobile in Movement. This collaborative piece by Juliet Gutch, Clare Dearnaley and Sally Beamish was on display in our fall 2021 exhibition, Dovetail, curated by Sarah Bernhardt.

It features several graceful wooden sculptures that hang from the ceiling.

They are slender shapes that seem to have been made specifically to amplify the unseen magnificence of the air we breathe (pictured on page 183).

--We asked artists the questions you read on the previous pages. They responded with over four hundred answers in the form of art. It may look like there is a lot of art in this gallery, but there also isn’t a lot of art in this gallery.

I had hoped to pick less than half the amount on view, but when you see it, you’ll understand.

I look at this exhibition the way I look at nature. When I’m in it, and listening to it, even though there is “stuff” 21

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everywhere, it is stuff that was made with love and thought and care. And if I listen to it, I am filled with that love and thought and care and also joy, questions, inspiration, movement, empathy, revelation, etc.

--Speaking of love, thought and care, in this catalog, you’re going to read a lot of words by TV personality and childhood favorite of many, Fred Rogers, better known as ‘Mr. Rogers’.

Being an adult and hearing advice from a children’s TV show host can, subconsciously, feel slightly negative.

Or perhaps it feels like the information is misplaced in some way until we remember that children are, for the most part, just inexperienced adults, and adults are just experienced and weary children.

So a person who hosts a children’s television show, the way Mr. Rogers did, actually speaks to everyone.

Maybe even more-so to the weary, grown-up children.

If you listen to any of his words during your time here, and you feel like a child, I’m glad. Being a child is wonderful. Children can love more naturally than adults, with little to no bias or prejudice. Certainly with much less negativity. For that brief moment you feel like a child, try to hold onto that aspect and take it back with you to your adulthood.

There are a lot of different conversations going on in this catalog about the topic negative and positive space. Often times the ideas blur together or get inverted.

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I thought about defining them more clearly, but I’ve decided to leave the negative and positive space hidden like this is some kind of “I Spy” book for your brain. Can you find them? Just like art, they’re open to interpretation.

One of the artists you’ll see here, Dontavius Woody, says it perfectly in his statement: “In my pieces, there is space left empty that a viewer could draw in - not literally, but in their mind.

Because I might think my piece finished, and you may see where I left something out. Anybody can continue to add to the drawing in their mind.”

--I am so excited you are here. This book is a labor of love. I made it for you. So interact with it however you want. It’s not my gift to me. It’s my gift to you.

- April Parviz

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welcome to

NEGATIVE

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Chapter one : page 30

LESS IS MORE EMPTY IS FULL

Chapter two : page 44

CONNECTION AT THE CORE

Chapter three : page 56

REDUCTIVE rainbow street to catharsis

Chapter four : page 76

RUMINATION INTROSPECTION murmuration

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Chapter five : page 108

NOBLE AND ABUNDANT FRUITS

Chapter six : page 128

UNSEEN lazy river of wonder

Chapter seven : page 146

RESPITE & ever present hope

ARTWORK INFORMATION : page 158 ABOUT THE ARTISTS : page 166

To purchase artwork, please contact Intersect Arts Center.

Contact information : page 184.

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CHAPTER ONE

LESS

IS MORE

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EMPTY

IS FULL

You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you need to make choices. And hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are.

Mr. Rogers

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Dopamine:

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Dopamine is a neurotransmitter made in your brain. It plays a role as a “reward center” and in many body functions, including memory, movement, motivation, mood, attention and more.

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Stone Peng 1. Tree-Alone

2. It will be a long winter

3. Four Umbrellas

STATEMENT I try to show the Chinese philosophy of life and the aesthetic principles "less is more" and "empty is full" in creating my images. Using primarily white tones in the background lends a simplicity and ethereal purity to a subject that gives you a calm, peaceful, infinitely deep and immeasurable feeling. The empty space offers the viewer a peaceful feeling and also gives the viewer a chance to focus on what it really takes to find balance in life and capture a little piece of our self. “Tranquility, simplicity and beauty are essence of my photos.”

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4. Simple Beauty

5. Nature DNA

6. Music Staff

7. Geometric in the pond 35

Gary Rubin STATEMENT February 21, 2022

Since the onset of COVID, in my isolation, my connection with the outside world has primarily been through the pieces I have created. I select subjects that inspire me - that evoke an emotion or tap into one of the many feelings I’ve 8. Untitled 079 had (as have many) being overcome by the COVID and racial injustice pandemics. The subjects all lived within the frame of my television.

And from these subjects I created compositions, with a sketchbook, set of pencils, and an eraser that all reside on a TV tray. I never know what the finished product will look like until I stop drawing.

And when I stop, it’s because it feels complete and incomplete at the same time. It is not only what I draw but what I don’t draw, allowing the negative space to complement and oppose the graphite. These drawings ask questions, some make statements, and represent feelings and emotions all under the umbrella of belonging. The struggles, the fears, the hope for something better.

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9. Loss

10. Resolve

11. Agony

12. It is Never Too Late

13. Concentration

14. Disbelief

15. Remembering

16. Longing 37

Brian Mitchell STATEMENT THINtrospective addresses our packed lives and the lack of free space for reflection. It is made from a working television set discarded by a neighbor who was thrilled to ‘upgrade’ to a larger model. The piece demonstrates that when we constantly fill time with distractions and entertainment, there is literally no room left to think. We must choose how we fill the available space in our day - is it with thin, superficial distractions or with deeper, meaningful connections?

17. THINtrospective

“We must choose how we fill the available space in our day - is it with thin, superficial distractions or with deeper, meaningful connections?”

Brian Mitchell 38

THOUGHTS FROM APRIL I’ve been thinking that too. I’ve been thinking it a lot.

In my head it goes like this, “I must choose where my dopamine is coming from - is it watching my screen rapidly and unnaturally change? Or is it watching the change of emotions behind the eyes of my complex and wonderful children, or the change of the seasonally disappearing and then wondrously reappearing rippling, silver aspen leaves?”

--I have had varying levels of screen addiction since 2002. I was 12 years old. It was incidentally only a year before Mr. Rogers died. I remember. I cried when I found out. I can tell you where I was.

Before screen addiction, I had the joy and gift of intentional and lovingly fixed television boundaries, from my parents, which allowed me to experience boredom, curiosity and deep exploration of the natural world. I can still remember the depths of the joy I felt as a child, running through fields and discovering mysteries buried in dark forests.

Sitting with those memories can still bring appropriately balanced dopamine. The memories are not as strong as the real thing, but they are a gift from my parents that I will always cherish. I know they worked hard to give them to me, because I was a very stubborn and spirited child, who certainly saw boredom as negative.

Now that I am a mother, I can see how much work it is to stay faithful to “negative” things like discipline, contradiction and boundaries. But I’ll continue to try my best so as to preserve my inheritance and pass it along to my own children. That inheritance is the knowledge of where to find balanced dopamine.

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I’m 33 now. A millennial.

I have two daughters who are so young, their generation is not yet named.

Look at some of these moments I’ve noticed:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moment One I was scrolling through old photos and videos in my online storage the other day. I was looking for something specific, in a hurry. I scrolled past several videos of my children when they were younger, with a slight desire to click and watch their sweet faces.

But I didn’t because the voice of reason told me to stay on task.

Then I scrolled past a video of my child watching a screen and the voice of reason was drowned by the hurricanic voice of addiction. The only thing that kept me from clicking that video to satisfy the aggressive hunger to know what was on that screen, was the merciful split second when the voice of reason came up for air screaming and I noticed what had just happened in my mind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moment Two Last night, I held my three year old for fifteen minutes before bedtime. We were done reading books and just sitting, speaking in various love languages while fully enjoying each other’s company.

I don’t do this often. I mean, of course I hold my child.

But I don’t give myself fully to her for this amount of time. I’m usually in a hurry to do something. But what? I’m in such a hurry, I don’t think about it.

Last night I thought about it. I’ve been intentionally reflecting on my screen addiction a lot.

I was in a hurry to go watch TV. It’s what we do at night.

Dinner is over. We are exhausted from “the day” and so we “reward” ourselves by watching TV. 40

But I think we may actually be exhausted from “the screens” of the day.

My daughter was giving me her full self. Because she has it. I don’t have mine. Mine is either fully consumed by what is on this screen right now or half consumed by what was on that screen a minute ago or what will be on the screen in a minute.

Because I was intentionally trying to keep the voice of my screen addiction silent, I heard my child. I heard her heart and her love. And it was my reward.

I was unconsciously exhausted from the screens and she unknowingly rewarded me with her quality time.

I would love to say that I thanked her for it and let her stay up even later, hungry for more of her love, but I’m a recovering addict. She went to bed and I went to watch the next episode of Battlestar Galactica.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moment Three For all four years of college, I worked in the infant room at an early childcare center. I didn’t have a smart phone. I had a flip phone. I thought about things like text messaging, Facebook, and television with semi-addiction. But I didn’t have my phone and social media account(s) locked around my neck like I was part of an invisible chain gang.

I loved working in the infant room. I can still feel authentic connections with these tiny individuals.

I used to say I would go to work to recharge, and that I couldn’t decide which was more enjoyable; holding a baby or looking at one. Both experiences produced comfortable and appropriate levels of dopamine, to be sure. Circular lazy rivers flowing through my soul into the hearts of the babies and back around through me again.

Now that I have had two of my own babies, I have changed. I know that working with babies is very different from being the mother of your own babies.

But it’s more than that.

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There was something physically happening inside me that doesn’t happen now. I experienced it on brief occasions with my own babies. But it was always drowned by the sneaky guerrilla tactics of the internet rushing me back to a screen.

It is time for me to respect my own babies and myself enough to identify when I’m experiencing hungers that can never be satisfied. And I must choose to say no to those hungers. “[I] must choose how [I] fill the available space in [my] day.” With deep, meaningful connections.

--I love Gary Rubin’s work (page 36-37).

I know that Covid exacerbated a lot of our already growing screen addictions.

But it seems to me that Gary found a way to tame the wild horse of television a bit.

Perhaps similarly to how the wonderful Mr. Rogers did, but from the other side.

Gary knew that he was unable to physically see actual humans, but he also knew that he needed actual humans.

So instead of looking directly at the fake and unnatural screen of his television, he looked through and past it, at the actual people inside of it. He listened to them. He gave back to them with his incredible artistic skill.

They may never know the gift that he’s given them. But in giving it, by returning the human connection, he may have allowed himself to be the one in control, not the screen.

What an example for us all.

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Stone Peng also offers a gift through his breathtakingly minimal photography (pages 34-35).

Here is a place where we can find that appropriately balanced dopamine.

Here is an invitation to slow down for a moment.

Take each photograph in gently one by one.

Breathe slowly in. Breathe slowly out.

Imagine that you are there. Imagine the beautiful gifts that can bring our souls back to life through our senses by simply existing in the natural world.

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Our society is much more interested in information than wonder, in noise rather than silence...And I feel that we need a lot more wonder and a lot more silence in our lives Mr. Rogers

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CHAPTER TWO

CONNECTION

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AT THE CORE

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.

Mr. Rogers

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Sonder:

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The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

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Katie Ries

18. Dependents

STATEMENT With Dependents I envision a better future for caregivers. While the solutions to the challenges of caregiving must be systemic rather than individualized, connection is at the core. In this image, the negative space surrounding the carrots is in fact the thing that sustains them. Closer inspection of the soil reveals a network of interconnected layers. The crux of this supportive negative space is an almost invisible network of mycorrhizae, the symbiotic relationship formed between fungi and plants that supports both beyond their individual capacities.

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Dontavius Woody

19. Home to Kansas

STATEMENT I don’t think of it as negative space. I would call it empty space. I leave empty and open space in my art because it represents the unknown. We don’t know what “the other” is thinking. We don’t know the thoughts of someone else who is looking at the piece, we don’t know the thoughts of the figure in the piece - but we can guess and we can know our own thoughts. In my pieces, there is space left empty that a viewer could draw in - not literally, but in their mind. Because I might think my piece finished, and you may see where I left something out. Anybody can continue to add to the drawing in their mind.

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Henry Moyerman

20. Hollow

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STATEMENT LEGO elements are a reflection of how I fundamentally see myself. I have always felt like a person between two worlds: One technical and the other creative. I am both an artist and an engineer. The LEGO brick embodies this duality. It can be used for incredible artistic expression, while simultaneously requiring engineering to be formed into a stable physical object.

Through original LEGO sculptures and LEGO based photography, I create art that represents who I am. I hope observers will consider how art can reflect who they are as well. Hollow is about emptiness.

The piece is in human form, but consists primarily of negative space. This space represents the emotionally hollow nature of the figure. With the aid of clear 1x2 plate bricks, the figure in Hollow appears in floating sections. The bright colors of the body contrast the blank spaces left between.

All of us, at some time or other, need help.

Whether we’re giving or receiving help, each one of us has something valuable to bring to this world. That’s one of the things that connects us as neighbors--in our own way, each one of us is a giver and a receiver.

Mr. Rogers

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Jeff Williams

21. Who We See

STATEMENT I try to mix social, environmental or niche resonating themes in a manner that has vibrant impact. I try to keep an emotionally uplifting visual interpretation of what we always have around us, even when themes are of a heavier nature. We may just feel we see glimpses of harmony in the visual world around us, but I like to micro focus and extend that beauty, either literally or figuratively. Most visual artists do this and I am just one of all the unique.

The greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they’re loved and capable of loving.

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Ursula Minor

22. Perception

STATEMENT Negative space, filled space, pain and beauty. To accept someone for who they are, not how you perceive them to be.

This is how I see negative space, it might be empty, but look again.

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We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.”

Then there are those who see the need and respond.

I consider those people my heroes.

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THOUGHTS FROM APRIL Ever since I finalized the pieces for this exhibition back in March, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these five pieces together.

They are a story in my mind.

18. Dependents is the bird’s eye view of the story.

20. Hollow is the caregiver.

19. Home to Kansas is the public place where the caregiver walks regularly to recharge, surrounded by strangers who can have no idea what happens at home. Visiting this public place can be a relief and a refill if the strangers in it think like Dontavius Woody (page 49) and Ursula Minor (page 53).

When unbiased and fully empathetic eye contact is made, knowing nothing about another person, except that they are a human and life is often difficult, we are given the opportunity to share a light brighter than we know. We can uplift some of the most hollow strangers without ever knowing our impact.

21. Who We See is that moment.

See people. Hear them. They need your patience.

They need your eyes. They need your ears. They need your slow. You need them too. For them and for you. Being in this gallery, looking and listening to these artists is part of that impact. Thank you for being here and reading this.

Perhaps being a good Samaritan is as easy as a pair of eyes resting on another with full compassion having set the stage.

22. Perception is the caregiver, disguised as the stranger, and it is also you.

--Let us not forget the empty of the 2020 quarantine.

It is time to fill that negative space with love and compassion. Not an urgency for life to return to the hectic “normalcy” of 2019.

Strangeness and strangers are not negative.

Strangers need us and we need strangers.

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CHAPTER THREE

REDUCTIVE

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rainbow street to catharsis

Love and trust, in the space between what’s said and what’s heard in our life, can make all the difference in this world.

Mr. Rogers

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Cognitive distortions:

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Thoughts that cause an individual to perceive reality inaccurately.

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Polarized thinking:

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A cognitive distortion that leads individuals to see themselves, others, or circumstances in terms of polar, or opposite, extremes.

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Michelle

Schwengel-Regala

23. ‘Alala Family Tree / Corvus hawaiiensis

STATEMENT Hawaiian crows are currently extinct in the wild.

Their absence is largely due to habitat loss. This mixed-media family tree depicts generations of these intensely-studied individuals, each indicated by a black form. I applied paint with my finger, intentionally leaving prints - reminders of humans’ ecological effects. What does the future hold?

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Russell Prather

24. Black and White World, Plate 1

25. Black and White World, Plate 4

STATEMENT My paintings for “Negative” reflect how thought has become more existential and reductive due to recent crises like the global pandemic, Jan 6 insurrection and Black Lives Matter movement. Viewable from both sides when hung from the ceiling or some other support, the paintings are of 2 of the original Rorschach ink blots, used to elicit associations from patients that might reveal their deeper psychology.

Reversing the figure of the blot on the white recto, and black verso, these images create ambiguous relationships between negative and positive space, and draw attention not just to human subjectivity and the act of constructing meaning, but also to how this activity can be constrained and diminished— within two geometrically identical figure-ground relationships: one white-on-black, the other blackon-white. Like our current cultural moment perhaps, there may be interpretive choices available here, but they are stark, with little nuance or complication, no color—not even gray areas.

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Dontavius Woody Woody’s statement applies perfectly to this chapter as well. So let’s read it again. (and again and again and again)

26. Rainbow Street

STATEMENT I don’t think of it as negative space. I would call it empty space. I leave empty and open space in my art because it represents the unknown. We don’t know what “the other” is thinking. We don’t know the thoughts of someone else who is looking at the piece, we don’t know the thoughts of the figure in the piece - but we can guess and we can know our own thoughts. In my pieces, there is space left empty that a viewer could draw in - not literally, but in their mind.

Because I might think my piece finished, and you may see where I left something out. Anybody can continue to add to the drawing in their mind.

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Delaney Rogers

27. From the Minds of Babes

STATEMENT We are in a state of constant consumption, overwhelmed by a barrage of images from mass media. Our minds are being so flooded with ideals that we don’t know how to express ourselves without fear of judgment. We are unable to achieve catharsis because we numb ourselves. My work explores these contradictory emotions and escapism. I aim to use kitsch to embrace accessibility in art. It’s about connecting and relating to others in a world that is plugged in and yet incredibly disconnected. I both critique and embrace the outcomes of our consumerist society by exploring the materials and symbols commonly found within it. The figures in my work exist in environments of this imagery. These images explore a multitude of emotions and issues of mental health.

Employing negative space in the work adds different elements like weight, lightness, emptiness, a sense of unease or a place for the eye to rest. The liminal space calls for pause and contemplation.

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Brian Mitchell STATEMENT We all know the hollow, unsatisfying feeling we get when we compare our lives to our friends on social media. Mangled Beauty addresses the loss of context when we use filters, don’t add descriptions, etc. We show the world a distorted view of ourselves, which breeds loneliness. In this piece, the tentacles of social media literally pierce and twist the piece to the point that we may not even recognize that there is a beautiful portrait which is presented to us.

28. Mangled Beauty

We get so wrapped up in numbers in our society. The most important thing is that we are able to be one-to-one, you and I with each other at the moment. If we can be present to the moment with the person that we happen to be with, that's what's important.

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Kaitlin Wilfing STATEMENT

29. See Through Me (1)

30. See Through Me (2)

31. See Through Me (3)

As a curator and artist I take a lot of time as to how to showcase myself on a daily basis, as a woman you could almost say I regulate to the best of my ability how I look and how much I wish for others to perceive of me. That is what this work is about; depicting the subtle ways I have both emerged and taken myself out of the spot light. By painting on fabric I have decided to reveal my face which can convey my personality, emotions, and disposition to the viewer but because I have chosen lace fabric (specifically one with a lot of baroque inspired embellishment) I have both revealed myself all the more to you by my choice in materials and physically negated showing all of my face in detail. This work is a personal project for me as I regain confidence I had lost during the hardships of Covid-19 and the daily mental toll of being an artist, and with this work I hope to put on display through the use of negative space the mystery that is the human experience of identity.

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Sarah Bernhardt

STATEMENT In the midst of developing a community based organization and integrating into a religious congregational life, a body of paintings, drawings, and photographs emerged to create a space to contemplate the meaning of an individual identity within larger corporate structures. The two windows offer a sense of both possibility and containment, a space simultaneously interior and exterior. The body is rendered in a state somewhere between bare and 68

Whatever we choose to imagine can be as private as we want it to be.

Nobody knows what you’re thinking or feeling unless you share it.

Mr. Rogers

32. From Scaffold and Gestures

clothed, a reflection on the negotiation of public and private self. And while the figures seem opposed, heading in opposite directions, they are tethered by a single line, holding them together. The negative space between them is an invitation, perhaps like a “fill in the blank” question, not necessarily demanding an answer, but holding space, open, space crucial and necessary for thriving in a multiplicity of spaces, and communities, and ways of being.

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33. Greenwash

34. Static

35. Conflagration 70

Tyler Brumfield STATEMENT These conceptual works participate in a dialogue that incorporates the representation of land in the history of Western photography, the commodification of nature, industry’s disregard for planet earth, the rising frequency of climate disasters and the crippling effects from the production and consumption of single use plastics.

The works address the call in two ways. Firstly, the works are made by laying down a historic landscape photograph that was originally shot on film (resulting in a 4 x 5 negative) and layering single use plastics of varying colors on top of the image to obscure the landscape until it is barely recognizable as a landscape. Secondly, the work addresses the damages (negative) inflicted by humanity’s continued production and reliance on single use plastics.

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THOUGHTS FROM APRIL There is negative space that resides between the color black and the color white.

--When I read the first line of Michelle SchwengelRegala’s artist statement (page 62) about Hawaiian crows having gone extinct, my rapid-fire socialmedia-trained gut wants to let all the guilt in to capture my critical thinking and hold it hostage while I read the rest of her statement on the defense.

When we are on the defense, the only other place we can see is offense. We’re either on one side or the other. We’re either thinking black or white. We’re either the attacker or the victim. When it comes to places like social media, we’re always the victim and never the attacker. But if everyone is a victim on social media, who are the attackers?

Let’s go back a step. Why was I feeling attacked?

Oh. I felt guilty. That artist statement made me feel guilty. That artist made me feel guilty.

No she didn’t. That’s a lie.

I made me feel guilty.

Okay so I am the victim and the attacker.

Why do I feel guilty? Because I love birds. I love the environment. I know that humans are often reckless and damaging to the environment and I am a human.

So, it is my fault that the wonderful crows are dead.

No it isn’t. That’s another lie. It’s what is called a “cognitive distortion”. This cognitive distortion, in particular, is called polarized thinking. It’s also known as black and white thinking.

--Okay now that that’s settled, let’s read this lovely artist statement further, written by a person who loves birds and the environment, just like me.

It’s a statement of love and care, filled with an entire rainbow of complex emotions. I would not have been 72

able to hear a single one of these compassionate colors if all I’d heard was black and white.

I can now place her statement in my mind’s critical thinking box and stay on the lookout for ways I can work to protect birds in my own area.

Russell Prather states it perfectly (page 63), “thought has become more existential and reductive”.

Delaney Rogers says (page 65), that we can’t “express ourselves without fear or judgment. We are unable to achieve catharsis because we numb ourselves.”

Brian Mitchell speaks about polarized thinking (page 66) when he addresses one of the most poisonous aspects of social media, constant comparison.

--Kaitlin Wilfing steps in with a truly authentic, vulnerable, honest, and courageous work of art, on page 67, paired with an equally vibrantly-colored statement. It’s maybe impossible to experience polarized thinking when witnessing a person so open about their life experience. It’s absolutely beautiful.

--Sarah and Kaitlin contemplate similar themes. Seen or unseen? Private or public? Spotlight or shadows?

I think a lot of us probably ebb and flow in and out of this place often. I know I do. I’ve been dying to sing at the top of my lungs as a street performer in downtown Chicago for almost twenty years, but the thought also makes me want to die. And even putting that in print for strangers to read is absolutely terrifying to me.

I want to be courageous to do the things that I’m passionate or inspired to do. But it is so scary. I could be seen as a show-off. People could think I’m bad at it.

Here’s a weird one. People could think that I’m brave now and ask me to do courageous things all the time.

But they won’t realize I’m “an impostor”.

If people start asking me to do courageous things, I could feel burdened to say yes, sacrificing the precious space I had set aside for my other aspirations.

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Here’s another weird thought that sometimes keeps me from pursuing things that I’m passionate about.

And this one is buried so deeply in my subconscious, it’s almost impossible to translate from thought into word, but it sounds kind of like this: If I do this thing, it could cause someone else to compare their abilities to mine and then become too scared to do it too. I have this thought here, because there are many things I haven’t done after comparing myself to someone else.

Things that could have brought people joy.

But it all comes back to the rainbow between polarized thinking. It’s important for me to assume a beautiful and complex rainbow about other people’s motives.

When I practice that regularly, I feel that grace reflecting from others. I don’t need to impress people or say yes to requests I’m not invested in, because I now believe they are assuming kind things about me. And if they’re not, I’m not too worried about it, except that I feel sympathy for their pain caused by their own bitterness. I’m allowed to say that because I have caused myself a lot of pain by thinking bitterly when I could have stopped.

If you have things that you are passionate about, but you are scared: be brave. These things are scary for everyone. But we want to see what you can do.

At the same time, be as private or as public as you want to be. Choosing whether or not to be private or public takes bravery too. Be brave. You already are.

And you’re wonderful.

--Tyler Brumfield’s highly thought-provoking statement (page 71) returns us to the initial critical thinking exercise.

He speaks very directly about humanity’s disrespect for our beautiful earth. It feels like an attack. It feels negative.

But maybe it should?

Sure, perhaps it’s not directly my fault that the crows in Hawaii are dead. But I use single use plastic all the time, even though I try not to.

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Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.

I believe the guilt regarding the crows was misplaced. This new guilt, however, this negative feeling, while reading Tyler Brumfield’s statement, I believe, may not be misplaced. He makes good observations about our society that relate to some of my own personal habits. Now it is my duty to take that negative feeling and, instead of reading on with a blind sense of victimization, hear all of the colors in his words, check them with my critical thinking and respond to his call to action appropriately.

I will not be responding in guilt though. I believe that it is important to catch our guilt as soon as we feel it and deal with it appropriately. So, in this case, I will see it and work to change, out of love for my home, not guilt for my past mistakes.

Taking action out of guilt can lead us to do things irrationally and to make further mistakes. Taking action out of love can only lead us to do things in love.

--We live in a place where colors literally appear in a half circle above the earth after water falls from the sky. What an incredible place.

Thank You God for this wonderful, colorful place.

And thank You for these inspiring and colorfullythinking people. Help us to always listen for each other’s colors and to be brave enough to show or choose not show our own, with gentleness and love.

--We come back to the wonderful Dontavius Woody. In Rainbow Street, he leaves space open for us to draw our own conclusions. I think that Rainbow Street is where Listening and Understanding live. You can live there too.

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CHAPTER FOUR

RUMINATION

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INTROSPECTION murmuration

There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.

Mr. Rogers

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Hungry Ghosts:

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Hungry ghosts are demon-like creatures described in Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, Sikh, and Jain texts as the remnants of the dead who are aff licted with insatiable desire, hunger or thirst as a result of bad deeds or evil intent carried out in their life times.

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36. \”Still Through\”

You can’t really love someone else unless you really love yourself first.

Mr. Rogers

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Tom Hays STATEMENT Exploration of self leads to discovery and reflects themes of growth and lineage, acknowledging my place increasing my awareness. Suffering, resiliency, and acceptance unify the subjects approached with my art. My journey has left me with intimate knowledge of these issues and allows me to empathize with others struggles. Allowing myself to believe in the possibilities and see beauty in them allows me freedom to experience, observe and respond to my life with the art I make. Subtle or impossible gestures in real or imagined settings are vehicles for the expression of my sentiments on these timeless themes. Combined forms and dialogue between characters and environments illicit thoughts and feelings of our relationships with ourselves, interpersonally and with the world we came from and live in. The evolution of who I am reflects in the fluidity of decision making in my artistic process. The formula I once trusted is stale. I scrapped my maps for intuition.

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Michelle

37. Lava Lei

STATEMENT Witnessing active volcanoes in Antarctica & Hawai‘i inspired me to use my novel wire knitting technique to create biomorphic sculptures featuring lava forms.

Wearable works include a dress, necklace, & now this lei. Concentric orange, red, & black layers suggest a hot core with a cooling surface.

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Schwengel -Regala

38. Lava Bomb V and 39. Lava Bomb VI

STATEMENT After observing various facets of Antarctica’s Mount Erebus (the world’s southernmost active volcano), I returned to my Hawai‘i studio and began experimenting with ways to create geological forms.

I reflected on conversations with volcanologists who seek these forms by scanning snow and ice fields for certain “negative spaces” — formations which originate when hot ejected magma blobs fall to the snow- or ice-covered landscape and melt holes in the substrate. Combining textile techniques with the mission to create a matrix, my knitted sculpture series references Antarctic lava bombs plus tephra ejected from Kilauea. The orbs may be suspended from the ceiling, caught mid-flight during ejection from a caldera, or may rest on a shelf or pedestal.

I remain in awe of the volcanoes that continue to erupt from the earth’s interior, transform the landscape, evolve, and inspire.

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Michelle

40. Treeform I

The way you would draw a tree is different from the way anyone else would draw a tree – and that’s the way it’s supposed to be!

Mr. Rogers

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Schwengel -Regala

41. Treeform II

STATEMENT When Kilauea volcano erupts and flows inundate forests, the incineration of trees can leave cylindrical holes in cooled lava. My first knitted “treeform” materialized the day my 99-year-old grandfather died. His absence brought a massive shift in my world. I am honored to hold space for him through this metaphor.

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42. 47 years behind the eyelids

STATEMENT It seems that a person like me always turned around and couldn’t mix with other people. Even after graduating from art college, he has lived a different life than painting for over 20 years. Marriage and business, which seemed to last forever, are now living a life of separation from children. Each time they fell apart, the painting came to me with an unknown force as much as the pain, and now only it exists. negative? Maybe that’s the driving force behind my painting. I am delighted that this call to art exists.

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Sungchan Kim

43. Born from death

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Marcella Hackbardt STATEMENT In this body of work, My Rooms, the photographs evoke a place and a persona, introducing and investigating the tension between narrative incompleteness and unfamiliar settings. In these images, the figure is alone, while her thoughts pervade the empty space around her. She both utilizes and contends with the quiet and the air, which are weighted with her memories, decisions, ruminations, and possibilities for moving forward-the intensity of introspection. All shot on location, the juxtaposition of the uncommon spaces with the figure orients and disorients readings of innocence, turbulence, and thought or mindful purpose.

Illumination is mixed and precious. As such, the figure may personify concepts such as wonder and wisdom, or difficult choices and personal struggles.

The rooms are both real and existential spaces that may suggest the strength and determination of knowledge and learning, the emotional labor of memories, and the generative role of trust and secrets.

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45

46

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Michael Wadkins

48. Hawk In Flight

STATEMENT When I create my work, my mind is often trained on my daughters. All the things they say, the things they’re interested in, everything I love about them.

This eventually causes me to think about my failings as their father. I’m absent too often, I don’t call enough, I didn’t do enough to save my relationship with their mothers. These thoughts hold me in bondage, and this has affected my choice in mediums.

The frames act as boxes that contain my thoughts.

Sturdy, rigid, hard to break out of. The rope is the most obvious representation of this bondage, however, it represents another kind of bondage as well. It is the connection that binds us to earth.

Sister to sister. One to their community. Me to you.

In all of this, negative space plays a key role in my work. Really, my work just consists of me organizing negative space. Dividing my thoughts. Trying desperately to not be swallowed by The Void.

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90

I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you’ve said ‘yes,’ when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else.

Mr. Rogers

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I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you’ve said ‘yes,’ when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else.

Mr. Rogers

Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect on any front-and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

Mr. Rogers

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Some days, doing ‘the best we can’ may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn’t perfect on any front-and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.

Mr. Rogers

45. The Nursery

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Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.

Mr. Rogers

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46. Breathing Room

Solitude is different from loneliness, and it doesn’t have to be a lonely kind of thing.

Mr. Rogers

Anything that’s human is mentionable and anything that’s mentionable can be more manageable.

When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know we are not alone.

Mr. Rogers

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Anything that’s human is mentionable and anything that’s mentionable can be more manageable.

When we talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know we are not alone.

Mr. Rogers

47. A Loft

April Behnke STATEMENT Disassembly and distillation, meditation and reflection: it’s these processes I’m thinking about in the studio lately.

I’m working to uncover the most essential elements of the work, undoing years of choices and moves made in anxiety or insecurity.

Leaving room for 49. Before Hungry Ghosts negative space is a large part of this process, in both the pieces themselves and in my mental state as I’m working. What can be removed?

What can be hidden? What is necessary? As the layers come off, the paintings become lighter and more playful. Forms emerge or recede as sharp, soft, warm, icy, heavy, or 50. Key light, but it’s their interaction that interests me. I’m looking for the moment where the way they float, weave, hide, or burst is revealed.

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Michelle

Schwengel-Regala

NT

51. Diving through Antarctic Ice: Descend/Ascend

STATEMENT While at McMurdo Station with the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists & Writers Program, I donned a drysuit and traversed negative spaces carved in seven-foot-thick sea ice serving as access into and out of the marine environment.

My sculpture represents these portals and the supercooled habitat which I explored as a SCUBA diver and drew as an underwater artist.

Confronting our feelings and giving them appropriate expression always takes strength, not weakness.

Mr. Rogers 95

Lady Aberlin and Handyman Negri learning from one another in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood of Make-Believe.

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preface

Hi. It’s me again, April.

I’ve recently started talking about the dark things that happen in my mind, openly. When I do, I’ve been astonished at the abundance of full reciprocity from others.

If you experience darkness from time to time, please brace yourself to hear what is written in this chapter with positivity and encouragement. There are areas of darkness, but if you find them negatively feeding your hungry ghosts, please read on to find the free little library of tools crafted by me and six deeply thinking artists. Learn from our growth. None of us want this pain for ourselves or each other or for you.

Let us learn from one another.

I have already learned a great deal from them.

I offer these words to your empty pockets.

Save them until you’re in need of comfort for your own burdened soul in the lonely hours.

Or to activate patience to stave off frustration as you witness someone else’s burdened soul, whose torment may be difficult to understand.

Let us learn from one another.

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rumination / fermentation / deterioration Negative rumination is most likely one of my most damaging habits.

What are negative ruminations?

In my case, they are the same questions about what I just did wrong asked over and over and over again.

They are answered by all of the deep and aggressively loyal memories of everything I’ve ever done wrong also repeated over and over and over again.

This equation does not a solution make.

It does, however, seem to deteriorate the inner walls of my mind. Sometimes to a point of carving new caverns where the rumination can further flow in and out. This makes room for my new “wrong-doings” to now move in and make themselves at home so as to contribute to future ruminations.

The rivers of rumination swirling through the unseen caverns in my mind, somewhere inside but also at the same time below my spirit, are not so different from hot molten lava that is inside a volcano. Somehow part of the earth, but unseen in a way that prevents scientists from finding a solution to withhold them.

It often feels equally hard for me to control my ruminations. But the truth is, there are solutions for things like this. But just like every aspiration, I need to do work if I want to obtain them, even (perhaps especially) if no one can see the work but me.

lava bombs behind the eyelids How does a dark rumination begin?

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It begins with \”Still Through\” by Tom Hays (page 80).

A hot cup of coffee is dropped. In that split second while the cup is mid-air, my core begins to heat with something, possibly cortisol and/or adrenaline. It looks a lot like Schwengel’s Lava Lei (page 82). As the hot coffee explodes out of my coffee cup onto the floor, the Lava Bombs (page 83) erupt from somewhere inside of me onto the person who spilled the cup.

--Isn’t it strange how the people closest are the only ones who witness these volcanoes? Kind of like real volcanoes.

That’s something to wonder about another day.

--The heat of my reaction has the ability to create deep Treeforms (page 84-85) (Michelle describes these as cylindrical holes in cooled lava created by “the incineration of trees”). These holes may now open in the heart of the person who has been hit by my Lava Bombs. And in my own heart for lashing out, with such a combination of aggression, irrationality and lack of self control.

These uninvited Treeforms burrow deeper than they should, giving access to the dark place of my mind.

My present mind calls down through the holes into the dark place saying, “why did you react that way?”

And the rumination is summoned.

It reverse pours up through the Treeform pores. Those aggressively faithful memories of everything I’ve ever done wrong storm in to answer this new question. The question that is never answered. Because the answers are questions... that were never answered. Like hungry ghosts.

The rumination looks like both of Sungchan Kim’s pieces, especially 47 years behind the eyelids (page 86).

His work speaks very deeply to me and sometimes when I pray for me, I find myself praying for him too.

Perhaps, next time I’m in this dark place, I will think of him. Maybe the connection I feel to his emotions will be the merciful distraction necessary to shift me.

Let us learn from one another.

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invasive species & weeds

Let’s look a little closer at what is inside a dark rumination.

When I try to find these dark thoughts when I’m not in a rumination, it’s very difficult. It’s like they only want to be seen when they know I’m at my weakest.

They probably know that if they came out during my rational moments, my reasonable brain would be able to squish them in my fingers like a little bug. They would never get to swirl around in my head again.

They’re a lot like an invasive species or weeds. You only notice them when they are causing problems.

But if you could pull up the baby weeds right when they sprout, you’d have much more space to enjoy actually gardening.

But what if some of the weeds and invasive species are actually positive?

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into cherished flowers

Can we transform or replace what’s inside our rumination?

I think so. With a lot of work, of course.

Just like in a beautiful garden. It is time to look for the weeds and the invasive species. It will be hard work, but the more work I do now, the less work it will be later.

As a gardener, I try to pull weeds as soon as possible.

But I have also found many plants that others call weeds, to actually be fairly desirable plants. To the point where I’ve even saved some of their seeds for next year or for gifts.

I think we can do this with the weeds in our minds too. Choose the ones that really should go. The ones that are causing harm to the garden. But other weeds, look at them more closely to see if they could be useful or even beautiful.

Here is an example of how this work looks in my brain garden.

I’m spending time with a person that I care about. One of these dark memory weeds floats, unaggressively, to the surface of my mind. It floats there because this person is in it. I recognize it as one of the dark pixels from my ruminations.

I casually ask this person a clarifying question about the memory. This usually ends in the answer that the hungry-ghost-thought has been looking for. Now it can finally die. The memory is released from my rumination pattern. Or sometimes it is even transformed into a lovely memory that I can now cherish.

It takes a deep awareness of the subconscious to notice these things. And that takes a lot of exercise.

But I personally believe this is the most important daily exercise we can be doing.

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traverse negative spaces

So how do we find a good exercise routine for our subconscious?

Therapy and “prayerapy” work best for me. Cognitive behavioral therapy changed my life when I learned about it for the first time about ten years ago. It keeps my ruminations harnessed fairly well on a regular basis. When things get really bad, I’ll go talk to my counselor. But praying to Jesus and reading the bible have always been the most excellent solutions for me. I just have to do them right away, before I get sucked into the darkness. The longer I’m in a rumination, the harder it is for me to get out.

That’s not supposed to be a sales pitch. Just the truth about my process. So please don’t read this as some sort of Christian propaganda that you got yourself roped into, if you’re not into that sort of thing.

Read back through the artist statements. They all have various ways to do this work.

--Being an artist is pretty scary, especially when the work we’re doing is so personal and expresses inner torment. It’s easy to imagine that we’re all very confident in ourselves and filled with pride for our work. But the more artists I meet, the more I find that we are all kind of terrified to be doing this.

But the work is good for us. And it’s good for you, if you’re ears and eyes are open.

A lot of us artists actually have to make art just to process things like this. I’ve done some of my best work in my mind through my art. I couldn’t say if the art was actually good, but my mental progress was really what mattered when it was all said and done.

I have several pieces that, even though time and therapy have healed the difficulty I went through, I can remember the work I did, because I can still see 102

it. And that part is not painful. Instead, it’s a useful Key that keeps the door locked Before Hungry Ghosts and bad habits that I will now always know I am susceptible to.

--Anyway, let us learn from one another.

How do our artists say to do this work?

“Exploration of self” - Tom Hays By saying yes to the forceful but hopeful desires to create and grow that call to you, as Sungchan Kim puts it so aptly, with “an unknown force as much as the pain.”

Use that work to follow Michael Wadkins’ example of organizing the negative space and dividing your thoughts so as not to be swallowed by “The Void.”

“Investigate the tension between narrative incompleteness and unfamiliar settings [with] the intensity of introspection.” - Marcella Hackbardt “Traverse negative spaces” - Michelle SchwengelRegala to “Undo years of choices and moves made in anxiety or insecurity.” - April Behnke

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imagination / fascination / murmuration

I like to imagine Schwengel-Regala’s piece, Diving through Antarctic Ice: Descend/Ascend, as the productive holes that we drill into our own minds.

These are very different from the aggressive treeforms. These holes, we open up on purpose, one at a time, to carefully find the weeds. The weeds that we will either pull or transform into cherished flowers.

--A few years ago, I saw some birds in the street over on Skinker, here in St. Louis. I was at a stop light.

They were walking around in front of my car. They were black and small and mostly uninteresting. But as they walked, I noticed the stunning blues and purples shining from their backs like precious jewels.

Under these colors, there were surprisingly intricate brown designs that I may never have seen in my life if I wasn’t being told to stop here for just a moment.

A few days later, I found the most beautiful and mysterious sound coming from outside my bedroom window. I peered out to see these same strange birds.

I tried for weeks to figure out what they were. When I finally did, I expressed my excitement to a friend, who informed me that starlings are in fact an invasive species.

I felt like it was automatically my responsibility to hate these birds, but it really just comes back to negative and positive space, doesn’t it? It always does.

--Have you ever seen a starling murmuration before?

A murmuration is a giant black cloud of birds flying in strange shapes all over the sky.

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It is potentially the most inspiring thing that I have ever seen in my life. I have to pull over, if I’m driving.

Sometimes it makes me cry.

But it looks like rumination. It is dark. And it is everywhere. And it won’t stop moving.

But it moves me.

It moves me to depths of joy that not very many other things can.

I believe that when the world moves, it moves us too.

I can’t physically move when I’m in my deepest ruminations. Even when I know if I just go apologize, everything will be better. But I am frozen.

--There are some rare times when the dark spaces of my mind open up but they are completely light. None of the bad memories are around. It’s like they’re on vacation and they’ve rented out their home as an Airbnb to all of the joy that I receive from seeing a murmuration of starlings.

And now joy, imagination and fascination are murmurating in my mind. They have completely replaced the rumination and they fill every single corner.

When this happens, all I can do is move. And make.

And sing. And love. And I think my murmuration causes other people to move too.

--So let us learn from one another.

Let us learn how to change our rumination into murmuration.

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Blessed are the ones with rumination pouring in and out of their spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the treeform-pored in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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CHAPTER FIVE

NOBLE AND

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ABUNDANT FRUITS

There would be no art and there would be no science if human beings had no desire to create. And if we had everything we ever need or wanted, we would have no reason for creating anything. So, at the root of all art and all science there exists a gap – a gap between what the world is like and what the human creator wishes and hopes for it to be like. Our unique way of bridging the gap in each of our lives seems to me to be the essence of the reason for human creativity.

Mr. Rogers

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STATEMENT

52. untitled 12

53. untitled

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The submitted watercolor paintings were made during a sabbatical that I spent traveling and painting.

Sometimes I felt like the oldest living backpacker, but I managed to carry the paper, brushes, paints and my possessions from town to town in remote places. These paintings represent the moments of being still while suppressing the urge to move on.

The white of the paper represents the the space in-between and the visual rest that was also reflective of a process of letting

Melissa Gwyn

54. untitled 1

myself rest between treks or wondering where to go with my life. The uninflected or negative space represents light and the unknown: the optimistic “what if” of possibility that, when conditions are right, can counter its overbearing complement “probably not…”

55. untitled 6

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56. untitled 10

57. untitled

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Melissa Gwyn

59. untitled

Often the creative urge, once we express it, brings real relief in whatever form it takes. We have an inner sense that we can make what is into what we feel could and should be.

Mr. Rogers

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60. untitled

61. untitled

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Melissa Gwyn

62. untitled

The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success.

They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.

Mr. Rogers

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63. Are We Almost Home?

STATEMENT It’s really easy to fall into the trap of believing that what we do is more important than what we are. Of course, it’s the opposite that’s true: What we are ultimately determines what we do!

Mr. Rogers

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Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that becoming a mother would make me a more inspired, more committed, more focused artist. But it has. My time with my three littles is the positive space of my day and I found early on that that positive space is directly influenced

Aly Ytterberg

64. Take a Left at the Silos

65. Remember that Barn?

by how I choose to fill my negative space (naptimes, bedtimes, early mornings, kiddos with dad time). My time in my studio is precious and sometimes short, but utterly necessary for me to be the best momma for my kiddos. Art brings me joy as it is the little piece of me that has remained true and steady as I have morphed into this new role of Mother. I see the artwork that I create as being directly influenced by my time with my kids. They impact my moods and color palettes and passions and visions. And making art in my short windows of downtime allows me to refuel and regather to be a better momma for my three boys. Mother and Artist. Positive and Negative.

The challenging, yet necessary balance of my life.

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Emily Mueller

66. Noble and Abundant Fruit

STATEMENT Within my colored pencil and graphite drawings, mark making, pattern creation, and blocking out colors are laborious acts that come together to create compositions and become the drawings’ subject matter. These repetitive tasks can be seen as tedious but are critical components of the medium. Without these small, seemingly negative aspects of drawing, my work would not exist. My drawings focus on resting within these repetitive marks and use them as a spiritual and meditative practice.

Julian of Norwich, a 15th century Catholic Mystic wrote, “Be a gardener. Dig a ditch. Toil and sweat. And turn the earth upside down. And seek the deepness.

And water plants in time. Continue this labor. And make the sweet floods to run, and noble and abundant fruits to spring…” I view my drawing practice in a similar manner. I seek comfort that comes from the labor of making lines on paper and hope this yields fruit. Ultimately, these works are created out of a love for drawing, even its negative parts.

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Taylor Yocom STATEMENT

67. March 7, 2021

While completing my longest film project to date, I challenged myself to make a collage each time I went to the studio.

I’d grab a random tearsheet from my stacks of midcentury Better Homes & Gardens and challenge myself to make a collage using only the elements on the page.

I was drawn to erasing elements, only leaving some of the essential information behind. I’d grab the same page the next week and work with the remnants.

The negative space in these pieces is the gaps of trying to piece it all together while working with what I had.

68. March 13, 2021

Imagining something may be the first step in making it happen, but it takes real time and real efforts of real people to learn things, make things, turn thoughts into deeds or visions into inventions.

Mr. Rogers 69. April 17, 2021 119

70. REI Winter Catalog

71. Tea Collection Spring 2021 1

72. Boden Spring 2021 4 120

Ben DiNino STATEMENT I enjoy taking found objects and images, stripping them down or adding to them, and recontextualizing them to breathe new life into what would normally be mundane and forgotten ephemera. Recently I’ve focused on working in collage creating both abstract and representational work from hand-cut paper. I layer, eclipse, and obfuscate images in hopes of creating visually interesting situations. I desire to push the medium of collage into new territory with only paper and archival adhesives. In much of my work I use negative space as a jumping off point.

One series entitled “Non Commercial Space” uses mail order catalogs as source material.

I remove the objects for sale and create abstract compositions from the background spaces. In another series called “Formative Absence” I remove a still life object and replace its empty space with new imagery to play with perspective. In my book sculptures I remove pieces of the text leaving only selected illustrations, excavating a collage of imagery.

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74. Comp Posed 3

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Ben DiNino

76. Science Experiments With Air

77. Hammond Family Reference World Atlas

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78. Transfigure #17 Yellow

79. Transfigure #14 Red

Above artwork is on display in the lobby.

81. Transfigure #12 Oxide

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82. Transfigure #11 Black

80. Transfigure #19 Oxide

Greg Mueller STATEMENT A keen sensitivity drives my personal procurement of a palette consisting of neglected and decommissioned cast-aways. These unacceptables are destined to the The Island of Misfit Toys...i.e. the negative. My studio practice is an instinctive, child-like curiosity of factory meets laboratory; building and breathing new life into the rescued reclaim and cultivating the spirit of the material. The resulting compositions are a by-product of authentic medium choices and poetic manual competencies of casting and fabrication. Instinctive decisions are made slowly with some uncertainty to the outcome.

Trusting the physical act of working allows failures and solutions to unfold; work begets work.

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THOUGHTS FROM APRIL I don’t have much to add here. All of these artists are clearly doing an excellent job valuing and honoring their creative spaces. Their courage and dedication are true inspirations, not to mention the beauty they are offering through their gifts.

Read their words. View their work. Let them speak to you. Listen to your inner response.

Are there some creative desires calling to you from behind the closed door of that room in your heart where you keep your secret wishes? You know, it’s that room with the door that is always closed. It’s closed to keep you on task with the higher priorities.

But it hurts too much to hear the desires crying out without any hope of an answer. So you keep the door closed, and perhaps even pile things in front of it to stifle the cries. Perhaps you even subconsciously wish that one day you won’t hear them anymore.

As a creative, myself, I can say that it sometimes feels negative to answer those desires with a “yes”. It feels potentially selfish. It feels like perhaps a waste of time. It feels scary. I am convinced that it doesn’t matter just how successful, experienced or acclaimed an artist is, it’s always scary to make something new.

But the true negativity comes from the pain of resisting those calls. That sort of a lifestyle can cause pretty deep levels of inner bitterness that can reach points of overflow, spilling out onto innocent people, most likely loved-ones.

What could happen if you opened that door and gave those desires a smile, a hug, maybe even an apology and then held their hands as you walked them to the top of your priorities? They could make friends with the other priorities up there, the ones that often seem pretty undesirable. The ones that cause us to say things like, “I had a pretty bad day today” and “I feel like I can never get anything done.”

Now that the first set of priorities have new friends, they are a lot nicer. They offer new levels of fulfillment. You may even be able to accomplish them 126

faster or better. Which seems ironic, now, since one initial fear was wasted time.

It’s easy to bury our greatest creative desires. I’ve gone into creative hibernation multiple times in my life, and having worked at Intersect for four years now, I’ve seen it happen to a lot of professional artists as well. It seems to be a pretty normal part of being a creative.

If this speaks to you, keep it safe somewhere and reread it occasionally. It might bring you out of creative hibernation. And I want to see what you will do. Maybe your work will bring me out of a future creative hibernation.

When we create, it might not even matter what we do. Simply the action of creating, perhaps especially in progress, can give someone else just enough of a spark for their inner voice to say “yes” to their creative desires.

Would you like to join me in this miraculous domino effect? I think it’s been going for a long time. #dovetail

As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has - or ever will have - something inside us that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.

Mr. Rogers

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CHAPTER SIX

UNSEEN

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lazy river of wonder

I believe that human beings are God's vessels of mystery and beauty.

Mr. Rogers

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83. That which something else passes through (Vatican Windows)

STATEMENT The imagery in this drawing series is predicated on one overarching parameter: “That which something else passes through”. This includes windows, rain gutters, the lock to my late grandfather’s woodshop, architectural structures, weavings, and fence post holes. My sources are a combination of the prosaic, but personally meaningful, and the historically significant, such as ancient loom weights in a museum.

Context is the only real difference. That which is passed through is not only meant literally – we complete this action through the immaterial as well: time, light, relationships, et. al. In these drawings, the black forms are those three dimensional spaces and objects flattened down. These seemingly endless negative spaces transform into ambiguous portals.

Floating between particular objects and ambiguously referential forms, I embrace the nondescript. I find mystery to be one of the most compelling emotions, and I try to arrive at a sense instead of a certainty in my work.

We speak with more than our mouths. We listen with more than our ears.

Mr. Rogers 130

Elaine Buss

84. That which something else passes through (Water Drain)

85. That which something else passes through (Aquaducts) 131

86. Witness II 88. Witness I

STATEMENT 90 years ago my great uncle picked up his 16mm movie camera and filmed a family gathering. For years the projected figures recalled memories for the viewers. But now, with no information on who what why, they are just shadows. No sound. No color.

I only recognize my grandmother’s smile. At one point the filmmaker was distracted by the children running circles. Decades later the 1:08 minutes of footage is my distraction too. Frame by frame I watch this moment that happened way before I was born, 132

87. Witness III 89. Witness IV

Peg Shaw

drawn to the play that is just silent moving light, a slice of time never watched so closely as I have. For one who pays great attention, the reward is between the frames, the negative space, when one image goes and the other is out of reach. The afternoon is broken down into frames per second. Like zooming into a photograph until it breaks down into pixels: moments become flickers. Quick dissolves to slow, gestures become deliberate, light turns to shadow. A witness to time in full circle.

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Leo Compliment STATEMENT The title “Inner and outer light “ refers to light on the surface showing extremely dark shapes in shadow and in the inside of the dark circles you see them as negative openings and another world viewed in lower light.

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91. Inner and outer light

134

90.

Cora’s Circles (Inner Light)

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Compliment STATEMENT The title “Inner and outer light “ refers to light on the surface showing extremely dark shapes in shadow and in the inside of the dark circles you see them as negative openings and another world viewed in lower light.

135

Leo ment Compliment 91. Inner and outer light

STATEMENT

uter light e surface ark shapes inside of ee them as d another r light.

The title “Inner and outer light “ refers to light on the surface showing extremely dark shapes in shadow and in the inside of the dark circles you see them as negative openings and another world viewed in lower light.

135

135

91. Inner and outer light

David Engbritson

92. Black Vessel #2

94. Black Vessel #4

93. Black Vessel #6

95. Black Vessel #5

STATEMENT Pieces from the Black Vessel series explores how light and shadow define the surface of each form. As one moves around each vessel, shadow and light glide with the observer to reveal the underlying surface.

The muted surface places an emphasis on form, on light and shadow, and on the presence within each vessel. It is important that these pieces are vessels; that they contain a space within that is unseen. For within a sanctuary is created, a place of solitude, a place where the indwelling spirit resides. Without that opening, there is no back and forth.

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Kai Brisk

96. Altered Flame Vase

STATEMENT The word negative has impacted me from the time I was 12 years old. I was diagnosed with depression when I was in the 7th grade, and was prescribed antidepressants, it has been 9 years now, and it still hasn’t got to the point where negativity hasn’t come into my day since. Depression has changed my life a lot, and it helped me get into the arts. After a rough 3 months in the 10th grade, I was introduced to ceramics via a required art class my highschool put me in. The pottery wheel from the instant I touched it, made me forget the negativity in my life, It has made me feel the most normal I have ever felt in my life. Since that class my life has revolved around ceramics and I can thank depression for that. I like to incorporate the ups and downs of negativity into my work. Weather it be the dark spots of glaze contrasted with the light spots on the piece, or ridges symbolizing the ups and downs of my life, It all comes back to my depression and negatives in my life.

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97. My Beloved is Gone Down into His Garden

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Kelly Schumacher STATEMENT When I think of the word negative, I think of a photograph. The negative is colored with blues and blacks, the darkest areas in the negative are the lightest areas of the photographic print. So it is also this way with our Lord - the empty tomb is the darkest place in the painting, but it is the lightest in terms of meaning. The empty tomb is the light, our light into eternity. Christ’s death, resurrection, and promise of the forgiveness of sins are the lightest areas of the painting. My painting of Mary at the tomb is our perspective in this life: we grieve and face death, but our Lord has risen from the dead and he has already tasted death for us.

Christ’s resurrection prefigures our own resurrection, that is our daily hope.

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THOUGHTS FROM APRIL Elaine and Peg seem to have invisible aspects of life under a microscope which resides in their minds.

Where other viewers may choose to hurriedly move on with their days, these philosophical artists choose to sit quietly and meditate on the movement of the unseen.

How do they hope to see these things under that microscope? I don’t believe Elaine does. She seems to just be enjoying the experience of looking. She’s just along for the ride down her ambiguous portals of time and mystery.

That sounds like a great ride to me. One where we know that we aren’t the ones making the time move, but we also aren’t afraid to move with it. If we don’t trust in some things that we don’t know and we rely fully on our complete “knowledge of everything”, I’m pretty confident that we will destroy ourselves.

Trust fall into mystery. Not to sound cheesy, but the water’s great.

Peg also seems driven by mystery, while enjoying the physical observation of the passage of alreadypassed-time. Like some sort of “time excavator”. In her curiosity for the unseen past, she finds a gift in the slowness of the passage of her present time. And she has shared that gift with us. What a lovely gift. Thank you, Peg. And thank you, Elaine, for sharing your gift of trust and joy in mystery.

--On the topic of mystery, how much do you think about outer space?

I don’t think about it very often. But I do ask a lot of questions about God. I always have. For most of my life, I’ve read and heard the Bible on a semi-regular basis, and I believe that God made the earth and that He made it for us because He loves us.

One of the questions that I have, I’ve been asking since I can remember. I mean I had to be three years old or so.

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If God created the world, and there was nothing before it, that means He also created evil. Right? So, why did God create evil?

I’ve never received an answer and I don’t think that I will while I’m here, but I’m not really bothered by it. I suppose that’s the nice cool water of mysterytrusting that I’m swimming in.

I did, however, finally receive perhaps a hint of an answer from my husband, Benjamin Parviz.

He doesn’t call himself a philosopher, but I do. I suppose he’s technically a theologian. He’s currently working towards a doctorate in bio-ethics at St. Louis University. He thinks a lot and asks a lot of questions. But his questions almost always seem to need an answer. My questions pass through more of a Peg and Elaine sort of brain-microscope. I don’t always need an answer, I’m just here for the glorious, and hopefully intentionally-slow, curiosity ride.

Perhaps what God created had an inverted side.

Like a vase has an inside. Or a planet has an inside. If these two sides blend, they no longer hold the same function. They are altered.

Observe David Engbritson’s mystifying vessels (page 136) that can’t help but visually recall the images of Elaine Buss’ ambiguous black portals (page 130131).

Now, imagine the vases partially cracked down the middle, exposing the insides. They would no longer function as vases. Do you think they would still be wonderful and beautiful? I do, because I have faith in David’s elegant craftsmanship. I think he’d be able to salvage the pieces for good. But I still wouldn’t want it to happen on purpose. I admire the vases so much as they are right now, it would break my heart a little bit if they were altered in some way.

Look now at Kai Brisk’s absolutely stunning, Altered Flame Vase (page 137). His piece helps us imagine a little bit, perhaps, how David’s black vessels could be morphed to expose the inside, while still retaining beauty.

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Kai’s piece is an altered vase. Altered means changed. This means it does not function as a vase anymore. I don’t know if he planned it that way from the start. But, just like David, I have a great deal of faith in his excellent craftsmanship. If he was creating a vase, and the sides somehow began to split, I imagine he could transform the piece into something elegant, like this Altered Flame Vase.

Turn now to Leo Compliment’s illuminating paintings of outer space (page 134-135).

Imagine the planets altered to expose their insides.

Who knows what’s in there. Certainly some people do, but I sure don’t. I know that the planet that’s slowly moving under me is filled with fire. So if it’s insides were exposed, I suppose the whole thing would just set on fire, transforming it into an altered flame... world. So it would be a sun? The sun is good.

We need it. It’s fine where it is. But if it got too close to us, we would all catch on fire. So, if our planet, somehow turned halfway inside out and its inversion met us where we are now, it would undoubtedly be altered, and would no longer serve its original purpose.

I wonder if this is what happened to the unseen part of our world. I’m talking about the part where time lives. The part where subconscious thought lives.

The part where the invisible seeds that grow into music and art are born. The part where that little angel and little demon live when they aren’t sitting on your shoulders. The part where murmurations and ruminations live.

I wonder if that unseen part of our world originally had two parts, an inside and an outside. But it was altered somehow. Sliced down the middle perhaps, bringing the inside (where the ruminations live) to the outside (where the murmurations live).

Then God, being an artist, blended it into a place that still functions for beauty, even if it has maybe lost its original function. But He made a promise that it would function again.

--I don’t ask why God created evil anymore. I don’t believe that He did. Now I just wonder how the 142

outside of the unseen part of our world became blended with the inside, to the point of losing its original function.

I’m searching for the moment that evil passed through something to blend with our reality.

Why am I searching for that? No reason really. I guess I’m just curious. It’s a nonchalant and casual kind of search. More like a lazy river float, where I may end at the right place, or I may fall asleep and miss the destination completely.

I’m just along for the ride down this ambiguous portal of time and mystery.

As I said before, if we don’t trust in some things that we don’t know and we rely fully on our complete “knowledge of everything”, I’m pretty confident that we will destroy ourselves. Maybe knowing that is actually a hint at the answer to this new question I’m asking.

--Let’s return to David’s vessels (page 136) and step away from this metaphor for a moment. Take a mental palate cleanser, if you will. Now let’s listen to his beautiful description about sanctuary and solitude.

There is an unseen cycle that we all need to follow in order to regularly give and receive the good gifts of life. It touches almost every aspect of living. We’ve heard it whispered, subtly, in previous chapters.

We talk about it a lot in our exhibitions, programs and philosophies here at Intersect.

Humans perform this cycle on such a regular basis, it can’t even be seen as a ritual. It is just natural that we wake up and exist for the day and then go to sleep for the night. Our bodies physically need that cycle in order to survive.

It sounds like Kai has found ceramics to be a beautiful sanctuary for himself. I have been finding some for myself as well. Gifts like music, drawing and gardening. Things that seem like work, but are actually rest.

Are there places that cycle could be implemented into your life?

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--Now let us return to the idea of the inside and outside of the unseen part of our world being blended together.

Let’s take a look at Kelly Schumacher’s piece (page 138). Would you like to look through my brain microscope with me?

Imagine the tomb, in Kelly’s painting, as if it is one of Elaine’s dark ambiguous portals for something to pass through. Now imagine the unseen, altered part of our world returning to it’s unaltered form by way of that mysterious portal.

One day, perhaps we’ll be able to play the moment back in slow motion, catching every detail, the way Peg Shaw does, playing back her own history.

What a wonderful world this is.

96 92

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91

97

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CHAPTER SEVEN

RESPITE

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& ever present hope

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98. She Pretends. Making Negative Space Into Positive

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DaNice D Marshall

STATEMENT My art is always intentional in the connectedness of people, the subtle complexities of life that suggest negative spaces are a gift, one that allows us to assess where we are, where we’ve been and where we’re headed; an opportunity to self-correct and make better decisions. In 2016, my organs began to shut down from being strangled by the very arteries meant to supply them with life, the flow of my blood.

That September I was hospitalized for twentyeight days with a rare, incurable disease. Doctors prepared us for my imminent death. But I didn’t die; instead my life changed. It changed in a way that was deathlike, as the change was permanent, significant and absolute. I was a writer who could no longer write. I pivoted and become an artist, who painted her stories. She Pretends. Making Negative Space Into Positive is me as a little girl, always hopeful and dreaming. I grew up and became a Fedex truck driver.

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99. Pacific Northwest Evening Sky (large)

100. Pacific Northwest Evening Sky

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Michelle Graf Negative space is often what remains once a line, mark, or shape is made. It does not always capture the viewer’s attention. For these paintings, the yellow color of the negative space draws the viewer’s attention.

The yellow stands out due to the nature of the color and the surrounding clouds that “point” to the open area. While the clouds are layered with shapes and different values, the negative space by contrast is without recognizable layers and it is even in application. The simplicity of the yellow, open space gives the eye a place to rest. In these paintings, the negative space is a respite from the action and movement surrounding it in the clouds. The light, yellow color also serves to inspire a feeling of hope and provides a contrast to the somewhat threatening clouds that surround it. In this way, the negative space actually emits many positive associations of respite, expectation, and warmth. It pushes back on that which threatens to overcome us.

STATEMENT

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101. Between the lines

102. Quarantine

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Matt Vars STATEMENT Matt is a philosophical young man. His life and work are heavily influenced by the work of Fred Rogers. Matt’s life’s work is to share the beauty of the ordinary. He seeks to live a life of love and kindness.

Artistically he is inspired by the abstract expressionists. He seeks to express raw emotions devoid of the associations that come with representational work.

Matt is an artist living and working in a demographic that has been hard hit by the pandemic. As the illness swept through his community he turned to his art as a way of communicating his experiences. He uses Negative space to communicate isolation, separation, inner peace and possibilities.

103. Escaping the wave

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THOUGHTS FROM APRIL DaNice shares an inspiring story of hope and life renewed. A story of bravely choosing to pivot toward new possibilities. Her experience brought her to a place where we can now, with extreme gratitude, witness the beauty of her fingerprints and breath a sigh of relief for the outcome of her hardship. And perhaps we can also breath a sigh of relief for our unknown futures.

Michelle Graf appropriately invites the theme of hope.

When the negative space hiding deep inside the unseen parts of our souls begins to turn inside out, allowing ruminating cognitive distortions and self deprivations to seep in where they don’t belong, it is time to intentionally summon hope.

I have also come close to dying. My experience is different from DaNice’s because we are both wonderful and unique. I would love to get to know her one day and perhaps exchange our stories.

What transformed my ten second flat line back into signs of a beating heart?

Hope.

I believe it was the hope of my parents.

--What is hope?

CHAPTER ONE It fills the empty and destroys addiction.

CHAPTER TWO It connects our cores by reaching out for hurting strangers with just our eyes.

CHAPTER THREE I’m pretty sure it lives on Rainbow Street where everyone eats catharsis together at the block parties.

CHAPTER FOUR It is the water that douses the fires of painful ruminations and if it had a physical form, it would probably look like a murmuration.

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CHAPTER FIVE It is the fuel driving our noble and abundant fruits.

CHAPTER SIX It is mysterious and unseen and it is on the move passing through... everything, if we let it.

CHAPTER SEVEN It is what leads us to respite.

Figure out where your hope comes from. Engrave it on an imaginary (or real, if you want) medical emergency bracelet and never take it off. You don’t know when you’ll need it, but you will. When that time comes, look to your medical bracelet and remember what “pushes back on that which threatens to overcome us”, as Michelle Graf so aptly states.

--We end with three exceptionally graceful works by Matt Vars.

I think Matt and I would probably be pretty good friends. My life and work are also heavily influenced by the work of Fred Rogers. Have you heard of him?

You can’t see it, but I’m laughing a little, or at least I was when I typed that.

I love Matt’s work. It is excellently balanced. He chooses all the colors that call to my heart. I feel calm when I look at these gifts. Thank you Matt, for sharing your gifts. I hope that your art practice continues to help you explore inner peace and possibilities. And hope.

I hope that you all have ever-present hope.

thank you for coming to

NEGATIVE 155

It's such a good feeling to know you’re alive.

It’s such a happy feeling, you’re growing inside.

...t

and t

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And when you wake up ready to say, I think I’ll make a snappy new day...

It’s such a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling you know...

Mr. Rogers

...that you’ve got friends, and a family too and they all care a lot for you and they have things they like to talk about.

So do you.

April

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ARTWORK INFORMATION Please contact Intersect Arts Center if you are interested in purchasing any of the artwork.

Contact information : page 184.

1. Tree-Alone, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2015

2. It will be a long winter, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2013

3. Four Umbrellas, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2015

4. Simple Beauty, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2015

5. Nature DNA, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2020

6. Music Staff, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2014

7. Geometric in the pond, Stone Peng : $420 original fine art photography, 22” x 28”, 2015

8. Untitled 079, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2020

9. Loss, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2020

10. Resolve, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2020

11. Agony, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2021

12. It is Never Too Late, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2021

13. Concentration, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2021

14. Disbelief, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2020

15. Remembering, Gary Rubin, Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2021 158

16. Longing, Gary Rubin : Not for sale Graphite, 8” x 5.5”, 2020

17. THINtrospective, Brian Mitchell : Not for sale Rope, television monitor, 32” x 45” x 10”, 2019

18. Dependents, Katie Ries : $350 Screenprint, 14” x 11”, 2022

19. Home to Kansas, Dontavius Woody : $165 Colored pencil, 22” x 21”, 2017

20. Hollow, Henry Moyerman : $2,000 LEGO Elements, 61” x 15” x 10”, 2021

21. Who We See, Jeff Williams : $1,700 Acrylic on Canvas, 42” x 46”, 2022

22. Perception, Ursula Minor : $1,500 3D Mixed Media, 20” x 8” x 8”, 2022

23. ‘Alal Family Tree / Corvus hawaiiensis, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $500 Paint & silverpoint on waterproof archival paper, 37” x 36”, 2017

24. Black and White World, Plate 1 , Russell Prather : $900 Acrylic on DuraLar, 18” x 24”, 2021

25. Black and White World, Plate 4 , Russell Prather : $900 Acrylic on DuraLar, 18” x 24”, 2021

26. Rainbow Street, Dontavius Woody : $150 Colored pencil, 22” x 21”, 2017

27. From the Minds of Babes, Delaney Rogers : $500 Oil and cellophane on wood panel, 20” x 20” x 2”, 2019

28. Mangled Beauty, Brian Mitchell : Not for sale Acrylic paint, metal sculpture, 54” x 42” x 11”, 2021

29. See Through Me (1), Kaitlin Wilfing : $300 Acrylic on Lace Fabric, 18” x 12”, 2022

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30. See Through Me (2), Kaitlin Wilfing : $300 Acrylic on Lace Fabric, 18” x 12”, 2022

31. See Through Me (3), Kaitlin Wilfing : $300 Acrylic on Lace Fabric, 18” x 12”, 2022

32. From Scaffold and Gestures, Sarah Bernhardt : $450 Charcoal on Paper, 30” x 60”, 2017

33. Greenwash, Tyler Brumfield : $300 Digital Photograph, 10” x 11”, 2022

34. Static, Tyler Brumfield : $300 Digital Photograph, 11.5” x 10”, 2022

35. Conflagration, Tyler Brumfield : $300 Digital Photograph, 10.5” x 12”, 2022

36. \”Still Through\”, Tom Hays : $500 Charcoal, 24” x 30” x 2.5”, 2018

37. Lava Lei, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $225 Knitted anodized aluminum and copper wires, 16” x 14” x 1.5”, 2021

38. Lava Bomb V, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $300 Knitted aluminum wire , 4.25” x 3.5” x 3”, 2019

39. Lava Bomb VI, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $300 Knitted aluminum wire, 6” x 4.5” x 4”, 2019

40. Treeform I, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $750 Knitted aluminum wire, 12” x 14” x 14”, 2019

41. Treeform II, Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $450 Knitted aluminum wire, 6” x 6” x 14”, 2019

42. 47 years behind the eyelids Sungchan Kim : Not for sale Pen on paper, 20” x 15”, 2020

43. Born from death, Sungchan Kim : Not for sale Pen on paper, 17” x 12”, 2019

44. Hollow Rooms, Marcella Hackbardt : $950 Archival Pigment Print, 24” x 36”, 2021

45. The Nursery, Marcella Hackbardt : $950 Archival Pigment Print, 24” x 36”, 2022

46. Breathing Room, Marcella Hackbardt : $950 Archival Pigment Print, 24” x 36”, 2021

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47. A Loft, Marcella Hackbardt : $950 Archival Pigment Print, 24” x 36”, 2021

48. Hawk In Flight, Michael Wadkins : $550 Maple, Copper, Sisal, 24” x 22” x 3.5”, 2021

49. Before Hungry Ghosts, April Behnke : $1,400 Gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil on paper 24” x 18”, 2022

50. Key, April Behnke : $1,000 Gouache & Colored Pencil on Board, 18” x 14”, 2021

51. Diving through Antarctic Ice: Descend/Ascend Michelle Schwengel-Regala : $950 Knitted anodized aluminum wire, 16” x 10” x 10”, 2019

52. untitled 12, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2010/2022

53. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2022

54. untitled 1, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2010

55. untitled 6, Melissa Gwyn : Not for sale Water color, 10” x 8”, 2010

56. untitled 10, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2010

57. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2022

58. untitled 4, Melissa Gwyn : $900 Water color, 10” x 8”, 2010

59. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : inquire with artist Water color, 16.5” x 15”, 2022

60. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : inquire with artist Water color, 16.5” x 15”, 2022

61. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : inquire with artist Water color, 19.25” x 15”, 2022

62. untitled, Melissa Gwyn : inquire with artist Water color, 16.5” x 15”, 2022

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63. Are We Almost Home?, Aly Ytterberg : $1,080 Acrylic Paint on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 24” x 30”, 2022

64. Take a Left at the Silos, Aly Ytterberg : $1,080 Acrylic Paint on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 24” x 30”, 2022

65. Remember that Barn?, Aly Ytterberg : $1,080 Acrylic Paint on Gallery Wrapped Canvas, 24” x 30”, 2022

66. Noble and Abundant Fruit, Emily Mueller : $500 Pencil on paper, 32” x 27”, 2022 67. March 7, 2021, Taylor Yocom : $100 Collage, 5”x7”, 2021

68. March 13, 2021, Taylor Yocom : $100 Collage, 5”x7”, 2021

69. April 17, 2021, Taylor Yocom : $100 Collage, 5”x7”, 2021

70. REI Winter Catalog, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper on card stock, 11” x 8.5”, 2020

71. Tea Collection Spring 2021 1, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper, 10” x 7.5”, 2021

72. Boden Spring 2021 4, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper, 10” x 6.5”, $200, 2021

73. Comp Posed 12, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper, 11” x 8.5”, 2021

74. Comp Posed 3, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper, 11” x 8.5”, 2021

75. Comp Posed 4, Ben DiNino : $250 Collaged paper, 11” x 8.5”, 2021

76. Science Experiments With Air, Ben DiNino : $300 Book, card stock , PVA glue, 10.5” x 7”, 2018

77. Hammond Family Reference World Atlas, Ben DiNino : $250 Excavated book, 9.5” x 6.5” x .75”, 2021

78. Transfigure #17 Yellow, Greg Mueller : $1,100 reclaimed metals, 30” x 16” x 2”, 2021

79. Transfigure #14 Red, Greg Mueller : $1,100 reclaimed metals, 30” x 16” x 2”, 2021

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80. Transfigure #19 Oxide, Greg Mueller : $1,100 reclaimed metals, 30” x 16” x 2”, 2021

81. Transfigure #12 Oxide, Greg Mueller, $590 reclaimed metals, 15” x 15” x 2”, 2021

82. Transfigure #11 Black, Greg Mueller : $590 Reclaimed metals, 15” x 15” x 2”, 2021

83. That which something else passes through (Aquaducts) Elaine Buss : $450 India Ink, Charcoal, Pencil, Watercolor, 22” x 16”, 2021

84. That which something else passes through (Water Drain) Elaine Buss : $450 India Ink, Charcoal, Pencil, Watercolor, 22” x 16”, 2021

85. That which something else passes through (Vatican Windows), Elaine Buss : $450 India Ink, Charcoal, Pencil, Watercolor, 16” x 22”, 2021

86. Witness II, Peg Shaw : $400 Archival Digital Print, 30” x 30”, 2015

87. Witness III, Peg Shaw : $400 Archival Digital Print, 30” x 30”, 2015

88. Witness I, Peg Shaw : $400 Archival Digital Print, 30” x 30”, 2015

89. Witness IV, Peg Shaw : $400 Archival Digital Print, 30” x 30”, 2012

90. Cora’s Circles (Inner Light), Leo Compliment : $1,200 Acrylic mixed media, 24” x 48”, 2000

91. Inner and outer light, Leo Compliment : $800 Acrylic mixed media, 19” x 29”, 2000

92. Black Vessel #2, David Engbritson : $600 Clay with black underglaze, 16.5” x 7” x 3”, 2021

93. Black Vessel #6, David Engbritson : $600 Clay with black underglaze, 14” x 7” x 7”, 2021

94. Black Vessel #4, David Engbritson : $600 Clay with black underglaze, 16” x 9” x 6”, 2021

95. Black Vessel #5, David Engbritson : $600 Clay with black underglaze, 14” x 6” x 6”, 2021

96. Altered Flame Vase, Kai Brisk : $150 Ceramic, 8” x 8” x 8”, 2021 163

97. My Beloved is Gone Down into His Garden, Kelly Schumacher : $24,000 Oil on canvas, 30” x 40”, 2016

98. She Pretends. Making Negative Space Into Positive, DaNice Marshall : $6,600 Acrylic on canvas, 20” x 24”, 2021

99. Pacific Northwest Evening Sky (large) Michelle Graf : $350 Gouache, 11” x 14”, 2022

100. Pacific Northwest Evening Sky, Michelle Graf : $275 Gouache, 8” x 10”, 2022

101. Between the lines, Matt Vars : $175 Acrylic on paper, 16” x 20”, 2020

102. Quarantine, Matt Vars : $175 Acrylic on paper, 16” x 20”, 2020

103. Escaping the wave, Matt Vars : $165 Acrylic on paper, 16” x 16”, 2020

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

BEHNKE, APRIL . PAGE 94 Chicago-based painter April Behnke received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011 and was awarded residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha and the Slak Foundation in the Netherlands. Behnke has exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Mexico City, Seoul, Brooklyn, Berlin, Chicago, London, and Basel.

Website: www.AprilBehnke.com Instagram: @AprilBehnke

BERNHARDT, SARAH . PAGE 68 Sarah Bernhardt is a St. Louis based artist, educator, curator, and administrator. She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and taught at University of Missouri St. Louis, and St. Louis University. Bernhardt is the founder and executive director at Intersect Arts Center, an arts space dedicated to increasing accessibility to the arts and nurturing opportunities for people to care for one another across diverse communities.

Website: www.SarahBernhardtArt.com

BRISK, KAI . PAGE 137 My name is Kai Brisk, I am a junior at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD. I am originally from Buffalo, MN and apprentice in the summers under potter Jon Schmidt.

Instagram: @KaiBriskPottery

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BRUMFIELD, TYLER . PAGE 70 Tyler completed his B.S. in Studio Art with an emphasis in sculpture and graphic design at Western Oregon University in 2015. He earned his M.F.A. in Fine Art from the University of Montana in 2018.

Tyler’s studio work explores visual and conceptual intersections between art history and everyday life and employs a wide range of media and approaches, from digital illustration to wood carving. He studies the art of the past and the objects/images we come in contact with everyday to make images and objects that reference both. Tyler is driven by an extreme curiosity and the joy of working with his hands to craft dynamic visual experiences for the viewer; experiences that provoke aesthetic feeling, inspire critical thought and invite opportunities for learning.

Instagram: @TtBrums

BUSS, ELAINE . PAGE 130 Elaine Buss is a multimedia artist whose primary focus is ceramic sculptures and installations. Her work explores ambiguity and the nondescript, specifically in relation to the sensory, ineffable, and intangible experiences of inhabiting a human body. She earned her MFA from Ohio State University in 2018 (Ceramics) and a BFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2010. She serves on the Foundation Faculty at Kansas City Art Institute. Elaine’s work has earned multiple honors and recognitions, including an Emerging Artist Award from Ceramics Monthly (2019) and Best in Show in the International MFA Exhibition, awarded by curators from University of Montana (2018). Elaine exhibits internationally and her work is held in collections such as Honos Art (Rome, Italy), Belger Collection (Kansas City, MO), Baggs Library (Columbus, OH), and C.R.E.T.A.Rome (Rome, Italy).

Elaine will complete a four-year term as a Career Resident at Belger Crane Yard Studio in summer 2022.

She lives in Kansas City, Kansas with her favorite human and two fluffy cats in their tudor cottage surrounded by native plant gardens.

Website: www.ElaineBuss.com Instagram: @ElaineBuss 167

COMPLIMENT, LEO . PAGE 134 My name is Leo J. Compliment, I’m 73 years old and live in Conifer Colorado. I have B.A. degree in both Theater and Fine Art and have been a professional artist for almost 50 years. I began my career in Theater as a set designer and actor but after a while I decided to pursue a career in fine art. For 30 years I did artwork for Interior Designers who furnished model homes. In 2008 I retired and now pursue my own personal artwork.

Website: www.LeoCompliment.com

DININO, BEN . PAGE 120 Ben DiNino graduated from Tyler School of Art in 1996 with a BFA in Sculpture and a minor in Art History. Over the next 2 decades he traveled the world working various jobs while not pursuing a career in art. During this time he sporadically made work in a variety of mediums all of which I gave away or traded with other artists. In 2018 Ben attended Kolaj Fest in New Orleans and was introduced to the international collage community. He was so encouraged and inspired that he returned home with a focus to produce more work and attempt to show it. In the last 4 years Ben has shown in over 50 exhibitions worldwide, has been featured in a number of print and online publications, and has won a public art grant with the city of Minneapolis. In 2019 he cofounded the Twin Cities Collage Collective which offered free monthly collage making session for the community until the Covid pandemic. Ben lives in Minneapolis with his partner and 2 children.

Website: www.BenDiNino.com Instagram: @BiblioExcavations

ENGBRITSON, DAVID . PAGE 136 David Engbritson received his Masters in Metalsmithing/Sculpture from San Diego State 168

University, where he has also taught 2D/3D design and drawing, in addition to serving on the California Arts Council. He has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions in California, New York, Texas, and Mexico, and his work can also be found in two private collections in California and New York. A review published in the Los Angeles Times describes his work as “somber”, “timeless”, and “transcendent”.

Instagram: @DavidEngbritson

GRAF, MICHELLE . PAGE 150 Michelle Graf creates gouache paintings from her home art studio in St. Louis, Missouri. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Truman State University and a Master of Education from Maryville University.

She spent seven years teaching high school and middle school art and adored her time as a public school teacher. While she works with gouache now, her BFA concentration was printmaking. She has always found prints that are not registered perfectly to be intriguing. The space between what was intended and the resulting misregistration is a space that she explores in her gouache paintings by layering marks and shapes. Like many people who create, she finds the process of creating to be rewarding and fulfilling.

Website: www.MichelleGraf.com

GWYN, MELISSA . PAGE 110 Melissa Gwyn is a painter who lives in San Francisco and teaches at UC Santa Cruz where she is an Associate Professor of Art. She received her MFA from Yale in 1989. She’s had solo exhibitions at Feigen Contemporary, Stux Gallery and White Columns, in New York as well as the Kohler Art Center and a variety of university galleries. She’s shown her paintings in numerous group shows in New York, San Francisco, Tokyo and Kyoto Japan, Saratoga, New York (The Tang Museum) Pulse Pavilion at Miami with Patricia Sweetow Gallery, Miami and elsewhere.

Her work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Arts 169

Magazine, Time Out New York, Village Voice, Art News, The New York Times, Chromogram Magazine, Chemistry World, Times Union Albany, Temporary Art Review, The Temple News Online in Philadelphia, NewPages.com, Black Mountain College Journal, on the cover and within the pages of Catamaran Literary Reader, Aeqai and other journals. She has performed her visual essay presentations or “fabrications” to audiences at the Wayne State University (ASLE conference,) the College Art Association (CAA), and Emory University and has been invited to give lectures on her work at the San Francisco Art Institute, University of Southern California, UC Davis, Carnegie Mellon, The Tang Museum at Skidmore College, The Palmer Museum at Penn State, Ohio State, Vassar College and other institutions.

Website: www.MelissaGwyn.com or art.ucsc.edu/faculty/Melissa-Gwyn

HACKBARDT, MARCELLA . PAGE 88 Marcella Hackbardt is a visual artist, curator, and professor of art and photography at Kenyon College.

Her photographic work explores aspects of knowledge, self-reflection, the environment, and symbolic states, and has been included in exhibitions at The Girl’s Club Collection in Fort Lauderdale, Station Independent Projects in New York, Cleveland’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and at The University of Notre Dame, among others. Her curatorial projects include two exhibitions of contemporary photography at the Ohio Art’s Council’s Riffe Gallery in Columbus, as well as numerous other photography exhibitions including Material Message: Photographs of Fabric at the Weston Gallery in Cincinnati in 2021. Hackbardt has presented numerous lectures on contemporary photography and photo history at galleries, universities, and conferences such as the National Society for Photographic Educators, and at the Wits Art Museum and the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. She received her M.F.A. in studio art/ photography from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque. An artist book project titled Various

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Unbaked Cookies was included in the exhibition Ed Ruscha Books & Co at Gagosian Gallery in New York and Paris, and at the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, Germany. She has received recognition and support for her work from OAC Individual Excellence Grants, the Midwest Society for Photographic Educators, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association.

Website: www.MarcellaHackbardt.com Instagram: @MarcellaHackbardt

HAYS, THOMAS . PAGE 80 Thomas Hays, originally from Washington, Missouri, is currently an instructor of art foundations and illustration at the University of West Georgia. He studied medical illustration at the Medical University of Georgia and sculpture at the University of West Georgia. Drawing inspiration from the natural world, historical landscape, and the human figure, he explores themes of self, place, and lineage with his art. He works in two- and three-dimensional media and exhibits his work across the United States.

Website: www.THaysArt.com Instagram: HaysT83

KIM, SUNGCHAN . PAGE 86 My name is SungChan Kim, born and living in Korea.

From an early age I loved to draw. So I entered the Department of Visual Design at Kyungsung University in Korea, but painting has not been a part of my life since my 4th year of college. Twenty years later, life, marriage, and work all seemed to be going well, but fate didn’t want me to stop there. They disappeared one by one, leaving nothing behind. This happened over and over and, oddly enough, each time I lost something I got closer to the painting. In the end, it became the only strength left for me.

Website: www.ArtLimited.net/chana

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MARSHALL, DANICE D . PAGE 148 DaNice D Marshall was born in Boston, MA. She’s a born writer, but in 2016 she became gravely ill and could no longer concentrate to write and began her painting career. Her work is always intentional in the connectedness of people, showing people doing ordinary activities, in moments of joy and sharing their dreams. DaNice lives with her husband Ben and their dog, Tigger. Her piece “She Pretends.

Making Negative Space Into Positive” tells DaNice’s story, about a little girl’s hopefulness.

Website: www.DaniceDMarshall.com Instagram/Twitter: @DaniceDMarshall

MINOR, URSULA . PAGE 53 Ursula Minor, 3D mixed media artist, is a lifelong Lawrence KS. resident. Using various forms, adding 2mm beads, jewelry, and found objects Ursula creates colorful one of a kind pieces. Her favorite form to work with is foam heads. She searches through old jewelry and found metal pieces until she finds the perfect eyes and mouth then she meticulously places 2 mm size beads on them to create her works of art.

Ursula had the opportunity to be a featured artist in the Spring 2014 Lawrence Magazine where she also created a custom beaded design for the cover.

Email: UrsaminorArt@gmail.com.

Instagram: @UrsaMinorArt

MITCHELL, BRIAN . PAGE 38 & 66 Brian Mitchell is a St Louis area artist who primarily uses reclaimed or scrap materials to build artwork addressing the social and political issues that concern him. Often, his work focuses on the double edged sword of technology that allows us to be

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constantly connected and at the same time demands constant attention. These are difficult trade-offs.

While it may bring some advantages, technology also brings some heavy tolls too.

Instagram: @SteelCraftStudio

MOYERMAN, HENRY . PAGE 50 Henry Moyerman, also known as “The Brick Sculptor”, is a visual artist based in St. Louis, Missouri. He uses LEGO bricks and elements to create original sculptures and photographs.

Henry studied contemporary art as part of his music education at Berklee College of Music. Inspired by his coursework and the museums he frequented in Boston, Henry found his artistic voice in contemporary art.

Website: www.TheBrickSculptor.com Instagram/Facebook: @TheBrickSculptor

MUELLER, EMILY . PAGE 118 Emily Mueller is a multimedia artist working primarily with photography and drawing. Her conceptual interests lie in the similarities between digital and physical mark making. Based in Saint Louis, she teaches photography and graphic design at Lindenwood University and drawing and painting to kids around the city. Mueller has exhibited work in both online and physical publications as well as in galleries around across North America. She received her MFA from Washington University in Saint Louis and BA from University of San Diego. In her free time, she can be found drawing on the couch with her cat Ferris.

Website : www.EmilyMuellerArt.com Instagram : @Ferris_Muellerz

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MUELLER, GREG . PAGE 124 Greg Mueller (BS Studio Art, St. John’s University, MN; Post-Bacc, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston; MFA, Montana State University School of Art, Bozeman, MT) Mueller Studio is a public art and sculpture studio on Lake Superior’s North Shore in Lutsen, Minnesota. “I transform and elevate the humble and the modest by rescuing reclaim and celebrating the spiritual within the material. Perhaps my studio practice fits somewhere between Zen Wabi Sabi and the animated “Island of Misfit Toys”.

Website : www.GregLMueller.com Instagram : @MuellerStudio

PENG, STONE . PAGE 34 Stone Peng is a Grand Rapids, Michigan-USA based national and international award-winning photographer.

Stone Peng’s work has been presented in numerous publications throughout USA. Stone Peng’s photos are in public and private collections throughout West Michigan, the United States and beyond.

My photos have won national and international awards, including 2nd place at the 2019 and 2021 Black and White Spider Awards, 3rd place at the 2020 International Color Awards, 1st prize at the Ray and Nancy Loeschner Art competition (part of the permanent collection at the Meijer Garden), and over 60 others. I have exhibited photos in 20 different states and have been included in numerous publications.

I also try to show the Chinese philosophy of life and the aesthetic principles “less is more” and “empty is full” in my images. Using primarily white tones in the background lends a simplicity and ethereal purity to a subject and gives you a calm, peaceful, infinitely deep, and immeasurable feeling. The empty space also gives the viewer a chance to focus on what it really takes to find balance in life and capture a little piece of our self.

Website : www.StonePeng.com Instagram : @Stone_Peng Facebook : www.facebook.com/stone.peng.9 174

PRATHER, RUSSELL . PAGE 63 Russell Prather was born in the Canadian Rockies, studied philosophy and animation at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, literature and writing at the University of Washington in Seattle.

His creative practice has been influenced particularly by his study of the illuminated books of eighteenthcentury artist and poet William Blake. Prather’s recent solo exhibitions include “And the Heart Is Pleased By One Thing After Another“ at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City, and “Russell Prather: Layers and Light,” at the Muskegon Museum of Art. He teaches literary and visual culture, modern art and film, at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

Website : www.RusssellPrather.com Instagram : @Russell.Prather

RIES, KATIE . PAGE 48 Katie Ries (b. 1981) is an artist and educator who makes drawings, prints, and objects connecting people with the plants of their landscapes. A graduate of the University of Tennessee – Knoxville (MFA) and Colorado College (BA), Ries is the founder of the Land Scouts, an open troop teaching foundations of land stewardship. She is an Associate Professor of Art at St. Norbert College. Her art can be found in private and public collections throughout the US. You can see more of her work on her website: whoshareswins.com.

Website: www.KatieRies.com Instagram: @KtRies

ROGERS, DELANEY . PAGE 65 Delaney Rogers is a visual artist currently based in Johnson City, TN. She is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at East Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Murray State University. Having studied both painting and jewelry/ metalsmithing in her undergraduate career, Rogers 175

employs a variety of media to create her work.

Her work combines low art and high art materials and imagery with inspiration from Pop Art and contemporary artwork. Rogers aims to create critical narratives on American cultural trends, as well as issues of mental health. She currently works mostly in painting and printmaking, incorporating mixed media techniques and collage.

Instagram: @hi_am_an_egg

RUBIN, GARY . PAGE 36 Gary Rubin was born in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Kirkland, WA. He works primarily in graphite and draws every day without fail! He obtained a BA in Drawing and Sculpture from University of Oregon and has shown in juried group exhibitions throughout the United States and online and recently had his first solo exhibition in Seattle.

Website: www.GaryRubinArt.com Instagram: @GaryRubinArt

SCHUMACHER, KELLY . PAGE 138 I am a BFA and MA graduate of Fontbonne University. I have an MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. I am the founder of Agnus Dei Liturgical Arts that provides religious art and prints to both Catholic and Lutheran Churches. I am a commissioned portrait artist of pets, homes, churches, and people. I am inspired by scripture and the beauty of God’s created world. If you are interested in my art please visit agnusdeiarts.com. I am also active on Instagram with portraits_byKelly. I also host a weekly youtube show Portraits by Kelly.

Website: www.AgnusDeiArts.com Instagram: @Portraits_ByKelly

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SCHWENGEL-REGALA, MICHELLE . PAGE 62, 82-85 & 95 Michelle Schwengel-Regala is from Madison, Wisconsin and grew up in a rural region of the state’s Driftless Area. Attuned to nature, she has degrees in Entomology and Wildlife Ecology from UW-Madison with emphases on taxonomy and conservation biology. Art was always a large part of her academic process, and while she initially used drawing as a study technique to learn anatomy, working as a science illustrator during and after college demonstrated ways science and art merge in Science Communication.

After graduate work on beetle taxonomy, she completed a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration from UC-Santa Cruz and was a scientific and medical illustrator for fifteen years. Relocating to the island of O’ahu brought her closer to many species of concern since college, especially endemic and endangered Hawaiian birds, plants, and ecosystems.

Her repertoire has expanded to include metalpoint drawing and sculptural forms, often incorporating textiles in installation format, repurposing leftover materials from scientific equipment, and offering participatory SciArt projects. Research expeditions across Polynesia and in Antarctica brought climate change into focus as her subject matter.

Website: www.Schwengala.com Instagram: @FloraFaunaFiber

SHAW, PEG . PAGE 132 Peg Shaw’s layered work addresses how we can connect across time and space, be so moved by an experience that isn’t ours, and truly care for people we will never know - floating on a membrane of what we have been given, hovering just below what we have to give.

Born in Oak Park, IL, Shaw received an MFA in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA in Painting from the University of

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Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Shaw has won numerous awards in photography and video, most recently the Illinois Arts Council Agency 2021 Artist Fellowship Award in Media. Shaw is a Professor in Photography/ Video at Parkland College in Champaign, IL. where she lives in the woods in a home they built by hand, and a shy drummer that only makes noise in her basement.

Website: www.PegShaw.com | Instagram: @PbShaw

VARS, MATT . PAGE 152 Matt is a philosophical young man. His life and work are heavily influenced by the work of Fred Rogers. Matt’s life’s work is to share the beauty of the ordinary. He seeks to live a life of love and kindness. Artistically he is inspired by the abstract expressionists. He seeks to express raw emotions devoid of the associations that come with representational work. Matt is an artist living and working in a demographic that has been hit hard by the pandemic. As the illness swept through his community he turned to his art as a way of communicating his experiences. He uses negative space to communicate isolation, separation, inner peace and possibilities.

Website: www.LookingUpwards.org

WADKINS, MICHAEL . PAGE 89 Michael Wadkins is a carpenter, classical guitarist, and self-taught sculptor. Most importantly though, he is a father. His pieces often reflect on the connections we have to each other, and finding beauty in both the light and dark sides of the human experience.

Instagram: @MichaelWadkins

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WILFING, KAITLIN . PAGE 67 Kaitlin Wilfing is an artist and curator, receiving her BFA with an emphasis in Painting and Minor in Psychology in 2018 from Webster University.

While getting her undergraduate degree Kaitlin studied abroad twice in Vienna, Austria in 2016 for Psychology and again in 2018 for an artist residency program. Shortly after graduating she became a volunteer, and later the Exhibitions Manager, at the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles, Missouri. Since the pandemic, Kaitlin has been furthering her fine arts practice in painting and photography, focusing on ideas of identity and historical impacts on art history.

Website: www.KtWilfing.wixsite.com/fineart Instagram: @RippleofAqua

WILLIAMS, JEFF C . PAGE 52 Graphic Designer at University of Illinois Springfield.

Graduate of Illinois State University, Bachelor of Science, Art/Graphic Design. I often juxtapose experiences from rural to urban America. Delving in and out of social and environmental commentary in a bold, colorful, and provocative yet not necessarily obvious manner... I also specialize in paintings bicycles l, and the lower carbon footprint they make on planet earth. I mostly make acrylic-based 2D paintings, sometimes incorporating mixed media, fibers, pastes, gels and papers and use previously damaged supplies as often as possible. I was also the lead singer in the band nil8, who used to tour North America. My biggest influence was my grandfather Anton Jirik, a graphic artist in Chicago who relocated to Springfield, and my mother Alvina Williams let me start having art lessons when I was 6 years of age with Maurie Formagoni at Springfield Art Association.

I have displayed art at the North American Hand Built Bike Show, NCAA Headquarters, The National Art Museum of Sport (closed), Philadelphia Bike

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Expo, Chicago Bike Winter Art Show, and Illinois Lt. Governor, Juliana Stratton owns one of my pieces (which was very exciting meeting her!).

Website: www.JeffVeloArt.com

WOODY, DONTAVIUS . PAGE 49 & 64 Woody’s work on fashion, Impressionist masters, architectural and interior design and Black pop culture icons has been exhibited widely within Baltimore and the Midatlantic region. He has been a member artist at Make Studio since 2013. Select exhibitions include: “Outside Forces 2021” at Art Enables (DC), “We Make Art. Celebrating Make Studio’s Black Artists” at OCA Mocha (Arbutus, MD), Maryland Art Place (MAP)’s gallery in the Hotel Indigo (Baltimore), and numerous shows in Make Studio’s Showroom Gallery (Baltimore). Woody’s pieces were selected for a purchase prize for two consecutive years (2021, 2022) in the Annual Drawing and Print competition at Gormley Gallery, Notre Dame of Maryland University. The online literary and art journal, “The Art of Everyone,” ran a feature on his architecture-inspired art.

Website: www.Make-Studio.org Instagram: @MakeStudioBmore Facebook: MakeStudioBaltimore

YOCOM, TAYLOR . PAGE 119 Taylor Yocom (b. 1992, Des Moines) holds a BFA in Photography from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Visual Art from Washington University in St. Louis’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Her lens-based and collage practice explores the social construction and performance of femininity. Most notably, her photography series “Guarded” has been covered in dozens of media outlets such as Huffpost and Buzzfeed. She has given lectures about the work and exhibited the series on college campuses across the United States. Recently, she has screened her short film “In Paris, I tango for Maria (take 2)” at 180

film festivals across North America including the Montreal Feminist Film Festival and Indie Memphis. www.tayloryo.com Website: www.TaylorYo.com Instagram: @TaylorYocom

YTTERBERG, ALY . PAGE 116 My name is Aly Ytterberg and I am the artist behind Ytterberg Studio. I am a hard-edge, geometric painter who lives in St. Louis with my husband, three year old son, and twin baby boys. Yes, that is three boys 3 and under! I am a full-time artist and full-time stay at home momma, so I guess the reality is that I am a nap-time and bed-time artist at this stage in life! My degree is in Sculpture (from WashU here in St. Louis) which I still dabble in every now and then, but my current body of work focuses on abstract, minimalist landscapes. I break down images of nature into their simpler forms and colors in order to help us to see the world around us in a new light.

Website: www.YtterbergStudio.com Facebook/Instagram: YtterbergStudio

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ABOUT THE CURATOR

PARVIZ, APRIL Hello there. My name is April Parviz. I don’t know who is reading this right now, but if I know you then, “hello!” and if I don’t then… “hey, nice to ‘meet’ you?”

Anyway, here are some things that I am : graphic designer, visual artist, musician, photographer, gardener and general gift-maker. I dabble in children’s fashion design. And I suppose now I should also say that I’m a curator. I am wife to Ben and mother to two little girls.

I live here in St. Louis. I’m the Media & Communications director at Intersect Arts Center (where I also have a studio) and Holy Cross Lutheran Church (which is also my church that I love so much).

It’s great. It’s basically my dream job, if I had had a dream job before getting this dream job.

I make friends with everyone. If we’ve met and we’re not friends yet, it’s because we haven’t spent enough time together. If you got weird vibes from me when we met (or if we do in the future) it’s most likely because I was either • intimidated by you • or perhaps experiencing swirling thoughts of anxiety, which you know happens to me from time to time.

Either way, we will be friends - if we spend enough time together. OH! I’m also an introvert. So I could have been just needing some space. But like I said… friends we shall be.

Website : www.AprilParviz.art Instagram @AprilParviz

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THANK YOU • To my friend and boss, Sarah Bernhardt, for saying yes when I pitched the idea for this exhibition and for trusting me to curate it.

• To all of the artists in this exhibition. This is my first time doing this and I am so humbled and honored to be able to show such incredible work. Every single one of you is amazing.

• To artist, Juliet Gutch and her collaborators for sharing their piece with us in our Dovetail Exhibition last fall that inspired this exhibition. Pictured below.

• To you, for listening.

• To Mr. Rogers for his kindness and understanding.

• To God for creating and creativity.

Dovetailing Stills Image credit : David Lindsay 183

573.575.6485 intersectstl@gmail.com www.intersectstl.org/negative 3636 Texas Ave, St. Louis, MO 63118

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NEGATIVE 2022

The older I get, the more convinced I am that the space between people who are trying their best to understand each other is hallowed ground.

Mr. Rogers 186