Bodies of Work: Art & Healing JANUARY 12–MARCH 23, 2024
THE MUSEUM 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho Tue–Fri, 10am–5pm Sat, 11am–4pm HAILEY CLASSROOM 314 Second Ave South, Hailey, Idaho Scheduled Class Times SUN VALLEY MUSEUM OF ART P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 208.726.9491 • svmoa.org
COVER: Heather Watkins, Soundings: Forming (detail), 2023, silk thread, linen, courtesy the artist and PDX Contemporary Art, Portland
BACK PANEL: Heather Watkins, Verso (June, no. 4, 2015) (detail), 2023, archival pigment prints on Hahnemuhle photo rag paper, courtesy the artist and PDX Contemporary Art, Portland
INTRODUCTION PANELS: Katherine Sherwood, Bather (after Ingres), 2022, acrylic and mixed media on found art history reproductions, courtesy the artist and Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles
INTERIOR CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Katherine Shaughnessy, Radiant Interlude, 2021, pencil, paint, gesso, plaster, sandpaper, bullet casings, ash on birch wood, courtesy the artist
Dylan Mortimer, The Highest Heights, 2023, cut paper, paint, and glitter on panel, courtesy the artist
he arts have long served as p owerful medicine for both mind and body. At the beginning of the 20th c entury, tuberculosis patients at sanatoria often participated in structured arts and crafts programs. Wounded soldiers recuperating during World War II were taught “lap crafts,” such as beading and embroidery, as part of their medical therapy. And many artists have made their
Estelle L. Roberge, Covid Book Series: Elizabeth, 2020, collage, mixed media, courtesy the artist Renée Stout, The Alchemy of Healing, 2019, acrylic and mixed media on handmade paper, courtesy the artist and MARC STRAUS, New York
practices an essential part of their personal healing. This exhibition investigates the ways that the arts help us process and recover from medical illness. How can art help us navigate the complex experience of what it is to be a medical patient facing serious illness in the 21st century? And how can art help us heal from social and emotional trauma?
Bodies of Work: Art & Healing JANUARY 12–MARCH 23, 2024
MUSEUM EXHIBITION The exhibition features artwork by contemporary artists working in a range of media who have used their practices as ways of exploring and processing their own experiences of medical illness and those of others. Artists Katherine Shaughnessy and Heather Watkins have each made new work for the exhibition reflecting on their personal medical experiences. Boise-based artist K atherine Shaughnessy’s Radiant Interlude includes twenty small works on wood panel made over twenty days of radiation treatment in 2021. Shaughnessy describes the work “as a way to meditate and work my way through the pain and uncertainty that is breast cancer.” In new paintings and sculptures commissioned by SVMoA, Shaughnessy reflects on the recent cancer diagnoses
of close friends and family members. Portland-based Heather Watkins’s Recordings are embroidered textile works the artist made while in waiting rooms of one kind or another and were inspired by her own experience of illness and treatment. Watkins writes, “This work records the labor of being (a) patient.” Made during the Covid-19 pandemic, her meditative Soundings works expand on the R ecordings. In newly commissioned photographic prints, Watkins takes images of the versos of the Recordings and enlarges them to the size of medical x-rays. Knots and stray threads, starts and stops, dot the surfaces of images resembling diagnostic scans and revealing what's hidden. Based in Los Angeles, Dylan Mortimer was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at the age of 3 months. As an adult, Mortimer received two lung transplants and has spent much of his career making paintings
and works on paper that depict lungs, bronchial branches, DNA, scars, and botanical imagery. He covers his works with glitter, “a stark contrast to a really ugly, nasty disease,” an act of hope in the face of illness. Estelle L. Roberge is a New Mexico artist who works with paint and collage. Regular walks and hikes in the landscapes near her home are central to her practice. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, she began making small collages daily as a way to process our collective trauma with the virus and her personal experience of lockdown and isolation. The exhibition includes a selection from Roberge’s The Book of Covid: Unbound. Bay Area painter Katherine Sherwood experienced a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 44 that left her paralyzed on her right side. She retrained herself to paint with her left hand, adopting a looser and more fluid style. An activist for disability rights, Sherwood incorporates images of her own fMRI brain scans and imagery in works that also investigate the history of art. Renée Stout, based in Washington, D.C., works in painting, sculpture, and assemblage to explore social and political ideas, spirituality, traditional rituals of the African Diaspora and their continuing practice in modern America. The exhibition includes work Stout has made about healing traditions with African roots, full of references to herbs, roots, and seeds used to treat all kinds of maladies for centuries.
EVENING EXHIBITION TOURS Thu, Jan 11, Feb 8, and Mar 7*, 5:30pm The Museum, Ketchum FREE, pre-registration recommended; space is limited Enjoy a tour of the exhibition with the Museum’s Curator. *Participating artist Estelle L. Roberge will speak about her work at the Mar 7 tour.
PUBLIC PROGRAMS WORKSHOP ART & HEALING WITH MAIAH WYNNE Mon, Dec 4, 6–8pm The Museum, Ketchum FREE, pre-registration required Can the practice of art help with healing? Join award-winning singer-songwriter Maiah Wynne for an evening of learning and practice at SVMoA. Maiah has used music and art to recover from her own trauma and is a trained teacher for First Aid Arts, a Seattlebased nonprofit that teaches people how to use the arts for mental and emotional health.
SINGER-SONGWRITER SALON CONCERT MAIAH WYNNE Thu, Dec 7, 7:30pm Argyros Performing Arts Center, Ketchum $25–$45 — café style seating and balcony seats SVMoA kicks off its 2023/2024 Singer-Songwriter Salon Concerts with Maiah Wynne — an award-winning singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Wynne captivates audiences worldwide with the alluring and enigmatic duality present in her music and through her powerful and universally resonant lyrics and hauntingly beautiful voice. She has been featured on NPR’s All Songs Considered, at Sundance, SXSW, and in-studio on KEXP in Seattle, and has opened for artists and bands including Lucinda Williams, Dave Matthews, Tanya Tucker, Indigo Girls & Brandi Carlile.
COMMUNITY PROGRAM AFTERNOON ART—KETCHUM & HAILEY (FOR FAMILIES WITH KIDS OF ALL AGES) Fri, Jan 12, Feb 2, Mar 1, 1:30–4:30pm The Museum, Ketchum Fri, Jan 12, Feb 9, Mar 8, 1:30–4:30pm Hailey Classroom, Hailey FREE, drop in anytime between 1:30-4:30pm Play, create, discover, and have fun! Afternoon Art is a free drop-in opportunity for community members of all ages to explore concepts from the Museum's current exhibition and create works of art. Families and friends are encouraged to communicate, reflect, and produce as artists together. Perfect for art lovers, curious minds, and anyone seeking inspiration. Projects will vary.
FILM ANGEL APPLICANT Thu, Jan 25, 4:30 and 7pm Magic Lantern Cinemas, Ketchum $10 member / $12 nonmember Paul Klee, a Swiss-German painter, fled Germany in 1933 when he and other modern artists were vilified by the rising Nazi Party. While Klee was isolated in Switzerland, a mysterious disease began wreaking havoc on his body and profoundly changing his artwork. Narrator/director Ken August Meyer explores Klee’s expressive last works after being diagnosed with the same life-threatening disease, systemic scleroderma. In Klee’s work, Ken finds powerful messages on coping with his own mortality. Using colorful and whimsical visuals, Angel Applicant demonstrates how creativity can inspire us to overcome personal suffering and make the most of life.
FILM SCREENING & ARTIST TALK PATIENT—A VIDEO AND CONVERSATION WITH ARTIST HOLLY HOLMQUIST Thu, Feb 1, 6pm Ochi Gallery, Ketchum (119 Lewis St) FREE, pre-registration recommended; space is limited Artist Holly Holmquist spent the last six years navigating the healthcare system when an acute illness turned into a chronic one, with no end in sight. PATIENT, an 11-minute video projection of images and text, is a moving and beautiful visual e xploration of that experience. Following the presentation, Holmquist will join SVMoA curator Courtney Gilbert for a c onversation about the work.
LECTURE DAVID GERE—ON THE POWER OF ARTS TO HEAL Mon, Feb 12, 6pm The Argyros, Ketchum $10 member / $15 nonmember David Gere, Ph.D., is the founding director of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center and is a professor in the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/ Dance, where he teaches courses in arts activism. His extensive writing and global curatorial projects address arts-based public health interventions and projects. Through the UCLA Art & Global Health Center, Gere and his students engage local and global communities.
ARTIST TALK HEATHER WATKINS & KATHERINE SHAUGHNESSY IN CONVERSATION WITH AUTHOR SARAH SENTILLES Sat, Mar 9, 4pm The Museum, Ketchum FREE, pre-registration recommended; space is limited Join artists Heather Watkins and Katherine Shaughnessy for a conversation with author Sarah Sentilles about their practices, processes, and the ways that making art has helped each navigate experiences of illness. Sarah Sentilles is a writer, teacher, critical theorist, scholar of religion and author of many books as well as the co-founder of the Alliance of Idaho.
EXHIBITION CELEBRATION BODIES OF WORK: ART & HEALING Sat, Mar 9, 5–6:30pm The Museum, Ketchum FREE