Join us for a opening reception for exhibitions by Henry Jackson-Spieker, Xenobia Bailey, Marita Dingus and Nasstaja Swift.
Saturday, August 3rd
7pm
Henry Jackson-Spieker: Installation
Henry Jackson- Spieker is a multidisciplinary artist, working and combining glass, bronze, steel and wood. His work explores tension, balance and symmetry through the use of contrasting materials. Early on Jackson-Spieker studied with a utilitarian approach gaining technical skills and understanding. Jackson-Spieker creates small sculptural series, site specific installations and large-scale public works. He currently has outdoor sculptures at the Seattle Center and at Cary Hill Sculpture Park in Salem, NY
Jackson-Spieker is from and currently based in Seattle, WA. He received his BFA from Western Washington University and completed The Seattle Office of Arts and Culture’s Artist Boot Camp. He is the recipient of Grants from the New Foundation, WA, The Vermont Studio Center, VT, and the Chihuly Garden and Glass Scholarship. Along with his own artistic practice Jackson-Spieker is a glass blowing and bronze casting instructor at Pratt Fine Arts Center and a studio manager for the artist Marela Zacarias.
Xenobia Bailey: Installation
Xenobia Bailey studied ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, it was there that her interest in craftsmanship and fabric took full bloom. She worked as a costume designer for the renowned African-American community theater, Black Arts West, until her acceptance into Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1974. She received her BA in industrial design while she learned to crochet under needle artist, Bernadette Sonona, after which she began to create and sell colorful crocheted hats inspired by distinctly African-American patterns, themes and hairstyles.
Bailey is best known for her eclectic crochet hats and large scale crochet mandalas, consisting of colorful concentric circles and repeating patterns. Her pieces are often connected to her ongoing project "Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk". Her designs draw influences from in Africa, China, and Native American and Eastern philosophies, with undertones of the 1970's funk aesthetic. Her hats have been featured in United Colors of Beneton Ads, on The Cosby Show, and in the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing (worn by Samuel L. Jackson as DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy).
Bailey has been artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Jersey City Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Her work is in the permanent collections at Harlem's Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Allentown Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, and the Museum of Arts and Design.
Marita Dingus: Installation
Dingus attended Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia (BFA, 1980) and San Jose State University (MFA, 1985). She has received a Visual Art Fellowship from Artist Trust (1994), a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (1999), and the Morrie and Joan Alhadeff PONCHO Artist of the Year Award (2005).
Dingus has had solo shows at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and The Stenersen Museum, both in Norway (2002, 2006), as well as the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA (2005 - 2006). Her work has been included in Nature/Culture organized by The Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh (2006 - 2008), Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (2006 - 2007) and 21st Century American Women Artists at the Residence of the United States Ambassador to NATO in Brussels, Belgium (2006 - 2010). Her work is in many regional museums and corporate collections. Dingus currently lives and works in the state of Washington and is represented by Traver Gallery in Seattle.
Nastassja Swift: Installation
Swift is a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes fiber art and performance to create wearable soft sculptures that speak to womanhood, blackness and the body. Circling within conversations of marginalization, use of the black body and otherness, my work incorporates the idea of masking as a metaphorical tool to explore what it means to cover one’s face with another, questioning who’s being hidden and who’s being amplified. The mask themselves often acting as vessels of stories told through movement and in form, depicting the faces of our ancestral mothers as a way of demanding space for her and retrieving her power in the form of visibility of homage. Through fusing these larger-than-life size felted wool portraits with dance, I am able to shape experiences through storytelling and articulate self-identities in relation to ancestry.
Bio:
Nastassja Swift is a Virginia artist holding a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University with a major in Painting & Printmaking and a minor in Craft & Material Studies. She is the owner and artist of D for Dolls, an online collection of handmade needle felted figures. Outside of being a doll maker, she works with paint, print, performance, and fiber within her studio practice. Nastassja’s work is currently on display in a group exhibition at The Colored Girls Museum and her solo exhibition at the University of Michigan. She has participated in several national and international residencies and exhibitions, including her solo exhibit in Doha, Qatar, and fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA.
Saturday, August 3rd
7pm
Henry Jackson-Spieker: Installation
Henry Jackson- Spieker is a multidisciplinary artist, working and combining glass, bronze, steel and wood. His work explores tension, balance and symmetry through the use of contrasting materials. Early on Jackson-Spieker studied with a utilitarian approach gaining technical skills and understanding. Jackson-Spieker creates small sculptural series, site specific installations and large-scale public works. He currently has outdoor sculptures at the Seattle Center and at Cary Hill Sculpture Park in Salem, NY
Jackson-Spieker is from and currently based in Seattle, WA. He received his BFA from Western Washington University and completed The Seattle Office of Arts and Culture’s Artist Boot Camp. He is the recipient of Grants from the New Foundation, WA, The Vermont Studio Center, VT, and the Chihuly Garden and Glass Scholarship. Along with his own artistic practice Jackson-Spieker is a glass blowing and bronze casting instructor at Pratt Fine Arts Center and a studio manager for the artist Marela Zacarias.
Xenobia Bailey: Installation
Xenobia Bailey studied ethnomusicology at the University of Washington, it was there that her interest in craftsmanship and fabric took full bloom. She worked as a costume designer for the renowned African-American community theater, Black Arts West, until her acceptance into Pratt Institute in Brooklyn in 1974. She received her BA in industrial design while she learned to crochet under needle artist, Bernadette Sonona, after which she began to create and sell colorful crocheted hats inspired by distinctly African-American patterns, themes and hairstyles.
Bailey is best known for her eclectic crochet hats and large scale crochet mandalas, consisting of colorful concentric circles and repeating patterns. Her pieces are often connected to her ongoing project "Paradise Under Reconstruction in the Aesthetic of Funk". Her designs draw influences from in Africa, China, and Native American and Eastern philosophies, with undertones of the 1970's funk aesthetic. Her hats have been featured in United Colors of Beneton Ads, on The Cosby Show, and in the Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing (worn by Samuel L. Jackson as DJ Mister Señor Love Daddy).
Bailey has been artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, and the Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation in New York City. Her work has been exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Jersey City Museum, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Her work is in the permanent collections at Harlem's Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Allentown Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, and the Museum of Arts and Design.
Marita Dingus: Installation
Dingus attended Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia (BFA, 1980) and San Jose State University (MFA, 1985). She has received a Visual Art Fellowship from Artist Trust (1994), a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (1999), and the Morrie and Joan Alhadeff PONCHO Artist of the Year Award (2005).
Dingus has had solo shows at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter and The Stenersen Museum, both in Norway (2002, 2006), as well as the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA (2005 - 2006). Her work has been included in Nature/Culture organized by The Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh (2006 - 2008), Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC (2006 - 2007) and 21st Century American Women Artists at the Residence of the United States Ambassador to NATO in Brussels, Belgium (2006 - 2010). Her work is in many regional museums and corporate collections. Dingus currently lives and works in the state of Washington and is represented by Traver Gallery in Seattle.
Nastassja Swift: Installation
Swift is a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes fiber art and performance to create wearable soft sculptures that speak to womanhood, blackness and the body. Circling within conversations of marginalization, use of the black body and otherness, my work incorporates the idea of masking as a metaphorical tool to explore what it means to cover one’s face with another, questioning who’s being hidden and who’s being amplified. The mask themselves often acting as vessels of stories told through movement and in form, depicting the faces of our ancestral mothers as a way of demanding space for her and retrieving her power in the form of visibility of homage. Through fusing these larger-than-life size felted wool portraits with dance, I am able to shape experiences through storytelling and articulate self-identities in relation to ancestry.
Bio:
Nastassja Swift is a Virginia artist holding a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Art from Virginia Commonwealth University with a major in Painting & Printmaking and a minor in Craft & Material Studies. She is the owner and artist of D for Dolls, an online collection of handmade needle felted figures. Outside of being a doll maker, she works with paint, print, performance, and fiber within her studio practice. Nastassja’s work is currently on display in a group exhibition at The Colored Girls Museum and her solo exhibition at the University of Michigan. She has participated in several national and international residencies and exhibitions, including her solo exhibit in Doha, Qatar, and fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center and MASS MoCA.