There is something sweet about the first time a piece leaves the studio for an exhibition. Go forth little artwork, make your momma proud! My first Rooftop Unit (RTU) has gone to Corpus Christi where it was accepted into the national exhibition. I am grateful to juror Ernesto Perez for choosing to include this work in the Art Center’s annual Dimensions exhibition. It will be on display from November 4th through the 26th.
Jury results are starting to come in for some of the competitive exhibitions to which I applied. The shows don’t all take place in the fall, but there is definitely a cluster of application deadlines this time of year.
I am please to share that two of my works, Rooftop Garniture: Fume Duo and Rooftop Garniture: Stitches, were accepted to Under Fire 4, the Enamel Guild North East International Juried Exhibition. This is an online exhibition, so geography is no excuse for not checking it out!
The show will be available for view on Friday October 22rd, 2022 via the enamelguildnortheast.org website. The Enamel Guild North East invites you to join them Sunday, October 23rd at 6 pm EDT for their panel discussion by the three jurors: Harlan Butt, Patti Bleicher, and Jessica Calderwood with Amy Roper Lyons moderating.
“The use of enamel in today’s art and jewelry world exemplifies a broad and diverse approach. From the beautiful and elegant use of color and traditional methods, to the pushing of boundaries of form, content and application, makers are creating innovative works that speak to the times we live in. In this panel, the three jurors for the exhibition will share their observations on contemporary enamels, while reflecting on the works submitted for review for Under Fire 4. The three recipients of the Jurors' Awards will be announced. Tune in via zoom, Sunday, October 23rd at 6 pm US EDT.”
Rooftop Garniture: Fume Due
Rooftop Garniture: Stitches
In 2012, the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts invited back everyone who had been a former Artist-in-Residence. I am proud to say I was among this cohort and it was an amazing week of creativity and conversations. There are very few artist residencies that come with metals studio equipment. It made me wonder if I could organize something similar.
I spoke with Nick DeFord at Arrowmont and he told me that whole studios were available to groups. After determining that it would take fourteen other people to make this affordable, I started to ask people to join me. If they said no, I asked them who they thought I should ask. I needed pleasant humans who would say yes. The first group in 2015 included the following people in addition to myself: Anya Kivarkis, Lauren Mcadams Selden, Stephanie Voegele, Jill Gower, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Motoko Furuhashi, Jennie Milner, Haley Bates, Mary Pearse, Cappy Counard, Natalie Macellaio, Becky McDonah, Phil Renato and Jennifer “Jeff” Ingalls. This became known as the Advance/Retreat. We spent a week together in the metals studio at Arrowmont. All the names were familiar, but I did not know everyone personally before the week commenced. It was a magical, productive, delightful week. We sang Karaoke. We all slept in the same house on campus and sat up late talking on the porch in rocking chairs. We talked about our work and lives. Afterward, we exhibited together a few times and used this network of new connections for projects.
In 2019 I started to plan for a second retreat to take place in 2020. Most of the original people were on board.
And then the pandemic hit.
How many times have you read that sentence it the past year?
This summer we were finally able to come together again. Four of the original Advance/Retreat members could not participate for various reasons so I once again reached out to my network for suggestions. The summer 2022 gathering was rebranded Advance/Retreat/Repeat and included the following individuals: Adam Hawk, Natalie Macellaio, Cappy Counard, Lauren Selden,. Jennie Milner, Jennifer “Jeff” Ingalls, Yevgeniya Kaganovich, Motoko Furuhashi, Haley Bates, Erica Meier, Ashley Buchanan, Mary Pearse and myself. For some, it was the largest gathering they had attended in years.
This time we wore masks in the studio, skipped the karaoke and continued the great talks on the porch. I hope people got what they needed from the week. I certainly did.
Maybe we will do another on in 2027 and call it Advance/Retreat/Retire?
Advance/Retreat/Repeat participants at Arrowmont 2022
I am grateful to co-curators Frankie Flood and Elizabeth Walton for including five of my pieces in the Form-ative exhibition at the Bascom Center for Visual Arts. All the metalwork included in the show was influenced by ideas of location, in keeping with the center’s annual theme of Place. Other participants are Thomas Campbell, Seth Gould, Rachel Kedinger, Natalie Macellaio, Erica A. Meier, Erica Moody and Dan Neville. The exhibition runs through July 16 and the reception will be held on Thursday June 16 at 5pm.
There is something so satisfying about a one-day project that lets you make a little something for yourself.
Workshop flier for bracelet tutorial at the Patterson Appleton Arts Center
There are many great competitive craft exhibitions one can count on each year, such as The Octagonal, Materials Hard and Soft, and CraftForms. But its always a pleasure to find a new one pop up; and even better when one has work accepted! I was very pleased to find the call for Craft Nouveau at the Blue Line Arts Gallery. Juror Ariel Zaccheo has a great reflective statement here. If you find yourself near Roseville, California, please check it out. Images of included work and an exhibition catalog are also available on their website.
Pratt Master Artist Workshop Flier
Come join me in Seattle to make meaningful metal miniatures!
Exhibition postcard. Object photography by Megan DeSoto.
I am very pleased to announce the opening of my solo show at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Mesa, Arizona. The space is lovely and the staff have been wonderful to work with. Stop by if you get the chance!
i am very grateful to Heidi Grew and the rest of the faculty at Chemeketa Community College for including my work in their art appreciation textbook, Art for Everyone. This is the just-released revised edition published by Oxford Press.
An article I wrote for Metalsmith magazine just came to my email inbox today and it looks great! Monel is not well known now, but it has been used in extraordinary ways and essentially created the market for stainless steel in the first half of the twentieth century. I was made aware of the alloy by Warren Holzman, who gave a presentation about its use in the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, at a SNAG conference. Later, when I was invited to speak at the 2019 Looking Forward Iron Symposium, I decided to explore the history of this material. I am grateful to Warren, John Rais, and Mike Rossi for their initial support of the research. I am also indebted to Archivist Gregory A. Jackson and Historic Buildings Project Manager Drew Nehlig of Bryn Athyn for their help, as well as Carlier Makigawa, Simon Cottrell, Michael Bondi and Glenn Gilmore who took the time to speak with me about their experiences with the metal.
Rooftop Garniture: Fume Duo copper, vitreous enamel 16.5 x 15 x 6" 2021
A new grouping of work from the You See AC series is now on display at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center until September 3rd. Closing reception August 27th from 6-8pm
Here is my official statement (you can tell its official, because I am using the third person):
Wall of Air presents a series of small sculptures by Ana M. Lopez that address our increasingly complex relationship with air conditioning. Conflating references from the decorative and industrial arts, these objects invite the viewer to consider wealth, display, power and privilege as they relate to this modern amenity.
This body of work borrows forms from the ubiquitous, invisible evidence of artificial air handling that populates many rooftops and exterior walls. These metal forms are typically mass-produced by industrial processes but have been recreated by Lopez through small-scale craft practices. The enamel finishes are inspired by historic ceramic vessels from all over the world. Many of the finished works are presented in the format of garnitures. These sets of decorative accessories were typically comprised of imported porcelain or artful bronze work and were popular from the seventeenth century onward. Typically displayed on mantelpieces, they reflected the owner’s taste and wealth. Lopez’s laboriously crafted arrangements of common rooftop objects of air passage invite one to reflect upon the West’s atmospheric colonization of the global climate.
The title piece, Wall of Air, is an installation of four wall-mounted porcelain-enameled steel boxes embellished with silver. The forms are based on the external appearance of through-window air conditioning units. Walls make air conditioning feasible but they also exclude. As climate change brings increasingly severe weather, control of one’s domestic comfort is likely to become a luxury commodity of increased class disparity.
The exhibition was made possible thanks to a Scholarly and Creative Activity Grant from the University of North Texas.
Some of my pieces recently went to Mesa, Arizona, and won the Juror’s Choice Award at the 42nd Annual Contemporary Craft Show at the Mesa Contemporary Art Museum. Many thanks to Juror Gail Brown. The full catalog is online here.
Last March I had the privilege to attend the Austin Forging Competition at Mobile Loaves and Fishes’ Community First! Village. It was about a week before the world closed and life as I know it changed. I drove to a different town. I stayed in a hotel and ate in a restaurant. I think I even hugged people outside my family. Weird. The brief article about the competition that I wrote for Metalsmith Tech came out a few weeks ago. It’s a great reminder of what some seriously talented people can do with three hours.
I am very pleased to share that Night Air Garniture was selected for inclusion in Under Fire 3. The show is organized by the Enamel Guild North East and will be displayed online here from October 23rd. There will also be a panel discussion with the three jurors on October 25th at 6pm eastern time, “Whats Up With Enamels Today?” The panel includes the Under Fire 3 jurors: Ruth Ball, Mi-Sook Hur, Sienna Patti, with moderator Bella Neyman.
Thanks to the hard-working folks at the Appalachian Center for Craft, you can get a sense of the exhibition!
My show at the Appalachian Center for craft, Invisible Metal, is being installed right now. Through the perseverance of Director Debra Ruzinsky and Artist in Residence of Exhibitions Glenna Dame Baker, my long hoped-for installation is being realized. The show will be in the Front Gallery of the Appalachian Center for Craft from July 1 through August 15, 2020. They plan to create a video tour of the show, which I look forward to sharing as well when the time comes. Visiting hours are Monday to Saturday 10 am to 5 pm, Sunday 12 to 5. For now, be well, be safe, make art.
Jewelry really belongs on the body. Even in isolation the implied body is part of how we read it - in anticipation of its intended location. Kelly Temple at the University of Central Oklahoma has curated a show that addresses this aspect of jewelry: “When Worn highlights the act of adornment. When placed on the body, jewelry transforms not only the appearance of its wearer, but it inserts itself between the adorned and audience as a signal and an invitation between two beings.”
When Worn includes work by Haydee Alonso, Lynn Batchelder, Teresa Faris, Betsy Lewis, Lydia Martin, Samira Saheli, Alejandra Salinas, Jolynn Santiago, Leslie Shershow, Helen Shirk, Lori Talcott, Kelly Ann Temple, Claire Webb, Petra Winnwalker and myself.
The reception will be this Thursday at the Melton Gallery from 5:30 to 7:30. The show is free and open to the public until March 26, 2020.
An image of one of my pieces on their dean.
photographer Sydney Stephenson, model- Steven Hansen
I love this show and I am so grateful that it happens in Denton every year. Not only do my students get to see some excellent work from an international selection of makers but some years I even get to participate! One of my newer pieces, Fort Worth Trash Chute, was selected for inclusion this year. The show runs from February 7 - May 9 with a reception on the 7th from 6-9. The juror this year was Beth C. McLaughlin, Chief Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. She will be giving a gallery talk on Thursday the 6th at 2:30.
Louver: Houston is on its way to….Houston, fittingly. It was selected for inclusion in the Houston Metal Arts Guild’s Metal Complexions Exhibition. The exhibition juror was Anna Walker, Assistant Curator of Decorative Arts, Craft, and Design at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The show takes place from February 2nd through the 28th at the Jung Center in Houston. In addition to an opening reception on Friday the 7th of February, from 6-9pm, there will be an exhibition Walk-through with Anna Walker on February 19, from 6:00-7:00 PM. If you are in the area I hope you will check it out!
One of my louvers has traveled to South Korea! Louver: Las Vegas was accepted into the Cityscape 2020 exhibition at the CICA Museum in Gyeonggi-do. You can see more information about the exhibition here. I must say, I get a little jealous when my work gets to go places to which I have never been.
