Crossing Paths features the new work of PYRO member artist Susan Harrison with guest artists Ali Wine and J-D Schall. Working in three different media their work invites the viewer on a journey. Wine’s paintings and drawings focus on creation of mythologies and Schall’s ceramic sculptures explore narratives, while Harrison’s more abstract, multi-layered relief prints build from disparate, spontaneous experiences. All take you on a journey in their celebration of creative quests, bold forms, texture and mark-making. Enjoy the ride!

Susan Harrison's Artist Statement

At some point in our lives, we all face the realization that we have limitations. Perhaps we don't have the time, talent, energy, motivation, background, or state of mind to focus on what we feel we should, or perhaps we fail at advancing in our careers or personal relationships. There may be a diminishment of our abilities—a limitation that amplifies the truth of our human condition as it parallels the path of aging, an eventual universal for us all.  

For me, experiencing the impact of Covid and my long haul symptoms such as extreme fatigue and brain fog, has forced me to interrogate my own limitations as I navigate this new part of my life while also asking myself how and what I am compelled to create.

Experimental in nature, this series of spontaneously carved, inked and layered relief mono prints represents my struggle with limitations. The paper is discarded student gesture drawings, the ink was expired and salvaged, and the carving blocks are left-over linoleum tiles from a bathroom renovation. These materials are comforting and familiar to me as I have always lived with clutter—perhaps a reflection of wide-ranging interests, a need to save family hand-me-downs, keep stuff out of landfills, and see the potential in discarded, neglected things. And so, this project is also about using up, working the materials beyond recognition, figuring out what I want, defiantly resisting the creative void, and reviving what feels like an extinguishing flame.

Paul Klee's idea of “A drawing is simply a line going for a walk” inspired me to take a walk with a carving tool. I carved each block with no plan, spontaneously wandering around the block with my chisel.  Sometimes I was engaged with how long I could make the line using one continuous motion with the carving tool. Other times I carved lines to divide and/or interrupt the space. Harmony was seldom achieved and creative flow—that amazing state of being one with time and material—was quite elusive.

Such as the layering of time and experience, these carvings are inked and printed over and over, in my quest to create dialogue between moments and experiences, and to explore some sort of equilibrium between dissonant expressions. For me, the prints serve as a metaphor for how we layer and weave "the good, bad, and ugly" of our lives into one coherent, relatively functional life. The complexity of the surfaces with interacting embossment represents this daily clash of moments, asking: Is it possible to create sense and harmony from disconnected, ill-conceived, random elements?

Falling back, falling forward, trying to find a home in the imagery, embracing the mystery, transcending my seasonal depression symptoms, being uncertain but willing to work with what I have, who I am, confronting my fears of a hampered imagination, the unfolding of my mind mark by mark … By letting the chaos of the daily detritus of my experiences find expression in the marks, and the reduction of the block into nothingness, my exploration of the idea of limitations has become its opposite. My walks, my lines, are, in fact, limitless. 

Biography
Susan Harrison is a seasoned artist educator who has been an exhibiting member of Pyro Gallery since 2005. Over the years Harrison has developed art installations concerning the nature of comfort and security as well as created “Covid comfort blankets” and personal flotation devices as a metaphor for how people keep themselves afloat and navigate troubled times. Currently she teaches for JCPS, as well as for the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts and maintains her personal studio at Brick Street Art Studios, located in New Albany. Her work is often a hybrid of 2D printmaking elements with 3D woven or constructed forms. She dedicates this show to the incredible resiliency and staying power of her Western Art Warriors!

J-D Schall’s Artist Statement

“My work is the style of styles of styles,” I scrawled out in pen.

 Getting up I started the kettle for tea.

 “Style of styles,” I pondered. Like everyone, my work was built upon my teachers and the teachers before them. But, why not say that?

Because I couldn’t. I needed to say something sharp and poignant, like my work was a contradiction - slutty yet pure. Orderly yet chaotic. Accidental yet intentional.

 What I wanted to say was my work was not a contradiction but expected. When I worked on the wheel my work was round. Instead, I scrawled, “Like a tightrope walker, I attempt to balance tension on a line.” Too bad I’m not a figure drawer, and I scratched it off. At this point the kettle had been whistling for some time. I moved away from the table.

 They don’t make writers paint a statement about their work. With that thought, I pulled out my phone. Flicking over to my phone’s photo gallery, I scrolled through photos of my recent pieces for inspiration. The irony that I was trying to gleam meaning from my own work was not lost on me.

“My work is like a tea bag: once it is done, I throw it into the garden to decompose.” The truth was I wanted people to see my work, the truth was I had been floating in an inner tube, wishing my dog had been with me. Later, in the studio I had wanted to sculpt my dog sopping wet clinging to a buoy. But, I knew if I had built a magnificent poodle, my audience would be limited to poodle people. So instead I created a rabbit with long ears clinging to a turtle.

“My work is about choices. Choosing to choose,” I wrote. Now we were getting somewhere.

Biography
A professional potter for several decades, J-D Schall moved to Louisville, KY from Baton Rouge, LA in 2002. Since then his ceramic work has been displayed at Saint James Art Fair, KMAC Museum and with the Louisville Potters.  His new work features sculptures which explore narratives derived from the natural world, fables, themes of journeys and what is in our own nature. His work has been featured in Elle Decor, Domino, Home and Southern Accent magazines, as well as in the books “500 Vases” and “The Best of 500 Ceramics." He is currently represented by Ann Connelly Fine Art in Baton Rouge, LA.

Go to Schall Studio website for more information.

Ali Wine’s Artist Statement 

The directness and primacy of drawing allows for an easier unconscious stream of thought processing. By adding layer upon layer of hatching, I have developed a process of carving the image out of the blank space through drawing. By having such primacy in process, drawing allows me to create a meditative space that is both creatively fruitful, as well as a way to essentially empty out my head onto paper. Painting on the other hand allows for refinement of drawings through an opposing additive process of color and shade.

My current research is focused on the exploration of the origins and meaning of archetypal mythologies, but as I read I began to not see myself adequately represented there, for many reasons, but mainly, as a queer woman. The lack of relatable characters is the result of bias of men who recorded the history and theory of mythology, rather than such characters having never existed. My response is to create my own monomyth(s) of non-straight, non-male characters on the Hero’s Journey. Creatrixs, artists or inventors, and female shapeshifters, all defy the boundaries allowed to them by others. They have agency, they are the active principle in their world. Perhaps appearing passive, they are involved in their own consciousness, or rather unconsciousness. Thinking, dreaming, or hallucinating, etc. all while spinning their own realities or worlds into existence around them, through discovering within themselves.

I am interested in representing these archetypes from a modern perspective. Finding figures from ancient mythology, folktales and pop culture have all shaped my perspective. Witches, the monstrous feminine and mystics- women who live by their own rules, while focusing on the margins of culture, specifically the outsiders of gender and sexuality. My characters are those solitary figures who live outside of the familial and societal structures.

Biography
Ali Wine is an artist who was born in and currently resides in Louisville, KY. After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute with a BFA in Painting in 2019, Wine relocated back home and has been working on developing a personal body of work. Her work revolves around drawing as a practice, although painting is also a medium she is exploring.