Jennifer L Collins Artist Statement

For the last few years I have been exploring a metaphorical approach to landscape. In the paintings you see here, I have been looking at the relationship between the microcosm and the macrocosm, as well as the effect of the passage of time on our interpretation of a place. The subject matter comes from traveling and responding to places I feel a connection to. This landscape, this earth, is our home. The forests are the cathedrals; the fields are the banquet halls; the clouds and sky are an ever changing ceiling and the rivers and streams are the paths that keep us all flowing. This place is so familiar to us, yet still so mysterious. There is as much to learn from the vastness of the starry sky as there is from a small stone picked up out of a stream, or a single leaf held in the hand. We live here, but we long for something more. Our souls hunger for the eternal. I believe that the eternal is here, right now in the present. If we pay attention we can catch glimpses of its fire everywhere, burning through the windows in the spaces between things.

Charlie Brouwer Artist Statement

I make indoor and outdoor constructed wood sculptures and installations. The material is important to me - it is familiar, common, convenient, and has played a big role in human and American culture. Wood bears evidence of life. Even when dead it continues to live, breath and move. Constructing with wood feels like a positive act – I am “being constructive”. This matches my idea of what making art is all about.

I live my life, have experiences and thoughts, hear and see things and just try to pay attention. Occasionally I find myself paying extra attention and I hold onto the experience, or feeling, or thought long enough for it to feel important enough to become a sculpture. For me, art begins in the ordinary and reveals something special about it.

Recently I have been using locust wood for my outdoor sculptures and hemlock and pine for my indoor sculptures. They all grow locally and are produced by independent sawmills in my region. Locust is one of the hardest and most weather resistant North American wood. Hemlock and pine are light and porous and water based acrylic paints show up well on it.

My aim in art is to make something beautiful and true. My constant goal is to see the spiritual manifest through the physical.