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RITUAL: Functional Clay in Everyday Life

“RITUAL: Functional Clay in Everyday Life” starts August 3rd with an opening reception

Our next show opens August 3 and runs through September 1, 2018. Please join us on opening night for a reception, to meet the artists and get the best choice of functional pieces for your home, office or gifts.

What: Opening Reception of “Ritual: functional clay in everyday life”

When: Friday Aug. 3 from 5 to 8pm

Who: Our opening events are for everyone, kids too — and it’s free

Where: 1+1=1 Gallery is located at 434 North Last Chance Gulch in Helena, Montana.

More Info: Call the gallery 406.431.9931 or email us

Why Ritual?

Ritual. Isn’t that something we should save for special days?  Why not create more meaning in everyday activities? Rituals slow us down, connect us with the origins of things and the underlying beauty of all life.  From cooking and eating … to lighting a candle; placing flowers in a vase; drinking coffee, tea, ale or wine; bathing and brushing teeth; meditation and prayer; telling stories and tucking children or ourselves in bed … these are things we may do everyday and — if done with intention — can become wonderful meaningful moments for us.

Nine local and regional ceramic artists submitted a large selection of functional clay objects that can be used in our everyday life. Bowls, plates, cups, cookie jars, mugs, trays, vases and tumblers are just a few. Everything in the exhibit is beautiful enough to be displayed as a work of art … and useful enough to become part of your everyday life.

Artists include:

• Maureen Cole, Helena MT
• sarah magar, sook bc canada
• George McCauley, Helena MT
• Page Kelly Piccolo, Clancy MT
• Carla potter, Helena mt
• andrew rivera, missoula MT
• trudy skari, helena MT
• Sarahjess Swann, Bozeman MT
• Eliza Weber, great falls mt

Just in time for Montana visitors looking for something special to take home, and for Helena residents who want to treat themselves or someone to a one-of-a-kind useful gift. We will have the entire exhibit in our online catalog for anyone who can’t make it to the gallery in person. The catalog goes live on August 4th. 

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SCULPTURE: Inside, Around and Between Ideas

 

“SCULPTURE: Inside, Around and Between Ideas” starts June 29th with an opening reception

Our next show opens June 29th and runs through July 28th. It’s a short exhibit but long on diversity and depth. We asked five Helena artists, as well as an artist from Wyoming and a California artist, to contribute a body of sculptural works to this show. These seven artists explore volume, space and ideas using clay, bronze, wood and mixed-media. And whoah – are we excited to see what’s been coming in!

Artists include:

• Mary Jane Edwards, Sheridan, WY
• Nancy Goughnour, Helena, MT
• Paul Guillemette, Los Angeles, CA
• Betsey Hurd, Helena, MT
• Susan Mattson, Helena, MT
• George McCauley, Helena, MT
• Trudy Skari, Helena, MT

Think Sculpture is Just for Tables and Shelves?

Our 2018 Sculpture show promises to astound and delight you with pieces for your walls, floors, ceilings, shelves or tables. Whether you have a small wall space, a coffee table, hearth, mantle, side tables or shelves in need of a statement piece or a tender, quieter piece, we will have something for everyone. Paul Guillemette’s pieces are free-standing, wall-mounted or hanging from the ceiling. Nancy Goughnour again delights us with all-new wall figures of strong bold women. Trudy Skari’s latest free-standing and wall pieces take her bemusing foxes, bears and rabbits to another level of accomplishment. Mary Jane Edwards’s body of 12 “Caged Memories” provoke thought and curiosity. New polymorphic fabulism figures by Betsey Hurd join her masterful bronze equine sculptures.

A few sneak peeks at some of the artwork in this show:

 

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Trudy Skari, minimalist at heart

Trudy Skari is one of those rare people you meet who naturally balances the complexities and simplicities of life. A minimalist at heart, she focuses attentively on only a few things at a time in order to truly appreciate all they have to offer.

Embracing her strong Estonian background, Trudy derives rich meaning and imagery from dreams and the landscape around her. Very early on, she learned to tend to her own needs, overcome obstacles, and use what she had at hand to thrive. It was a basic and simple upbringing. Creativity has always played a key role in how Trudy positions herself in the world.

Trudy owned her first book at the age of 5, The Lonely Doll, by Dare Wright. It sparked her fascination with relationships between humans and animals and offered a new way to tell a story. The music of Allan Sherman really developed Trudy’s humor and wit which is still very alive and evident in her sculptures.

From the moment she visited her first clay studio, Trudy was captivated by the immediacy of translating an image in her mind to a physical form in front of her eyes. From there, she fashioned a former ice-house into her own studio/bunker on a farm where art was not valued, settled in behind 18 inch thick concrete walls to carve out time to create.

A champion of resourcefulness, Trudy is known to use clay scraps that most ceramicists would discard. When sculpting, you might find her sipping cold lemonade and listening to Tango music. Trudy doesn’t like to get too hung up on details.  The vision is there, it wants out, she just opens the door and allows her pieces to emerge in a natural way.

Come to the gallery and view Trudy’s incredible sculptures.  They are full of texture and pizazz; just begging to be held, touched, looked in the eye. One of them may even ask to come home with you, you just never know.

 

Current Exhibit – From Earth

Tidepool Bowl by Trudy Skari
FROM EARTH: Clay & Pigment

 

Our next exhibit opens Friday, August 18th and of course, we invite you to join us for an opening night reception from 5 to 8pm. Three ceramic artists join one of our favorite painters with all new works in clay and acrylic paint. All four of these artists have been with us since our first year and we are proud to exhibit their newest work!

With diverse mediums, techniques and styles, the exhibit is curated to connect us with the source of our creative vision – our Earth.

Featured artists are Andrea Cross Guns, Gregg Edelen, Trudy Skari and Susan Mattson. Please join us during the reception to meet the artists and hear brief gallery talks between 5:30 and 6pm. Wine and appetizers will be served after the talks.

Come at 5pm if you have your eye on something and want first dibs! (We will update the website with photos of some of the artworks as we receive them. Contact us if you see something you want.)

Andrea Cross Guns has been working hard in her studio painting into the wee hours. Her background as a teacher, poet, musician and composer play beautifully into the evolution of her newest paintings. I cannot wait to hang this show because it’s been awhile since we’d had new paintings by Andrea. Our walls will be vibrating with expressive color — I’m so excited!

Gregg Edelen will have all-new atmospheric kiln pottery, including some fabulous naked-raku vessels in the exhibit. We have  gorgeous new serving platters, yunomi cups, tea bowls, tumblers, whiskey shots and mugs by Gregg. Tim Carney will have a few traditional Japanese tomobaku boxes available for Gregg’s yunomi’s and tea bowls. You have to see how the cups look in a tomobaku — they make wonderful gifts!

Susan Mattson’s latest work is a further development of her sought-after vessels with torsos or animal heads on top. As she makes the vessels, she forms hundreds of faces on the outside, each feature individually marked with clay tools, and each face the result of a meditative, transformative personal process. The energy she embues in her sculptures is palpable, remarkable and often unanticipated.

Trudy Skari continues to take her ceramic sculptures in new directions and has been branching out into both functional and non-functional sculptural pottery. Trudy has recently begun working with more texture, and will be showing some sculptural platters and bowls reminiscent of tide pools, the forest floor and sumptuous gardens. You will be surprised and delighted to see Trudy’s newest artwork, as well as some of your favorite, expressive Trudy-heads and small sculptures.

Elements of Earth used by the four artists are the common thread in this exhibit.
Clays used for ceramic sculpture or functional pottery come from the Earth, and are transformed by Fire — from something resembling skin, leather, powder and milk — to a durable substance like stone or hard dry river banks.
Clay fields are shaped by water and the sun, cracking over time into surfaces of mystery and fascination. Artists shape clay with hands and tools, with water, fire and pigments into objects of beauty, sensuality and function.
Painters move pigment around on their surface of choice with brushes, knives and fingers. Their pigments made from earth: diatoms, carbon, cadmium, copper, china clay, iron oxide and other minerals and these days, pigments synthesized from minerals like petroleum. Some pigments include clay: China clay, viridian, umber and sienna.
As you look around at the artwork in this exhibit, consider how each artist utilizes earth elements to express their unique voice and take on life.