Brenda Mallory

Mentoring

2009-11-15T15:34:00.000-08:00

I have been working as a mentor this semester in the MFA in Applied Craft and Design program and I am finding it to be a very rewarding experience. It's the part of teaching I enjoy the most: talking to students about their projects, brainstorming, helping them clarify thinking, introducing them to new artists, finding resources. The student I work with, Laura Alcorn, is amazing me every week with her diligence, creativity, and openness to exploration. And I forgot to mention she is making some kickass beautiful jewelry that is really miniature sculpture.

Here the description lifted straight from their website:

"Connecting design thinking to design doing, Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art have collaborated to create a unique MFA Program grounded in hands-on making, entrepreneurial strategies, and social and environmental engagement. Combining a mentor-based approach with an exceptional visiting artists program, students work one-on-one with nationally and internationally recognized designers, makers, and scholars in a self-directed curriculum that challenges them to bring to life the full strength of their ideas and skills.

Encouraging a cross-disciplinary studio environment in which the workshop is a lab to collaboratively explore design and making processes, the Program welcomes students from a wide range of creative backgrounds to make original work with an applied purpose. With a curriculum focused on the development of a strong artistic voice, the realization of work for a specific community or client, and entrepreneurism that connects making a living with making a difference, the MFA in Applied Craft and Design is the only graduate program of its kind."

SQFT

2009-11-13T06:24:00.000-08:00

TJ Norris, intrepid artist, curator, blogger, has curated this window project of drawings by 75 NW artists (including yours truly). It started out in Portland at the Blackfish Gallery and has moved on to Boise. He's planning to travel it around to different window venues over the next year. Here's the review from Boise Statesman.

Sitka Art Invitational

2009-11-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

I have five pieces in the Sitka Art Invitational this year. The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology fosters creative inquiry and education. The involvement, investigations, and creative work of artists and natural scientists help Sitka Center fulfill its mission to expand the relationships between art, nature and humanity through workshops, presentations and individual research projects.

Hundreds of volunteers, artists, donors, and art collectors have contributed to the growth and success of the Sitka Art Invitational, since its inception 16 years ago. This year, 132 artists are offering over 500 pieces of art! Collectors and art buyers are a key factor in the success of this fundraising event.

Located at the World Forestry Center, Portland, Oregon

Friday, November 13th, Miller Hall, 6:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Opening Night Party with the Artists

Saturday & Sunday, November 14-15, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Public Exhibit and Sale

The Sitka Art Invitational is an important source of support for Sitka Center's Workshop and Residency Programs. The Workshop Program provides opportunities for artists to teach and study in workshops from late spring through early fall; the Residency Program offers opportunities for artists to pursue individual research projects from late fall through early spring. If you're moved to contribute to these programs and are not able to attend the Art Invitational, please feel free to donate online.

feel good moment

2009-08-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

I just signed in to my blog reader and there on one of my favorite blogs, Dear Ada, was my own work!

Contemporary Fiber Arts at PNCA

2009-04-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

Along with artist Kim Lakin, I'll be teaching a class at PNCA this summer. It's part of their Summer of Making in the Continuing Ed program.

Summer of Making is a mixture of craft classes, social media, and the Contemporary Fiber Arts class Kim and I are teaching. Our class will be a survey about fiber as sculptural/art medium and contemporary artists who work with fabric or fiber. Other classes are:

Bead and Button Jewelry, with Susan Beal
Artful Blogging, with Sarah Schlosser-Moon
By Hand: Needlework and Macrame, with Jess Beebe
Podcasting for Everyone with Diane Gilleland
Quilting Workshop with Denyse Schmidt

I met some of these women at a meeting the other day and they are a talented, well-connected bunch. If you are looking for some creative enrichment in your life, check out these classes in the PNCA online catalog.

Work on view at J Crist Gallery

2008-09-14T14:17:00.001-07:00

Some of my small works are currently on view at J Crist Gallery in Boise, Idaho.

Slipping into order: a glitch in the phylum

2007-07-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

(Portland, OR-) I turned the The Nine Gallery into a classifier’s workshop during the month of July as in an homage to the 300th birthday of Carolus Linnaeus, the father of the modern system of biological classification and nomenclature.

Organic sculptures co-mingle with found objects, both natural and machined, blurring and confusing the distinction between technology and nature in a theatrical construction that invites sorting, counting, and naming. Strewn schematics, unfinished projects, and vacated furnishings fuel an experience that turns viewer into voyeur.

Click on the photo below to see the installation.

Slipping into order: a glitch in the phylum

SUNY/Brockport

2008-02-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

My work is currently part of a group show entitled EndoSkeletal and Exoskeletal: Sculptures with Armatures. SUNY gave me an honorarium to come install my work and do a talk to students and the public. Jennifer Hecker curated the show and Gallery Director, Tim Massey made it a beautiful installation. Both Jennifer and Tim are professors of art at SUNY. The Tower Fine Arts is a beautiful gallery and I was honored to be showing with Cheryl Coon, Ronald Gonzalez, and Therese Zemlin. I received two generous grants to help with crate building, shipping and travel expense. The Foundation for Contemporary Arts in New York City provided me with an Emergency Grant. Additionally I received funding from the Oregon Art Commisson's Career Opportunity Grant.

Click on the photo below to see exhibition photos.

SUNY Brockport: Endoskeletal & Exoskeletal: Sculptures with Armature

Grants are like Chistmas presents!

2007-12-13T21:03:00.000-08:00

So the Ogle show up and looking great and I just got the wonderful news that I'm getting two of the four grants I've recently applied for. One is the Regional Arts and Culture Council's Professional Development Grant in which I applied for funds to get my sorely outdated website upgraded. The other is from the Contemporary Arts Foundation in New York. They have an emergency grant that I applied for in order to get funds to crate and ship my work to the SUNY Brockport show EndoSkeletal/ExoSkeletal: Sculptures with Armature.

Sameness Difference Stillness Movement

2008-01-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

Here are shots of the show at Ogle Gallery (details are in the previous post). All the works looked great together and with a certain sameness of color throughout that felt very spare and elegant. Rob's pulsating reds and blues were the lively exception.

This is my large piece, Low Tide. This was the first time I've used this black wax in such a large scale. Even though it dark, the amount of pigment is very small and there is still a certain translucency. I saw this article the other day about researchers at Rice University who have created the blackest substance on earth. Fortunately I've not gone there.

this is a detail of Low Tide

Fluctuations (Dark). I'm really enjoying this dark wax. I've got a couple of smaller pieces in the works in the studio. The variations result by simply adding more or less black pigment to the wax. I like that the natural color of the fabric shows through when there is less pigment - it almost appears pinkish.

detail of Fluctuations

Exhibition at Ogle Gallery

2007-11-22T05:05:00.000-08:00

I have organized a exhibition at Ogle Gallery of four artists (including myself) whose works explore the concept of repetition in one form or another. The preview reception is Wednesday, December 5, from 6-9pm. I hope you can join us for a glass of wine and a chat with the artists.

And if you miss Wednesday's reception, there is a First Thursday, December 6, reception as well – alas, no wine that night. A full press release is below.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sameness & Difference | Stillness & Movement
An exhibition organized by Brenda Mallory

Ogle Gallery: 310 NW Broadway, Portland OR 97209
Artist Reception: December 5th, 6pm-9pm
First Thursday Opening: December 6th, 6pm-9pm
Exhibit Dates: December 4th - February 2nd, 2008
Ogle Gallery Hours: 11am-6pm, Tuesday through Saturday

Repeated, seemingly identical forms combine into an endless mass to become a wheat field, an ocean surface, an advancing army, or a migrating flock. The power of the many with its potential for infinite expansion cannot be denied. But it does not overpower the rich experience of taking the closer look that shows distinct individual and minute variations within that vast sameness.

Nothing ever repeats itself exactly, but human beings, from artists, scientists, mystics, farmers and housewives, have found meaning in repetition. Brenda Mallory shows her own work and brings together three other artists whose practices explore these themes. Their methods and motivations vary, but each works within the discipline of repetition, examining the ideas of sameness, difference, stillness and movement.

Mary Lang studies the ephemeral and intangible by photographing the convergence of light and energy on the ever-changing fluid surface of water.

Rob Tyler patiently hand paints individual frames of 16mm film leader, then digitally manipulates the film into pulsating rhythms that never repeat in quite the same way.

Yoshi Kitai makes excessive individual marks that converge to form a surface, a meander, or a line in a field.

Brenda Mallory's connects multitudes of the same form, allowing the slight differences in the size or shape of the forms to create undulations and irregularities.

CONTACT
Brenda Mallory, 503-593-8897
Valentina Barroso Graziano, Ogle Gallery, 503-227-4333

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Protean Forms: A Performance in 24 Acts

2007-02-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

An installation that changes daily at the PDX Gallery Window Project. This is at the corner of NW Flanders and 9th in Portland's Pearl District. You can see it 24 hours a day and sometimes happen upon me tending the installation.

Click this photo to see a record of daily changes

Protean Forms: A Performance in 24 Acts

High Activity Level

2007-11-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

These past two months I've been a buzzsaw of activity. Deadlines are a great source of inspiration! The group show I organized at Ogle opens in two short weeks and last weekend I finished my pieces and now just need to get PR and postcards out. It's called Sameness|Difference|Stillness|Movement. Included are Mary Lang, Yoshi Kitai, Rob Tyler, and yours truly.

And just when I thought I was going to have a bit of breathing room to quietly starting making a body of smaller works I've been thinking about, I got word that the curator of the show I'm going to be in at Tower Fine Arts/SUNY Brockport wants some of my large works which I don't have crates for so now I'm scrambling to get that together. SUNY is giving me an honorarium to speak at the opening! The show is called EndoSkeletal/Exoskeletal: Sculptures with Armature.

And I've been busy applying for grants - I've got four out (fingers crossed). And tonight a gallery owner is coming for a studio visit which of course meant a frenzy of cleaning and organizing had to occur so they don't kill themselves trying to walk through the chaos.