Fiber Artist Showcased in Montgomery

ASCA Gallery at the RSA Tower in Montgomery

The Alabama State Council on the Arts announced last week its closing reception “showcasing the work of our six 2018 Fellowship Artists. Sunday, July 29th 2:00-4:00 p.m. Gallery Talk: 3:00-4:00.”

The six artists honored were Scott Fisk, Elaine Farley Kinnaird, Miriam O’Mura, Charity Ponter, Jared Ragland, and Kami Watson. 

For those who missed the reception in Montgomery at the RSA Tower, I am showcasing the works of my daughter, Elaine Farley Kinnaird, here today.

As a fiber artist, Ms. Kinnaird works with various media to produce her art. Examples of her work can be seen at her website. 

"Pond"

As a recipient of a grant from the Alabama Council on the Arts, her work in Montgomery used fabric as the medium and resembled quilting. Each piece was made of pieces of fabric cut into different shapes and sewn together. 

"Broken Sea I" 

She stated in her talk that the shapes that came about in her installation were based upon drawings from shadows from her previous installation at Ground Floor Contemporary art gallery in Birmingham. The shadows were cast on the wall by the evening sun. She traced the shadows and saved the patterns which then evolved into her current exhibit.

In describing her work with shadows, the artist spoke of the importance of our being aware of what Carl Jung called our own shadow side.

"Broken Sky"

Ms. Kinnaird had seven pieces on display for the Alabama Council on the Arts. Four of the pieces hung like banners, while the fifth piece was a free standing sculpture. The sculptured piece was also made of fabric. 

"Broken Sea II"

Broken Earth I and Broken Earth II

She explained how she took the patterns from her “Broken Earth I and II” pieces and created a 3D fabric sculpture. She had to be innovative in designing a 3D fabric sculpture that would stand on its own. Her efforts paid off in that her fabric sculpture became the center piece for the entire show. 

  

Broken Earth III

Elaine Kinnaird holds an MFA degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (near Detroit). She is also a graduate of Birmingham Southern College and the Alabama School of Fine Arts.

The artist with her installation center piece
(Photo by Claire Keel)

More Gallery Shots

 

* All photos by Charles Kinnaird unless otherwise designated

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Vibrant Voices in Art on Display

RSA Tower, 201 Monroe St., Montgomery, AL (RSA photo)

My daughter, Elaine Farley Kinnaird is a recipient of a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. This coming Sunday, July 29, from 2:00 – 4:00 pm, she will be a part of the artists showcase exhibit. You will get to see the artists’ work and will hear each artist talk about their work. See details below. 

(Photos from the art installation can be seen here.)

2018 FELLOWSHIP SHOWCASE EXHIBIT

Montgomery, ALA – The Alabama State Council on the Arts is showcasing the work of six (6) Fellowship artists at the Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery in downtown Montgomery.  The gallery is located in the RSA Tower, 201 Monroe Street, first floor, suite 110. A reception is scheduled for Sunday, July 29, from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. with artist talks happening between 3:00 - 4:00 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

Artists featured in the exhibition:

·         Scott Fisk

·         Elaine Farley Kinnaird

·         Miriam Norris Omura

·         Charity Ponter

·         Jared Ragland

·         Kami Watson

Scott Fisk is a graphic designer, artist, and educator. He graduated with an M.F.A. from Memphis College of Art and received his B.F.A. in graphic design from Henderson State University. Fisk’s interests include web design, typography, photography, motion graphics and multimedia. In 1994 working as a designer with NetM Communications he created for clients in the U.S. and Britain. His motion graphic works have been featured on major television networks in the U.S., Australia and Japan. Fisk's work is part of permanent collections in numerous galleries and museums, including the U.S. National Archives. He served as an Army Reserve photojournalist in Iraq, often serving as a combat photograph with U.S. and Iraqi units during combat operations. Fisk is currently a Professor of Graphic Design at Samford University, where he also serves as chair of department of Art. http://designsetgo.com

Elaine Farley Kinnaird majored in Art History with her senior thesis on the topic of Mesoamerican sacred bundles. Her idea of the bundle as an object which elevates the mundane into something sacred has now become a central theme in her work. Her work seems to bundle space, time and memory. Her art is like jazz—a skilled improvisation, fueled by internal and external stimuli, that is created under her guiding hand. http://efkinnaird.wixsite.com/elainefarleykinnaird

Miriam N. Omura received a BFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio.  After graduation, Miriam worked as Technical Assistant for the department, Artist Assistant to Cleveland-based artist, Hildur Jonsson, and in positions in area museums (The Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland Museum of Art, Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens).

Omura later earned a MA in History and Art History from Cleveland State University in Mississippi. At that time she began shifting away from studio art and towards museum collections work. Omura acquired a position at The Heritage Center in Pine Ridge, South Dakota on the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation, cataloging the historical and contemporary Native American art collection. Afterwards she moved to Alabama to be the Collections Manager of The Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at the University of Alabama. She now works full time at her studio in Birmingham, Alabama. http://miriamomura.com

Charity Ponter explores the lines between art, documentary, and portrait photography in order to reveal honest connections with her subjects. Through her work, Ponter offers a visual landscape in which people and situations can freely share realities on a deep and often spiritual level. She often seeks community collaboration with other artists supporting her view that all individuals have inherent value and a unique voice in this world. She is uninterested in visual trends that isolate, self-promote or divide. Instead she creates work that brings healing and connects diverse groups of people while invoking a communal village mentality. https://charityponterphotography.com

Jared Ragland is a fine art and documentary photographer and former White House photo editor. He recently worked on a long-term documentary on methamphetamine use in rural northeast Alabama and currently teaches and coordinates exhibitions and community programs in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Ragland is a photo editor for National Geographic Books and has worked on assignment in the Balkans, the former Soviet Bloc, East Africa and Haiti. In 2015, Jared was named one of TIME Magazine’s “Instagram Photographers to Follow in All 50 States.” His work is exhibited internationally and is featured in numerous magazines and newspapers including Forbes, The Oxford American and The New York Times. https://jaredragland.com

Kami Watson has a nomadic past with a focus on environmental conservation and humanitarian services. Those life experiences exposed Kami to global influences in design and culture and led to a desire to create functional and visual art with an ecological sensitivity. As a second generation fiber artist, she freely explores the traditional art of wet felting, the fusing of raw fibers into a textile form with soap, water, and agitation, as well as the contemporary techniques of nuno (fabric) and laminate (multi fabric layer) felting. She combines renewable natural fiber resources, reclaimed silk sari and clothing fabrics, and her own hand dyed silk fabrics and fibers to organically create each of her works of art. She allows the materials she uses, and her past and present influences and life experiences to guide her instinctively in color and design. https://www.kamiwatsonstudio.com

They All Had Names

Photo by Charles Kinnaird

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018. Last week, my daughter and I toured the new memorial which is known as “the lynching memorial.” The day we went, it was well attended, with about an even number of black people and white people present.

During the time between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement, many thousands of African Americans were lynched, and those lynchings served to preserve white supremacy – to assure that blacks “knew their place,” as the saying went down here in the South. It was a time of systemic terrorism aimed at black citizens whereby lynching served to instill fear and subjugation. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is intended to be a legacy for those African Americans who were “terrorized by lynching,” and “humiliated by racial segregation.”

Confronting Our Past

Most whites, by virtue of their innate societal privilege, had no awareness of the fear and oppression that blacks lived under for 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Yes, those of us who grew up in the South knew about the boundaries: the segregation, the separate water fountains, the impoverished black neighborhoods. But most of us did not understand the fear, the terror, and the sheer danger of being black in America.

At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the Equal Justice Initiative has collected some 4,400 names of people who were lynched. Those names are engraved onto 800 corten steel monuments, each steel structure representing a county where lynchings took place. We learned that lynchings occurred between 1877 and 1950 to terrorize the black population and keep Jim Crow laws enforced.  The most recent lynching date I saw occurred in 1948. The farthest place north that I saw represented was Duluth, Minnesota. 

By confronting our past and its continuing legacy, the memorial can serve as a catalyst for reconciliation and healing.

Reactions to the Memorial     

My first reaction upon entering was to try to read every name. There were too many names to read each one. I then began looking at the counties where lynchings occurred and the years that each one took place. I overheard some visitors asking, “Have you found our county yet?” Then I realized there were also too many counties. I decided just to walk around the monument and let the structure speak.

In one section of the memorial, one can read the stories behind some of the lynchings that occurred. There was the prosperous farmer in 1948 who was lynched because he went to the polls to vote. There was the woman lynched because she protested the lynching of her husband, and the young man who was lynched simply because they could not find his relative who was the one they intended to lynch. The magnitude of the atrocities that our society condoned was incredible, but they all had names, and they all had a story to tell. Perhaps we can finally hear those names and those stories.

The most moving moment for me was when I had come through the display of names to a wall over which water flowed down (justice rolling down like waters?). It was there that I saw a young lady sitting, with her eyes closed and head bowed, as if in prayer. Tears came to my eyes as I saw her. Was she praying? Was she asking forgiveness? Praying for the victims of systemic violence? Or was she meditating? Perhaps she was bringing herself in touch with the reality of the atrocities represented in the naming of each lynching victim. Or perhaps she was just trying to take it all in.

Photo by Charles Kinnaird

This is indeed one of the values of having such a memorial. It allows all of us to stop and take it all in. We need to acknowledge that these atrocities took place; that this is who we are. We can no longer pass things off by saying, “I’m not responsible for what happened back during the days of slavery.” In order to move forward, we must come to terms with the fact that we grew up in a society where such systemic evil took place. If those of us who are of white privilege feel some inner resistance when we hear the phrase, “Black Lives Matter,” then we must acknowledge that we are still held captive to a legacy of hate and violence.

We Will Remember

By commemorating the incidents whereby terrorism was used to keep blacks suppressed and subjugated, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice brings us face to face with our own history. On their website, the Equal Justice Initiative states: 

A history of racial injustice must be acknowledged, and mass atrocities and abuse must be recognized and remembered, before a society can recover from mass violence. Public commemoration plays a significant role in prompting community-wide reconciliation.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice provides a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terrorism and its legacy.

As can be seen in the inscription in the photo below, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice assures that "We will remember."

Photo by Elaine Kinnaird

 
Learn More

Read more about the National Memorial at the EJI website at https://eji.org/national-lynching-memorial.

See the video below, produced by The Guardian in which Bryan Stevenson, founder of Equal Justice Initiative, tells about The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Then go to Montgomery to see it for yourself. It is definitely worth the trip.

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