Tend: Collaboration with Shauna LeAnn Smith, for Obelisk Home
Tend
Shauna LeAnn Smith & Katherine Botts Whitaker
Dandelion dye and gouache on raw canvas, embroidery floss, beads, baltic birch and cherry wood.
2020.
Artist Statement
“To tend” is to actively decide to spend time. As artists, each of us finds joy and pleasure in processes requiring patience, presence, and attention. This a particular way of tending to. Collaboration invites individuals to discover what’s possible, to intuitively know something worthy will emerge when one gives service to a cause greater than oneself.
Our process focused on dialogue. At each stage of making, conversations informed our creative decisions. So, too, did the deliberate responses both of us made to the other artist's mark-making. Beadwork and embroidery are often marked by diligent adherence to a predetermined pattern. Here, we've chosen to shirk prearranged ideas. Instead, we focus on what naturally grew out of each other's individual contributions.
Tend pays attention to nuance. It invites you to breathe, rest, and witness the world around you. Take in growth. Experience the feeling of time. Pause to recognize the connections between all things.
Collaboration Exhibition at Obelisk Home Gallery
Collaboration is a group show hosted by Obelisk Home. Here’s how they describe this exhibition:
“For this show, we have encouraged local artists to break away from their solitary studios and collaborate with one another. Collaborations allow for different backgrounds, experiences, ideas to collide, to ignite new thinking, and to create a sort of visual conversation that couldn’t be possible with a single artist.”
They juried in a phenomenally talented group of artists. I am inspired and humbled to be included.
The artist I worked with is Shauna Leann Smith. Shauna is a wonderful artist and all around lovely person. We know each other through Placeworks and the Springfield Art Museum. I was thrilled when she invited me to apply for this exhibition with her.
Tend is available for purchase through the OH Art Gallery.