The Wednesday blizzard in Milwaukee may take second place to the amazing Packer blitz happening on Sunday, although the snow mounds that surround Walker's Point Center for the Arts (WPCA) will still be as high. All the 'white stuff' with be shoveled aside for the upcoming exhibition at the neighborhood arts center where the three artists, Karin Haas, Cassandra Smith and Jessica Steeber, work diligently in the gallery to finish for the February 4 opening. Between the hours of 5:00 and 9:00 p.m. on Friday guests can greet the artists to ask them questions about the new exhibition titled “Slow Start, Long Beginnings: New Collaborative Work by Karin Haas, Jessica Steeber and Cassandra Smith.”
The exhibit features five hanging installations combining colorful paper and elongated white balloons layered into huge, hanging lantern shapes. The sculptures evoke hand made, childlike Dale Chihuly glass works constructed from cut tissue paper, especially with their use of fiery hues. Leather squares applied to the walls similar to tiles create geometric patterns, perhaps the deconstructed essence to an animal hide, buffalos, horses, or reptile skin.
In the second gallery, approximately 50 small-scale drawings in marker and micron pen ornament the circumference of the room with a visual chair rail. Haas, Smith and Steeber collaborated on each picture%u23AFone woman would start the image, pass it on to the second artist and then the third would complete the drawing that again references growth and organic shapes in transformation as do the other site-specific installations.
These fresh, young artists strike an uncanny resemblance when seated alongside one another in the gallery. The long, cocoa colored hair on each artist, approximately the same length, envisions the perfect artistic trio. Haas recently finished two exclusive exhibitions in Chicago boutiques, named Eskell and Workshop, which will lead her to begin experimenting with textile design. Milwaukee's Katie Gingrass Gallery will feature Haas' work in April, the specific pieces only in her imagination for the moment.
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Smith participated in a Madison exhibition that will end on February 6 at the James Watrous Gallery (at the Overture Center for the Arts) with her entry into the “Handmade Meaning” exhibition titled Antlers. Here the animal's headdress wears handcrafted, beaded adornment similar to humans. Two other of Smith's artworks, titled Fish and Crabs, appear in a Pittsburgh Society for Contemporary Craft exhibition,
Steeber works outside the art field full time and then spends her free time publishing Fine Line Magazine, an art pictorial purely for appreciation, inspiration and reflection. She co-edits the magazine with Smith and the quarterly editions recently went to press for a release the weekend of February 25. Smith and Steeber desire to expand to a national market in 2011 now with the two premiere issues behind them.
While the three talk about what yet needs to be done, they also catch a quick lunch before completing the WPCA installation. There are four more paper sculptures to configure and mount on the ceiling above them, an effort that becomes extremely collaborative in every way. “It's been fun with three people to help and work with," Smith concludes. “We're absolutely excited about finishing the installations for the exhibition.”
Watch for the release of Fine Line in February, available at $10.00 an issue or $34.00 for an annual subscription, with additional publications in May, August and November. The WPCA exhibition continues through March 19.
