Klara Calitri, David Martin and Nina Gaby
Three Vermont Artists Define Clay in
"MUD"
Opening April 22 with an artist talk and reception 1-4
Rim
I am drawn to that edge,
the boundary between what is
and what is yet to be.
Flirting with a chance happening,
I meet gravity on its own terms.
All the while,
knowing the vessel would not
exist without it.
Statement:
David Martin, 2005
Klara Calitri was born in Vienna, Austria where she attended Real Gymnasium. She came to the United States in 1939.
Post High School Education included :
Trinity College, Burlington, VT
University of Vermont - Bachelor of Arts
Cornell University - Master of Arts in Comparative Literature
Columbia University - Doctoral Studies
Klara taught German at both Columbia University and the College of the City of New York. Subsequently, she spent many years teaching German, French and Spanish in Junior High school in Putnam Valley, N.Y.. At the same time she pursued her work as a professional artist.
Her work in ceramics, pastels, monotypes and oils has been shaped by a variety of influences, including her childhood surroundings in Vienna, Austria, the work of the Wiener Werkstatte and Impressionism. Her present works reflect the light and mood of the beautiful Vermont landscapes, orchards and gardens filtered through her unique cultural background. Her knowledge of art in other lands is brought forth in the variety of her murals and other ceramic creations.
Her paintings are first executed in other media and then adapted to ceramic design. She was attracted to the ceramic medium because of its light reflectiveness, historic tradition and scuptural and earthy properties, as well as its rugged permanence.
Klara Calitri's tiles and murals have been installed in many architectural contexts, including entryways, kitchens, fireplace surrounds and countertops. Decorative pictures have been adapted to tables, trays, serving carts, etc.. Glazed and fired to 2,000 degrees F., they are light, heat and acid proof. She has also done extensive work in functional ceramics. Her platters, bowls and plates are both decorative and highly practical. Klara's latest creations feature fountains in a nature motif - birds, shells, stones, sealife, etc. Klara’s current exhibits also feature her works in Monotypes and other media.
Privately owned works are in collections in Vermont, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Arizona, New Jersey, Washington D.C., Florida, Texas, Utah, at corporate offices in New Jersey as well as Canada, Great Britain and Switzerland. She is honored that President Clinton purchased one of her bowls when attending the national Governors conference in Burlington, VT in 1995. U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the owner of some of her works, has exhibited one of her three-dimensional creations on his government web site. The original has been on display in his senate office in Washington D.C.
Nina has a long history with clay, from her first love affair with the medium in an otherwise unremarkable high school career. She then attended Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, Israel, followed by a BFA from The School of American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York. She ran a clay studio for many years, her porcelain work in the permanent collections of The Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution and the permanent collection of Arizona State University, among others. Afer a hiatus of 20 years (which included a Master's in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing) she has now returned to her first love. Gaby is focusing on low-fire experimental work and mixed-media.
Past Shows:
About the Artists
Easy Breezy Artists:
Nina Gaby, VT: clay bowls and bottles, assorted ephemera
Mindy Jackson Jefferys, VT: polymer clay jewelry
Chris London, CT: clay masks, rattles, rakes and dolls
Stephen Merritt, NY: porcelain vases
Orlando Ortiz, NY: latino-inspired assemblage
Tiffany Ownbey, NC: papier maiche sculpture
Gene Parent, VT: locally-inspired landscape and still life
Sally Penrod, VT: water color still life and landscape
Annie Tiberio, VT: color photography and cards
Susan Torchia, VT: mixed media jewelry
Janet Van Fleet, VT: mixed metal sculpture
Carrie Van Hee, CA: rolled silver and lampwork jewelry
Eva Weiss, NY: hand-colored photographs
Tamara Wight, VT: gathering baskets and reed-work
12 regional and national artists are featured in:
Objects of Focus:
Shrines, Dolls and Fetishes
Diane Aleela - Worcester, Vermont:
Installation
Barbara Merfeld Campman - Poultney, Vermont:
Mixed media shrines and collage
Anna Ferri - Brookfield, Vermont:
Fabric collage
Nina Gaby - Brookfield, Vermont:
Clay shrines, smoked earthenware dolls, amulets and fetish sculpture
Chris London - Hartford, Connecticut:
Clay dolls, masks, rakes and rattles
David Martin - Brandon, Vermont:
Fetishes
Orlando Ortiz - Rochester, New York:
Mixed media shrines
Tiffany Ownbey - Rutherfordton, North Carolina:
Mixed media dolls
Janet Van Fleet - Barre, Vermont:
Mixed media oracles, button dolls
Carrie Van Hee - Santa Cruz, California:
Amulet jewelry
Wink Willet - Randolph, Vermont:
Digital images
Gaby single amulet earrings
Nina Gaby, owner and curator, has been building small shrines and nichos from wood, and clay for several years, having shown at Gallery in the Wood, Studio Place Arts, Chandler Gallery and Shelburne Craft School Gallery. While heavily influenced by assemblage artists such as Joseph Cornell and third world folk art, Gaby explores contemporary issues such as politics, isolation and death. Her tiny amulet jewelry housed in individual decorated matchboxes, and her humorous pocket shrines serve as antidote to overarching concerns that beset our culture. Gaby’s years as a psychotherapist and her fascination with behavioral manifestation of conflict has led to a grouping of fetish totems and smoked earthenware dolls.
Van Fleet button dolls
Van Fleet shrine
A number of Vermont artists are featured, including Janet Van Fleet, co-founder of Studio Place Arts in Barre, whose mystical and esoteric images are well known throughout the state. Barbara Merfeld Campman, from Poultney, also a pioneer in the arts in Vermont having established the River Gallery School in Brattleboro, is showing meditative shrine and altar assemblages which she creates from paint, paper and found objects. Similarly, David Martin has been a force in the art movement in Brandon, an engineer by day; Martin uses his studio time to create wonderful and bizarre furniture from old tires and fetish like objects from discarded technical materials. Wink Willett contributes to the arts in Central Vermont in his role as chair of the Chandler Center for the Arts Gallery Committee. His digital images of monks at prayer, Asian shrines, and offering bowls document the beauty of devotion across cultures. Fabric artist Anna Ferri, one of the three artists in Gaby’s inaugural show, shows a sanctuary backdrop in quilted brocade, similar to other pieces of her work which grace the walls of houses of worship in a number of cities. And poet Diane Aleela is showing an installation which depicts the deconstruction of myth and ritual. Aleela will also read from her poetry at the opening party, joined by Brookfield’s Carol Liasson who will read Tarot for the guests.
Ownbey
North Carolina artist Tiffany Ownbey creates “doll” sculpture from papier- maiched strips of antique bibles and dress patterns, vintage porcelain, and other objects which serve as backdrop for her startling and meticulous images. Her manipulation of otherwise recognizable forms cause the viewer to at least subconsciously stop and question the distortion of one’s own life, if but for an instant. It is very exciting to have her work in Vermont.
As is the case with the other national artists Chris London, Orlando Ortiz, Alix Mosieur and Carrie Van Hee. London’s hand built clay rakes, rattles, masks and dolls again take the recognizable form and stretch it, decorate it with visual symbols, and turn it into work that begs to held and carried. A Connecticut artist, her work has been shown in southern Vermont and around the country, and again, it is the first time central Vermont viewers can see and purchase it. Ortiz is very well known in western New York for his fabric work and costuming. His Mexican-inspired shrines, adorned with milagros and saints, take the viewer to a space of comfort and familiarity. Mosieur’s “Elvis” retablos were a hit in the show she shared with her Gaby sisters at Chandler last fall. The iconographic triptych form paired with the pop images are a blatant and charming statement of our cultural values. Mosieur, from Oregon, exhibits widely in the north and southwest. The rolled silver charms on lamp-worked bead strands from California artist Van Hee provide gentle reminders of inspiration and focus. She works calligraphic symbols into each piece which she then pairs with her own worked glass. Van Hee has shown her jewelry widely for over thirty years and we are very pleased to feature this new work.
Ortiz "Halo" Van Hee necklace Gaby "The Waiting"