Interviews with Artists

 

Jason Wolff has been featured in the Ohio Craft Museum gift shop, and has been an artist at Columbus Winterfair and Greater Cincinnati Winterfair for many years. We asked Jason what he is doing in his studio during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“During the COVID-19 we have been focusing on reorganizing the studio and website due to production needs. Currently we are not able to purchase supplies through our clay distributors. I have been making some smaller items like our wine stoppers and pilsner mugs. I would say right now, my inspiration has been stemming from home brewing beer. I am currently thinking about making a interpretation of a fermenter. We will see if it happens with the limited supplies [I have available].

Right now our main focus had been about our children, Phoebe (2), and Sophie (6), who are homeschooling like so many other families. It is crazy times right now but we realize that there are more important things than making pots right now.”

You can find more about Jason Wolff on his website,   and you can purchase his pottery here. Jason is also on Instagram– @jasonwolffpottery and Facebook.

 

 

 

 

 

Interview by Kim Nagorski

Cody F. Miller is one of 18 central Ohio artists whose work is featured in the Best of 2019, Ohio Designer Craftsmen’s 36^th annual juried members’ exhibition, presented at the Ohio Craft Museum in the spring/summer of 2019.

 

K:When did you start painting, and when did you add collage to your technique?

Cody: I majored in illustration at CCAD, and I had to take painting classes. I picked up collage during my senior year—1995. I was just really taken with the combination of cut paper and paint.

K: Describe your technique.

Cody: I start with a sketch, then transfer the image and begin to layer colors. I always have a general idea in mind about how I’m going to lay down color and what the final product will look like, but there’s also an element of chance involved when I start adding textures and patterns. I love that chain reaction between laying an image down and rethinking that image. I’m somewhat in control, but there’s a kind of back-and-forth dance.

K: Where do you find your patterns and images?

Cody: It’s a constant hunt wherever I go for anything that will strike me. I’ve collected so many items over the years that are just waiting to find a new home. I like the serendipity of the fact that wherever I go, something always stands out to me. I’ve found books about buttons, an old poster from a circus that came to Dayton, second-grade readers from 1988.

K: How does your faith inspire your work?

Cody: It’s like the glasses I see everything through. A common theme runs through a lot of my images, based on how I understand and see things, and how other people deal with events in their lives. There are themes in the Scripture about the beautiful, amazing and profound that can happen to us in the darkness. My work looks at that contrast of emotions—the contrast between mourning and celebrating—and what we do with that. How do we not let the darkness take over the light? I use metaphors and symbols to show a quiet kind of hope; sometimes it’s funny, other times, sad.

K: Where do you sell your work?

Cody: Hayley Gallery in New Albany represents me, and I sell work through my own website. I participate in regional art festivals. I also do illustration work for different companies, including a company out of Chicago that I’ve worked with for four years.

K: What’s your favorite thing about the Columbus arts scene right now?

Cody: There are a lot of opportunities for artists in Columbus to promote their work in terms of all the amazing grants through OAC and GCAC. My work has been displayed on a billboard, as well as a mural outside of the A&R Bar in the Arena District. I’ve been able to go to Cuba twice thanks to a grant from GCAC, and I continue to work with different people at different organizations across the city, including Ohio Designer Craftsmen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interview by Kim Nagorski

The Ohio Craft Museum’s annual holiday sale, Gifts of the Craftsmen, offers unique gifts handcrafted by over 100 artists from Ohio and across the United States. Each year, the sale features work by several new artists: in 2019, we featured whimsical greeting cards by Columbus illustrator Simran Khaira.

 

K: When did you start drawing?

Simran: I’ve been drawing and painting my whole life. Both of my parents love to draw, and they encouraged my siblings and I from a young age to make art. We would often sit at the kitchen table and draw together after school.

K: Did you study art in college?

Simran: No, I went to OSU to study Chinese!

K: What influenced you to begin creating art full time?

Simran: Making art is something that I was inevitably unable to escape! I had initially thought of going to college to study fine arts, but ended up following my love of languages instead. During my studies, I wrote my thesis on Chinese picture books. I also took a year of painting classes while studying abroad. Even when I graduated and began work as an adjunct Chinese professor, I was always drawing in my free time.

In 2015, I decided to draw every single day for a year, to see if I really could do it like it was my job. After that, I had an abundant portfolio of sketches and doodles that were just waiting for me to do something with—which is how SquidCat, Ink, was born!

K: Describe your technique.

Simran: I begin with an idea—either of a humorous saying or a particular image—and I draw a few sketches until I can get the kind of expression that I want. I develop that into a larger composition drawn in pen, and think about what kind of mood I want to color in before applying watercolors.

K: What inspires your art?

Simran: I find inspiration for my cards in the silly things that I find funny in my everyday life: anecdotes of my family, friends and pets. Combined with my love of animals, puns and vibrant colors, they are the fountain of creativity that allows me to create art for SquidCat, Ink!

K: Finally, where did your business name come from?

Simran: SquidCat is a creature I created that would show up often in the margins of notebooks during my school years. So, as part of the main cast of drawings throughout the years, she seemed to be a fitting avatar for a business that was inspired by doodling!