New & Now: Emerging Artists of Ohio 2023

With interests in a variety of sculptural methods, Telzerow’s work focuses on form and the tactile, fluid nature of glass and its ability to exist in thick and thin states. Influenced by her love for the complexity and vitality of natural spaces, and how they gently mirror our human experiences of growth and change, her most recent pursuits in glass play with color and light, using multiple methods of making to create a single form.

firegardenglass.com

@firegardenglass

Studio Song: Suit and Jacket by Judah & the Lion

At its core, the foundation of a weaving is a grid. Through the process, the warp interconnects with the weft and together they create cloth. Math is heavily involved in my weavings. Counting threads helps keep the work geometric and organized. Weaving is technical, but the dye process to achieve such vibrant colors is very unconstrained and free. Color excites me, and weaving allows for new colors to be created by the different strands in the warp and weft. There is something very soothing about weaving. The repetitive nature and the methodical planning leave a lot of room for thinking and reflection when completing work.

romyanderson.com

@art.romyanderson

Studio Song: Dog Days Are Over by Florence And The Machine

In my work, I combine traditional woodcraft techniques with a modern mindset, transforming domestic and exotic woods into unique pieces of art, functional art and furniture. I select each piece of wood with care and allow its innate beauty to inspire me. When creating my work, it’s my intent to use the wood’s grain to guide the viewer’s eye to the fine details of the completed design. I enjoy incorporating open spaces in my designs; I feel this highlights the natural beauty of my chosen material.

@Woodenobjex

As an artist, I allow my audience opportunities for reflection. My artworks challenge viewers to slow their conscious stream, and mindfully examine how it flows and to where it may be heading.

As a glass artist, I utilize line pattern and exploit the optic qualities of glass in the creation of interactive, sculptural objects. The intuitive yet curious qualities of the interactive behave as a device, allowing a participant to approach, take action and reflect upon the object’s reaction. The work explores topics relating to self-identity and its formation, interdependence, kinetic potential and cultivating mindfulness.

My actions as a maker are transferred to my audience through the format of an interactive. Providing moments of introspection for the participants of my artworks provides me with a sense of purposeful action.

www.michaelmentz.com

@michaelmccheeseman

Studio Song: Blue World by Mac Miller

Clay is a time capsule, a material that holds marks and gestures of the hand and flame, remembering and documenting the interactions and intentions of its surroundings. This cooperation between material and maker are perpetuated and preserved through hardening by fire. By firing my work in atmospheric kilns, I use the marks of the flame as a metaphor for remembrance of struggle and strength, while placing my work within a long history of traditional firing methods.

By using local clay, I situate my work within space and time. Each shovelful of clay harvested is unique, separating itself from the homogeneity of the supply chain and processed, factory-made materials. The wild clay used to create this work remembers the glacial melts that made it, the plants, animals and civilizations that grew above it, and it remembers the process of hands building from it. It is a permanent reminder of this space and the histories that it has seen.

For many, this land is remembered as a life source, giving food and shelter, giving coal and clay, timber and salt. It has been a symbol of trauma, removal and dispossession, but also of prosperity and of steadfast strength. Through strife and turmoil, the land has remained. This body of work upholds those experiences of Appalachian life, poverty, work, familiarity and oral history, adding to the time capsule by exploring the material experience of working with and firing clay.

Liam McSteen is a ceramics artist and art historian from Athens, OH. He graduated from Ohio University with two degrees from the Honors Tutorial College in the Spring of 2023.

www.mcsteenpotteryco.com

@mcsteenpotteryco

Studio Song: Veridis Quo by Daft Punk

My work explores the acceptance of grief using automatic drawing, hollow vessels, contrasting colors and abstraction. I often use automatic drawing and a spontaneous way of working to process dreams and stories relating to grief and joy. My work is primarily made in flameworked glass, a technique historically explored by women, to create hollow vessels and three-dimensional linework. Additionally, I contrast bright and playful colors with dark and dull colors to abstractly represent mourning; the process of looking back on happy memories but being sad that you have lost them.

            Because of my background in photography, I think in terms of positive/negative relations, especially when I work with hollow glass. Flameworked glass has historically been done by women, who were employed to make vessels, vials and lightbulbs in factories. I am also fascinated by glass as a container, which I relate to women because they were once only valued because of their ability to contain life. Therefore, flameworked glass feels like an appropriate medium to explore the grief and family stories of women in my life.

             Both in my glass and in my prints, I use automatic linework as a playful, spontaneous and fun way to work. However, since drawing explores my subconscious, it often comes from a place of unease due to my neurodivergence. Even when I work in a spontaneous and playful way, pain often takes over and my work shows that. I like to use surface treatments such as sandblasting, painting and drawing on the glass, which echo the drawing in the prints. In the same way, my glass relates to the lines created in the prints through the use of networking.

            My work is very experimental, and glass can be unpredictable, so it never ceases to surprise me. Those surprises and happy accidents then become a part of my process, and I believe that it leads me to discoveries about myself and my subconscious too. With these discoveries, I seek to heal myself and others through my work, which attempts to accept and acknowledge grief and pain as parts of life.

@luciacrmota

Studio Song: Windowpane by Opeth

I am both an artist and an outdoorsman, and my works memorialize my appreciation for outdoor activities. Above the handle on a bow I made there lies a painted banner inscribed with the phrase, “Such as we are you shall be”— a medieval statement that refers to the inevitability of death, both for the hunted and the hunter. The phrase faces me as I hold the bow, aiming, and reminds me to focus on the responsibility of taking a life. The dead component is the animal I kill, the living component is me—the archer and artificer of both death and the instrument of its delivery.

Many of my pieces formally reference medieval reliquaries, which are metal containers that hold the relic of a saint, such as a fragment of bone or an article of cloth. It is the ways in which we venerate the deceased that interests me, and within my work, I adapt this idea to indicate the presence of wild game, and my connection to these creatures through outdoor recreation. My reliquaries serve as a reminder to the significance that hunting and fishing has on directing my moral compass.

@ lucpmetals

Studio Song: Ever and a Day by AFI

John Fifield-Perez finds honest expression of moments of intimacy through blind contour drawings, and they continue to be a foundational practice for him, connecting hand to eye and looking to feel. They engage physical and emotional attention in witnessing chosen family and the shared spaces they define.

Line drawings from Fifield-Perez and his husband of themselves and each other become source imagery for abstract jacquard tapestries. Drawings are layered, magnified and cropped to create a more open and capacious visual composition. In addition, extemporaneous horizon lines disrupt the composition and invert figure-ground relationships, bridging queer subjects and spaces. The tapestries exist at an undefined juncture of drawing, painting and weaving. The color pairings derive from a dyed palette of observed and hybridized skin tones.

@john.fifieldperez

Studio Song: Padam Padam by Kylie Minogue