Featured Artists Exhibit May/Jun 2024
May 14 – June 22
Opening reception May 24 from 6-9 pm. There will also be a Second Friday reception on June 14.
Featuring Carroll Lassiter, Peg Bachenheimer, guest artists Deborah Harris, Judith Ernst, and Kathy Armacost.
Carroll Lassiter
Moving through the quiet areas of North Carolina, Carroll looks for that perfect moment when light and landscape meet. She notes the three stages of her art process:
First there is inspiration. A thrill or energy is generated by the angle of light, a particular form, a relationship of sky to ground.
Then the work begins in capture. Reaching to recreate the specific moment of sensory excitement.
And finally, magic happens when that delight is transmitted to the viewer.
Peg Bachenheimer
Peg is an intuitive, abstract painter inspired by nature, memories, life and her feelings. She explains, “as I paint a memory or feeling emerges and becomes part of the process of building layers of color and texture. These memories are based on places I’ve been, music I’ve heard, people I’ve connected with and experiences I’ve had.”
Sometimes her work is abstract and sometimes landscape based. This series represents the emotional impact as she leaves her home of 37 years to find a new place and way to live. And, some of the paintings are about her feelings of grief and growing acceptance of the recent loss of her sister, Katharine.
Deborah Harris
The whiteness of the clay body, black sgraffito imagery, along with the celadon glaze used by Deborah, creates work reminiscent of the Cizhou kilns from the Song Dynasty of China. Deborah is inspired and motivated by the designs of this time period – as they express the natural world with insects and plants along with mythical creatures.
Deborah believes hand crafted functional pottery serves an intimate connection between user and herself. Objects handled during everyday routines become familiar and comfortable. You have to see, hold and use her works to truly enjoy their unique beauty.
Judith Ernst
Judith’s work as a ceramist focuses on the interplay of traditional forms and sculptural expression. She uses the vessel form conceptually because it has an inner dimension surrounded by an outer surface that interacts with the outside world.
She plays with this dichotomy in the wonderfully complex and alluring pieces on display in this exhibit. She explains that a closed form is naturally extroverted. But her vessels, with small openings to an interior, suggest an introversion – with a mysterious inner space.
The changing angles of the various connecting planes of her work leads the eye to the inside of the vessel, opening a dialogue between the vessel’s outer planes and inner spaces.
Kathy Armacost
Kathy’s work is directed by nature, history, architecture, dreams, and everything else she comes in contact with. She explains, “I don’t always know how a painting starts; sometimes an image or color, texture, music or even a scent will stay with me and push me toward a beginning. I like to bring to the work all the contradictions, doubt and humor of the day.”
Her goal is to keep the work alive. And the atmospheric mystery that surrounds you when you stand before her pieces will draw you in to that living world.
