17th Annual Holiday Arts Tour, downtown Ruston, November 20-23, 2014 Don't miss the 202 N Vienna listing on this year's Holiday Arts Tour map. We will have 7 artists plus the Piney Hills Quilt Guild with displays, in addition to the Round-Robin Poetry Reading on Saturday and Sprout Sunday. We'll go over artists now and will cover the special events tomorrow. Let's get started...
First up, we have an exhibit of quilts by members of the Piney Hills Quilt Guild,which is based in Dubach, LA. The quilters will have large quilts on display that represent a number of quilting styles and methods, as well as some smaller art quilts. These will look amazing on the large walls in the building, as well as in the windows.
The next group of artists are currently MFA candidates at Louisiana Tech University. In case you don't know, Tech's School of Design is incredible, and these artists are examples of such. They will all have work at this stop on the Tour.
Zachary McCauley - says "Growing up in the American South, I have always been surrounded by and been aware of ideas that the region is one of magic, pride, family unity, and rich history.... This ongoing collection of images represents the camaraderie and love that I share with displaced or forgotten spaces, moments, and objects foun during my recent period of uprootedness within the South from one state, both geographically and emotionally, to another."
Meredith McGregor - Graphic Designer, Illustrator, and studio artist. Her work is a combination of her love for storytelling and a fascination with juxtaposing images. It is influenced by mysteries surrounding family history, her family’s relationships with each other, and the different demons that people cope with. Meredith says she has "chosen to work with collage because I would like for my pieces to have a surreal and fabricated quality. The process of finding, cutting, and tearing items allows me to have a wide range of color and texture as I bring my stories to life."
Adrianna Speer - says "I inherited my love of painting from my grandmother, Granny Boots. From a very young age, Granny Boots would bring me “artin’” with her every week in Magnolia, Arkansas. I knew from the first day I picked up a paint brush I was going to be an artist. Since then my focus has been painting and drawing which has propelled me into earning my Bachelor of Fine Arts from Louisiana State University, studying in Ireland at Burren College of Art as well as studying in France at Atelier de la Rose." She enjoys exploring the relationships between color and space "to create a believable scape in a work of art."
Megan Landis - functional ceramic artist. Her work focuses on creating a new existence for lost and forgotten forms destroyed through time, fragility and commonness. She received Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Drawing & Painting and Ceramics from The University of North Texas in Denton, Texas in 2008 and has worked as a post-baccalaureate student in Ceramics at Collin College in Plano, Texas. She is now pursuing a MFA in Studio, concentrating in Ceramics. Her current work is an exploration of common historical forms, glaze experimentation and a study of firing techniques. Megan donated some fantastic mugs for NCLAC this year as part of our 2014 Membership Drive. Thanks, Megan!
Jenna Fincher - comes from south Louisiana. She earned her BFA in studio art with a minor in art history from Nicholls State University in May 2012. There she focused on figure drawing. She is concentrating in Studio Art for her MFA. She creates artwork through experiments with media and traditional and technological processes. Her current work is informed by childhood memories of home, with an interest in the idea of human presence.
Hannah Cooper McCauley - received a BFA from Jacksonville State University in 2012. She enjoys working in narrative photography, both digital and analogue, and her most recent project Seven Days addresses the complexities of growing up based on the transitory nature of her childhood. Hannah's work has been exhibited in group shows at various venues internationally, including the Houston Center for Photography, Photoplace Gallery (VT), and the Pingyao, China International Photography Festival. In 2013, she was awarded the Board of Regents Fellowship at Louisiana Tech University, which serves as a collaboration between the Departments of Art, Engineering, and Science.
Kathy Crow - an artist interested in "how fairytales and mythology both tie into the real world and act as an escape from it....There is also a sense of wonder to these stories, as they are always filled with the understanding that the impossible things they describe are commonplace somewhere." Kathy's current body of work consists of using lasercut paper painted and floated on the wall to show not only direct representations of these stories, but to give a hint at the deeper meanings within.
A BIG THANKS to Patricia Willis, owner of The Children's Shoppe, for letting NCLAC use her empty storefront at 202 N Vienna for Holiday Arts Tour. It's been wonderful to have this large space to use for a variety of purposes. Her offer was very generous, and we appreciate it!
We'll be back tomorrow with the special events that will take place at this site during Holiday Arts Tour.