PRESS RELEASE
January 14, 2011 - February 12, 2011
Please join us at the opening reception from 5-8 on Friday, January 14.
Gina and Kay will give an informal gallery talk starting at 1:00 on Saturday, January 15.
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This show is sponsored by Commercial Printing. We thank them for their support of the arts and for many years of printing our monthly postcards.
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Artist/Exhibition Statement: Kay O’Rourke / Gina Freuen
Sisters: usually defined as female siblings but also defined as a female friend or a partner in mission or advocacy. We are sisters, siblings, friends and partners in over 30 years of working as professional artists within the Pacific Northwest artistic communities. As siblings our work could possibly be reflective of our upbringing, artistic, literary, and developed around an agricultural heritage, an interesting mix. As friends and partners, the mutual respect we give one another in support of the continued growth of each other’s work, paintings, mixed media and ceramic sculpture, has helped foster its continued presence and collectability within the region. Both of us are artists whose work is at a mature, collectable phase. It has changed in theme and process over the decades but it has remained unique to each, recognizable as ours, and professional.
“My (Kay) paintings and mixed media assemblages are usually jumpstarted by something I am reading in conjunction with what is happening in my life. The two intermix to create the images I choose to use in my work. This year the novel “The Stones Remember” by Patrick Lane, spoke of a Celtic myth about a brown trout kept in the bottom of a well to keep it clean. Over the centuries this myth changed to throwing pennies in the well for good luck and the brown trout became the Fish God who held the hidden knowledge of the earth. Stories change with our experiences and time.
The year 2010 leading up to this exhibit has been a highly charged year in regards to the demands on professional time made by family crisis. I (Kay) also felt the novel “ Light Boxes,” by Shane Jones was an important one when mixed with “The Stones Remember,” and in conjunction with my life being kept on hold for long periods of time. “Light Boxes” was a delicious dark fantasy that asked: “What does one do when you cannot move forward at a moment in time?”
“I (Gina) will be the first to say that my work has little literary reference but does exhibit an allegorical reference to a moment in time. However, if I were to suggest a literary reference, I suggest reading, “Soda, Clay and Fire” by Gail Nichols.
This year my work, which is both sculptural and functional, atmospheric fired stoneware and porcelain, has been reflective of the life changing experience, helping parents complete their life journey. There is reference to life’s passing and dementia through the more figurative aspect of my forms when in the past the figure was alluded to but left to the patron’s eye to establish. The work for this show was fired in a beautiful anagama kiln over on the west side of Washington State and in my own kiln, which I have adapted to fire with wood and soda. I acknowledge that the pleasure a patron experiences when touching, holding, or using my work is of utmost importance in why I continue to work with ceramic forms.
While both of us will suggest our work for this exhibit is referencing a story or a life passage this year, we are both hopeful that the patron will read in to our works their own story. We feel our work must stand alone without our personal stories being known, allowing the viewer the private pleasure of creating their own interpretations, reading into the work their own life experience, making the work both personal to the artist but also personal to the patron.”
“ART SHOULD DO THAT--- ALLOW YOU TO SEE SOMETHING IN YOURSELF BEYOND WHAT SEEMS TO BE KNOWN. MY SISTER GINA FREUEN DOES HER OWN MYTH MAKING USING THE ELEMENTS OF THE EARTH AND ENTERTWINING THEM WITH HER OWN EXPERIENCES. IN THESE THINGS WE ARE SIMILAR. WE HAVE FAMILIAR ROOTS AND BONDS THAT SPREAD OUT TO EMBRACE OUR DIFFERENT LIFE EXPERIENCES.” Kay O’Rourke
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