Northern Illinois University Visiting Artist

It was a huge honor to be one of two invited visiting artists at Northern Illinois University from September 11-16, 2022. Laura Berman was the other invited artist which was super exciting as I have always admired her work! The 6 day visit had a number of moving parts including the reception for the Meeting of the Markers exhibition in the Jack Olson Gallery (see separate post), artist lectures and working with the students to create a large scale, site specific installation.

The creation of the site specific installation, Taking Shape was a huge undertaking for the 6 day trip. Taking shape is installed in the Johns Gallery at NIU. It’s a collaboration project that ended up included about 50 peoples hands in creation. The work began as a drawing exchange between @bermanlaura @rachelbeerprints @art.by.amb and I. We spend the whole summer creating drawings and sending them to each other to create drawings in response. Rachel and Alex were proactive and made blocks and screens with our drawings so we could print when Laura Berman and I arrived in Dekalb. Laura and I worked with all of the printmaking classes that week printing and cutting things for the show. I am really proud of everyones hard work on this project.

Special thanks to Michael Barnes and Wes Beeler for helping us print and letting us work with your classes. Huge thanks to all of the fantastic grads at NIU for all of your help and to all of the students who helped us print.