Ceramics, quilts and woodworking might be usual offerings at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, but the nearly 150 pieces included in the exhibit "Life Insight: The Human Experience" reinvent the familiar. The show pairs traditional craft forms with contemporary messages. "Life Insight" features the work of 87 artists exploring "the narrative of life," says Gail M. Brown, the guest curator. The art follows universal journeys: birth and death, community and loneliness, health and illness, violence and peace. Here are a few selections from the exhibit.
>> The open doors on Sarah Martin’s Ladyslipper welcome the viewer to look into the interior compartment of the basswood cabinet. "Cabinets are a deeply personal furniture form," says Martin in her artist’s statement. The soft, light-colored wood exterior is offset with red- and gold-toned fabric and small oblong pods nestled inside. The piece "is an expression of my desire for comfort. Ladyslipper emulates the feeling of security I have when I am surrounded by my family," she says.
>> Size alone draws the viewer to these almost-huggable figures. Dressed in red nightgowns (or perhaps choir robes), the dolls appear innocent enough until your gaze drops to the firearm each holds like a toy. Created from tapestry and coral beads, the Babes’ expressions and their guns seem equally life-like.
>> In her series of four quilted works entitled Real Price of War, Rebekka Seigel looks at coming-of-age in the years of World Wars I and II, Vietnam and Iraq. Using yearbook photos from each era, Seigel renders students’ images in fabric, aligning them in rows and columns, like an annual. Each work has details reflecting the culture of the time, as in Class of 1966 with peace signs nestled between images and the slogan "Make Love, Not War" quilted across the top and bottom.
The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (715 W. Main St.) will host "Life InSight: The Human Experience," until Nov. 4. For more information call 589-0102, or visit www.kentuckyarts.org.
