CARLA STETSON: Ornithography

The Gallery at FOUND is pleased to welcome a new show by CARLA STETSON. The exhibit opens Wednesday, September 14th, with an artist’s reception on Thursday, September 15th from 5-7 pm. We invite you to stop in and meet the artist and enjoy light refreshments and delicious treats. The show will be on display in the Gallery through October 17th.

Stetson’s mixed media prints are characterized by transformation. Unlikely elements combine into new and hybrid entities. She works with a broad range of techniques and media, from mixed media works on paper to large-scale installations. She has taught art for many years to all ages of students and now teaches art studio classes and art education at Ithaca College. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Ms. Stetson lived in Duluth, Minnesota, for twenty years before moving to Ithaca where she has converted a barn into her studio. She is known for her three commissioned public sculptures in Duluth, including The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, the first large scale memorial for victims of a lynching in the United States. This park features two cast concrete walls with incised quotations and bronze figures, a curved walkway and landscaping.

Here’s what the artist has to say about ORNITHOGRAPHY: I lived for twenty years next to Hawk Ridge, an important flyway for migratory birds on Lake Superior. A bird-watching community of humans assembles there every fall, to count species and admire these birds, another migration of sorts. This series of mixed media prints, Ornithology, comes from this fascination with birds and considers the complexity of this interspecies relationship.

This project began with a found book about the history of bird illustration from prehistoric times to the present. At first I began to cut the birds out to use in collages and then I became more intrigued by the holes that were left; the bird-shaped spaces or ghost images. These became a provocative ground to work with. I’ve deconstructed and transformed these images, added my own photographs and updated the environment for these depicted birds. They become sentinels – watchers and witnesses to a constructed world, as now their wilderness habitats shrink daily.