Collection: Fresh Work | Week Three

Jill Reedy’s fiber works are tender tributes to the natural world. Growing up on a hobby farm in a family of then 9 children, Reedy connected with her father through their shared love of birds, and with her mother through creative projects. Her carefully felted sculptures, each an original composition, reflect the tranquility she feels in nature.

Kramer Hegenbarth explores texture, fantasy, and humor in his recent series of ceramic monster mouths. Riddled with spiky appendages, rolling out forked tongues, and caught saying “Aah,” works like The Creep playfully toe the line between familiar forms and imaginary beasts.

Nicole Noblet uses the process of making art to contemplate questions that she has about people, animals, and the environment. “I have all these ideas in my head, and it helps me get all that stuff out when I make art,” she says. Recycled materials are an important part of her work. In her recent collages and felted pieces, she repurposes small scraps of paper and yarn from a collection of found objects that she’s been adding to for years.

Eric Sherarts’s recent mosaics are a kaleidoscopic mix of fruits, flowers, and underwater life. Sherarts is a devoted athlete and professional wrestling enthusiast. Music is an important part of his work, and he listens to 80s rock and roll while he works in the studio.

For W.S. Norton, flowers represent the delicate balance within natural ecosystems as well as the interconnectedness of life on earth. His work illuminates both the fragility and persistence of his subjects. “Flowers need bees, butterflies, the wind,” he says. “I like the strength in nature. Although we’re working to destroy some of it, it’s going to survive.”

Special thanks to Xavier Tavera for these portraits of the artists.