The 9 have been inspired to turn their focus on their own creative journeys, after 208 collective years of teaching, and to direct their attention to the connective meanderings in their lives. Over the past nine years, they have met monthly at their homes to reach an
understanding of literature and artmaking. Friendship, food, and art process are the foundations of their
diverse meanderings, presenting a distinct picture of the personalities, and life experiences that make
up this group.

In terms of process Ann Clark aims, in her own words, “to describe a world that speaks at once about
the macrocosm and the microcosm, with fiber as the connecting theme”. Her artwork is both figurative
and abstract, involving ideas of creation myths and metaphors of weaving and spinning, generating
ancient and symbolic connotations. The connection between “physical and metaphysical” or “the
corporeal to the spiritual” relates to the meanderings of other member’s work as well.

Wendy Thomas Felling shifts the physical to examine one’s “place” in the world with a longing to know where one stands. While intrigued with topographic maps, petroglyphs, X-rays, and “healing meditations”, her artwork includes cyanotype, papermaking, plaster casting, printing, and photomontage. Felling considers her work to represent the passage of time in relation to the physical
space documented in her “digital sketches” of proposed works. Her body castings serve as canvases to intertwine healing visions with X-rays to overcome injuries in herself and others.

Sally Greig’s hikes derive the observation of her own personal topography. Greig is a constant collector
as she gathers items during all her wanderings, considering her artwork and love of the decorative arts, often resulting in collage oriented work. Greig combines color, pattern, and texture with nature to
transform her work into a unique vision, on wall as well as wearable art.

While her travel leads to collection of various natural artifacts, Lauren Gandolfo’s artistic crusade motivates the gathering of “materials with a previous life” to create functional sculptures. Lauren’s fiber work can be described as architectural, combining various found textile objects into purposeful pieces such as purses, and bags of all sorts. Her pieces “pay homage” to historic artifacts and carry an overall
theme of, “What a wanderer carries with them on their search for the unexpected and how the bags that hold their treasures define their journey”. Her love of all things Nevada as her home, riveting her in “place”, is yet another ongoing topic in her work.

Karen Gulash found her “art voice” through creating a fantasy “place” in her meandering journey.
Gulash utilizes fabric and acrylic paint to create landscapes utilizing fabric. Her attraction to both craft
and the tactile translated into color and the natural world. Her landscapes locate the brilliance in
nature and gain a new dimension via texture.

From the physical realm of the earth to that of the metaphysical, Karen Laramore’s work explores the
resolution of both healing and endurance through portraiture. Using the narrative of her subjects,
Laramore’s work echoes the symbols that guide us to healing, honoring human strength, self-healing
ability, and the subjects’ access to metaphysical resources. Her portraiture often incorporates the
stereotypical “halo of light” around the area of the head which she interpreted as a light energy,
something like an aura. Various other iconographic symbols and styles were adapted for these “healing”
portraits. Current work denotes both a theme of healing while placing the subject in nature and the
meandering tributaries of human connection within the group. Another work utilizes the pattern of a
shawl knitted by the subject of the artwork and serves as an association with the textile orientation of
many of the pieces in the group show.

There is an almost “folkloric” and mythical link from Laramore’s pieces to Molly Moore’s work.
Moore’s artwork alternatively explores the primitive photographic techniques of cyanotype and eco
printing, as well as painting, collage and children’s art – both directly and indirectly. In the 1980’s she
first became aware of the CoBrA artistic movement which places importance on the process of art and
embraces primitive, mythical, graffiti, and folkloric artwork, along with spontaneity and
experimentation as that which is embodied in the artwork of children. Moore’s current work intends to
meander back to earlier forays into this experimental mindset.

Rebecca Rosenberg’s work, like Moore’s, is almost always rooted in mythologies. Rosenberg ‘s artwork
explores her natural meanderings through hand-built clay forms, that are then Raku fired, and often
rely on found objects. Her interests are derived from mythological sources, either from literature and art
history or family. The metaphorical inferences of weaving and stitching, and “the warps, wefts, webs
and knots intertwining and weaving us together, creating the networks, the fabric of our lives” are
resilient themes for Rosenberg.

Mythology and “place” ring true for Reena Spansail’s pieces. Spansail’s work illustrates magical
encounters with wild landscapes. Travel has influenced her artistic practice. Neolithic stone circles and
carvings, and intricate manuscripts, all impacted her process deeply. Symbolic knot-work echoes the
meandering journey through time and space that Reena took in visiting Ireland, as well as the history of
her ancestors.

All members of The 9 have intentionally meandered through diverse understandings together, to
present a particular vision to our audience.

For information about the exhibit and artists, please contact the curator, Maria Partridge • maria@sierra-arts.org