Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design Announces New Artists-in-Residence

    99ZrUTSzs1ybdqXVOTmBGa9UWqGvkG7hIJ0uHSzMvxI

     ST. LOUIS, MO ­– This year, Craft Alliance will welcome six new artists to its studio. The artists specialize in ceramics, metals and fibers.

    Emily Chao, Grace Kubilius, Robert Thomas Mullen, Norleen Nosri, Audrey Peck, and Evan Wagman will all participate in The Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program at Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design. The program supports emerging and mid-career artists working in ceramics, metals, and fiber by providing them with a state of the art workspace, access to a built-in audience, and an opportunity to exhibit and sell their work.

    By having open studio hours and teaching classes and workshops, the six artists will help demonstrate to the public the processes involved in creating studio craft art.

    The Grand Center studios at Craft Alliance welcome students of diverse backgrounds and skill levels to explore craft techniques in ceramics, wood turning, metal, fiber arts, 3D printing, and graphics by offering classes taught by experienced professionals, working artists, and the artists-in-residence.

    Executive Director Boo McLoughlin notes, “The creative community we have nurtured in our Grand Center location continues to grow and evolve with every new group of Artists-in-Residence who come through our doors and we cannot wait to see what this group of talented artists will create.”

    Emily Chao (fiber – December, 2014-August, 2015): Emily Chao is a fiber artist who was born and raised in St. Louis, Mo. Having recently completed her studies in the fiber department at Savannah College of Art and Design, she has returned to St. Louis with plans to continue her art career in her hometown. Emily’s passions lie in tapestry weaving and experimentation with digital printing and embroidery.

    Grace Kubilius (fiber – June-November, 2014): Grace Kubilius is a Chicago based fiber artist whose work includes material construction, garment making, and movement choreography. She graduated with a BFA in Fiber and Experimental Fashion from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013. Her studies also include the Paris College of Art and The Art Institute of Chicago. She has been involved in several fashion shows and performance events, produced three collections of garments, and showed her work at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Often using found and salvaged materials, her practice reflects the ideology that all materials are equal. Destruction and reconstruction, the apocalypse, monster imagery, and human body movement all inform her work.

    Robert Thomas Mullen (metals – March-August, 2015): Robert Thomas Mullen received a BFA in metalsmithing and photography from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and a MFA in metalsmithing from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. Since completing his MFA, he has been an artist-in-residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and lived in Estonia where he assisted internationally recognized jeweler Tanel Veenre. 

    Norleen Nosri (ceramics – September, 2014-August, 2015): Born and raised in Malaysia, Norleen came to the United States to study business at Columbia College, but soon discovered her interest in art. She completed a BFA in Ceramics, with an Art History minor at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2010. She continued her studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia earning her MFA in Ceramics in 2013. Currently, Nosri works as a studio artist exhibiting her work nationally, as well as teaching and staying involved in the local arts community.

    Audrey Peck (metals – June, 2014-February, 2015): Audrey Peck completed her BFA at Oklahoma State University in 2004 and earned her MFA at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. She has been an active member of the metalsmith community for over 10 years and has shown in exhibitions at the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, NC, Equinox Gallery in San Antonio, TX, and Fancy in Seattle, WA.

    Evan Wagman (ceramics – December, 2013-August, 2014): Evan Wagman earned his MFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. He has instructed wheel throwing and hand building classes at Montclair Art Museum and served as Ceramic Director and teacher at IM Studio in Highland, NJ. Wagman’s fascination with the inherent properties of clay is expressed through his work, which reflects the intrinsic character and beauty of the medium while respecting its natural limitations. For Wagman, these limitations represent our own limits as human beings.

    Claire Wright, Social Media and Marketing Intern