yay, yay, yay!!!!

The Kentucky Art Council called me today to tell me I am a recipient of their Al Smith Fellowship!!!! It's a fellowship to support an artist's work, and the award is based primarily on artistic merit. I cannot believe it, really. Ask my friend and colleague Lisa, who upon querying last Friday re: the notification date, I said, well, I'm not really paying attention since the feasibility of me winning is nil.

My friend Robert said to me yesterday, you're developing one hell of an Appalachian inferiority complex. Yep.

I am so excited especially since I was freaking out about the Europe trip upcoming, and even though the workshops I've been busy with are covering the costs, putting some money away in the bank is always nice as well. This puts all that to rest.

Other than hysterically jumping up and down re: the fellowship, I'm in the mist of teaching through the Morehead Writing Project, which is loads of fun. My friend Emma (the art ed prof @ MSU) is also able to hang out and get crafty wit' us, so it's all that much more pleasant.

I've been so privileged this year to hit on a lot of lucky breaks with the art and also professional opportunities. Makes me wonder when the coal truck is going to run me over (I shouldn't even joke about that.....).

One new finished piece, mock-up for current work in new series

As aforementioned, here's an image of the piece finished while up @ Miami U . . .


Jennifer A. Reis
Acts of Contrition, 2007
6 x 4", hand-worked embellished textile assemblage

and a mock-up of the next big piece, also from the new series . . .

The piece is tentatively titled "Who Knows How To Be". Using paper, like the cut out crow shapes and the paper towel (to represent the banner, which will be embroidered with the words "a wife, a mother, and a professional". Those metal pieces at the top are greek votives I've been collecting for some time, of course with no earthly idea what for.

Both pieces (and there's a third, about a quarter of the way finished) are part of the new series featuring crows/ravens. Since I've been showing the works in progress to people, I've hear a lot of various interesting stories about crows. But the question comes up often - why crows? I don't know, I guess (as I heard put so eloquently recently) make the work first, figure out the bs later. I can't get Goya out of my mind lately - keep thinking about his print "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters". At the moment, the crows are messangers as well as harpies - maybe annoying communicators.

As to the name of the series, haven't a clue as of yet.......

Back from CraftSummer @ MU!

Just got back from CraftSummer 2007 @ MU, and had a blast as per usual. The folks there (Ron, Geoff, and Joyce, + the studio assistants) make the whole experience great. Most of all, the students are fantastic. Is it wrong to have the ulterior motive of poaching friends from these workshop classes? And, I sold a small piece (Gossip, from the Postcards from Anxietyville series), traded Motherships for an amazing pair of earrings by the metals workshop instructor (Kelly, CCAD faculty no less - there was one other CCAD faculty teaching there - Bill Hunt, in ceramics. We're EVERYWHERE. You can't hide!), and a great small piece of textile art made by one of my students. And I got a small piece finished, from the new Crow series (not sure yet of the title, tba), which I'll scan and post up here.

Working hard at CraftSummer (some of these hardworking nuts were up until wee hours of the morning laboring over their pieces!)


Kelly Burichin of Cincinnati explaining the finer points of stitching (probably along the tune of "who knew it was going to take so friggin' long!). We love Kelly!


Ron Stevens, CraftSummer director, like most program directors at universities, suffers the scourge of bureaucracy re: parking during the 2007 round of CraftSummer workshops. Why help someone or listen to their problems when you can make fun of the situation?!?!? The shrinky dink embellishments were the genius idea of one of the students.

Ron getting used to our style of sympathy and therapy.




My goal with teaching is to pass on texile techniques like applique, non-trad quilting, embroidery, and embellishment to equip and guide the student artists towards the creation of their individually designed/conceptualized piece. I love how everyone translates the techniques and materials with their personal vision.

Artist: Nicolette McFadden from Cincinnati, OH


Artist: Jen Ross from Columbus, OH


Artist: Kelly Burichin from Cincinnati, OH