The artist explores the social interactions and intelligence of crows through her artwork. Crows are seen as messengers and their traits like social behavior, intelligence, and reliance on memory inspire the artist. The artwork aims to show the similarities between crow societies and human societies. The artwork honors the natural interactions between clouds, water, heat and air through quilts and porcelain sculptures. Clouds and their formations are featured to celebrate these atmospheric elements. The portraits investigate how an artist and subject's identities can coexist by combining portrait painting with writing. The handwriting and brushstrokes preserve the artist's identity while allowing viewers to connect from their own perspective and experience.

1. Artist Statements:<br />Karla Walter<br /> As an artist, it is important to recognize a message and seize that moment. Crows are messengers, omens for change. Several personal encounters with crows have compelled me to express my personal creativity through this messenger. This body of work explores the similarities between the social interactions among crows and that of humans. To know the crow is to know ourselves. This is the journey I have taken with this body of work.<br />The common crow maintains a unique place in our ecosystem thanks to their intelligence and strong family values. They are social, opportunistic, vocal, visual, shrewd, and reliant on memory and individual recognition. Crows are tricksters and the wise guys of the bird world. We all know someone who has these traits. I believe that this is why we relate to them and maybe see ourselves in this intelligent black bird. My personal connection with crows has moved me to interact, grow and change. <br /> “In the shapeless chaotic universe, at this moment, I leave my mark in clay.”<br />Nanko Kaji.<br />Nazaré Feliciano<br />The art work I am presenting in this exhibition honors atmospheric interactions in nature.<br />Clouds and the formation of clouds, water, heat, and air and the interactions between these elements are present in my art work. In my quilt series smoky clouds abound in the terracotta quilts. Clay is porous at the fired stage enabling trapped smoke to penetrate its body. In the cloud series the porcelain clouds with cascading rain are filled with flowers. This my way of celebrating<br />Christina Major <br />This body of work investigates the ways the identity of both artist and subject can coexist in a portrait and evolved from my desire to combine portrait painting with writing as well as to develop methods of using paint to express a merging of myself with the individual depicted in the portrait. My creative research has focused on the traditional form of the portrait as a powerful form of representing an individual and how meaning can be expanded through scale, brushstroke, color, texture, composition and the many variables that portraiture deals with. I expanded on the traditional portrait painting by cataloguing my memories and thoughts along with the thoughts of the subject by painting under, into and over the subject in my own handwriting. My story is important to me in that is provides the spark to create the work, but it is not necessary for others to know it. My “hand” is visible both in the brushstroke and in the cursive writing, preserving my identity in a “readable” way both literally and through graphology, or handwriting analysis. I am interested in creating art which allows the viewer the ability to connect to it from their own grounding, to participate with it rather than to merely observe it. And through their participation with my portrait paintings, I communicate my self. <br />