In April, Catherine Bell Smith is privileged to exhibit at the Ohio Art League Gallery with Claire E. Smith. The opening is Thursday, April 7 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. The location is 1552 North High Street Columbus, OH 43201-1121.The exhibition will run from April 7 through April 30.
Rural Routes (not your traditional landscape) is an installation inspired by the long, repeated trips along Interstate 71 between Columbus (where Claire grew up) and Cleveland (where Catherine grew up). Speeding along through a landscape in order to arrive at a destination only allows snapshot glimpses of the whole picture. Memory strings those images together, shifting size, losing detail, collapsing distances. The countryside that separates two places becomes the route that connects two homes. Home begins to include those spaces between.
Watershed (Detail)
Fountain grass, wire mesh, and steel bollards
The exhibit consists of lithographs, drawings and three large sculptures. “Watershed” is inspired by hard-worked farmlands-- vast pauses between cluttered rest stops, commercial signage and urban sprawl. It flows from the front to the back of the gallery space in a 5 foot wide ribbon. “Black Angus” is a grouping of organic structures that resemble cows in the fields. “Umbels” uses elements of silo structures, like umbrellas, peppered across the floor and up the wall.
Black Angus (Model)
Cast aluminum, steel, and burlap
That is the official PR release but what I want to share on our blog is that Claire, 21, is my oldest daughter, now in her third year at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. I won’t claim to have hoped for this opportunity to work together--I didn’t dare meddle or presume. But when the chance presented itself, I said “yes!” and she said “I’m down with that dawg”.
