Gallery O on H Street, Solo Exhibition, “Shaping Clay”, May-June, 2017
Piecing Together This Exhibition:
TWO–DIMENSIONAL WORK:
Kasse Andrews-Weller was born and raised in the very rural South, surrounded by Topeka Junction, The Rock and Po Biddy as the main points of interest in her world. Andrews-Weller’s ancestors were sawmillers, cotton mill workers and peach and cotton pickers. Her affinity to clay began with the Georgia red clay that surrounded her. Her fascination grew more intense when her family spent a Sunday afternoon at Jugtown Pottery. As Kasse watched a spinning lump of clay on a kickwheel be transformed into a jug she was mesmerized and at that moment began finding her way with clay.
Andrews-Weller also grew up loving embroidery and cherishing handmade quilts especially crazy quilts with their elaborate, delicate and detailed applications on silk, velvet and cotton scraps. Self taught, outsider, primitive and anonymous art, quilts and found objects have inspired her creative process. Quilts have been a continual thread, faded, unraveling or deteroirating, all providing warmth, comfort, security while shielding and encapsulating her dreams.
THREE–DIMENSIONAL WORK:
When Kasse was introduced to the work of Folk-master Horace Pippin, an immediate bond was born with this kindred spirit and the familiar subject matter of his paintings. Kasse could easily relate her own rural Southern childhood experiences especially those from her Daddy’s sawmill and lumber yard. In Pippin’s work she saw parallels to her own extended family, the employees and families from the mill who welcomed her into their homes, to their tables and into their lives.
In five of the 3-dimensional works Andrews-Weller creates an homage to Pippin transforming his paintings into clay interpretations. Immersing herself into his art has provided Kasse a way to express her own similiar stories and rural experiences through the clay that has captivated her since childhood.
This exhibition embraces Kasse’s life story with these common and uncommon threads.
