Artist's Statement

ELLEN BLOMGREN

 As a ceramic artist, I enjoy learning, growing and creating.  I find today just as fascinating and alluring as the first day I picked up some clay and began to shape it.  Working with clay is not only something I love, it is something I need.  I use the ceramic and glaze mediums to communicate with others and to listen to myself.  With each new series of works I try to share this and hope that the viewer will be able to see a little something of themselves as well.

Metrophelant, ceramic sculpture

Ceramic artist Ellen Blomgren started her work with clay in 1996 when her mother- in- law gave her some clay and a few tools as a gift. Since then, Ellen has worked with well-known artists such as Allison Newsome and Pat Warwick and has taken classes at Castle Hill Center for the Arts in Truro and Water Street Studio in Warren.  Over the past 6 years, she has become a teacher herself, working with people of all ages and abilities during her artist residencies.  She has guided several collaborative installations in public buildings.   Mrs. Blomgren has shown her work in several RI galleries, her work is ever changing. Ellen continuously tries new techniques and grows with all her experiences.

KATHY MORTON

In 2002 Kathleen started taking classes in drawing, watercolor and oils from various Rhode Island artists who teach at the Newport Art Museums’ Coleman Center and RISD.  She continues in classes exploring many mediums including printmaking, encaustics and photography and is interested in how materials can be used together as well as singularly.  Much of her work is influenced by her love for travel and nature.  

As a relative newcomer to the field of art, she has shown at guest exhibits at the Newport Art Museum, Deblois Gallery and at Spring Bull Gallery, Portsmouth Art Guild, Starbucks and Custom Coffee on Aquidneck Island, The Barrington Library and Starbucks in Barrington, RI.

Kathleen is a member of the Newport Art Museum, Newport Artist’s Guild, The Newport Photo Guild, The Ceruleans painting group, The Portsmouth Art Guild, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and is a Friend of the Deblois Gallery of Newport.

Her studio is located at 11F Bowler Lane, Newport, RI   02840.   She can be reached by email, kathymorton1@cs.com

Orange Box, mixed media

Sword, mixed media

ARTIST STATEMENT

Nature gives us the best of perfection in a very imperfect way.  My art provides me with a way to record what I love most about the natural world.    Whether I am discovering what magic the sea has washed up on the shoreline, or watching trees, flowers, birds and animals provide their special beauty this is where I find peace in the world.    I cannot resist the textures and colors that nature provides as they are ever changing in reaction to the varying light, and I look for ways to preserve them for another time.   Art has given me a way to capture what I see and preserve it to enjoy again.

Printmaking has a special appeal for me as it also gives surprises in color and texture in the same way as in nature only this time it is in reaction to the press.   My prints allow my artist to emerge using colors and textures as my interpretation of nature.

This particular group of monotypes has been designed using varying techniques of hand built collographs, found objects and natural materials.  Combined with oil based inks on fine papers each piece has a story to tell.   As you look at each one, what story does it tell you?