Izabella Casselman

Time measures my memories by markers of images.   Those markers are brief reflections of my family. 

When my children were small,  my life was at its most harried, creative and productive.  The images and stories that I told were brief glances of them in their private world.  Those quick out of the corner of my eye glances awoke many of my own childhood nightmares & memories. 

I fast forward to now and find myself surrounded by little ones  --  my daughters are the mothers and the grandmother is once again looking at them and seeing  quick glances of her past markers repeated in there time and experienced second hand by her.  I look at my grandson and his father  - I  see my son and his Dad.

I am a drawer, and a mark maker -- I like using all kinds of tools to make marks  and squiggles with. Using paper with paint, charcoal, acrylics or whatever I have on hand,  allows me to quickly record markers of moments that speed by me daily and give me pleasures that I can share.  

Sabella in the Rhodies

Mediums used:

Painting, Drawing, Ceramics, murals, printmaking, paper making.  Works displayed at both Newport Art Museum & The DeBlois Gallery.

Education:

Rhode Island School of  Design  

Sisters & Best Friends

Lectures:

Newborn

Teaching Experience:

Newport Art Museum: Drawing,  Printmaking, Anatomy, Collage

Newport Alternative School : The Newport Art Museum Funded through Newport Drug Task Force 1st year then in collaboration with The Newport Art Museum & Stop-Over Services in Middletown.   Program  designed to reach and develop the creative talents of  "at risk teens", ages 14-17 years. 

Portsmouth Abby School - Substitute teacher  - lower & upper school - 2d & art history

Portsmouth Abbey Elderhostel Watercolor Workshop:  2 or 3 week intensive workshop

Portsmouth Abbey Elderhostel Mixed Media Workshop: 1 week intensive workshop

St. George School Elderhostel Watercolor Workshop

Falmouth Art Association - Figurative Watercolor workshop

A.R.T.S. Gallery & Gorton's Barn Workshop:  Complete arts

Group & Solo Exhibitions:

DeBlois Gallery, Newport, RI;  

Newport Art Museum Juried Exhibition, Newport, RI;  

Warwick Art Museum, Warwick RI; 

Providence Art Club, Providence, RI ;

Greater  Fall River Art Festival, Fall River, MA;   

Arnold Art Gallery,  Newport, RI; 

Cape Cod Art Association - Barnstable, MA;   

Boston Printmakers, Boston, MA; 

DeCordova Museum, Bellmont;    MA;

South County Art Association, Kingston, RI; 

Contessa-Lawlor Gallery,  NYC, NY;  

Monotype Guild, Boston, MA;

Clothesline Art, Rochester, NY, ;   

Allison Newsome

WET CLAY SKETCHING:  Is a way of gathering visual information, in the same manner a painter sketches outside.  Allison likes to take wet clay into the field, and sketch what she sees.  The sketches are made on trees, boulders; whatever the site lends it to.  Often materials found on site, i.e., rocks, flowers, fruits, shells, branches, are incorporated into the wet clay, creating a mixed media, collage effect.  Photographs are taken of the finished sketch and taken back to the artist’s studio to be used as studies for ceramic sculptures.  The original sketches are often left on site where the elements will erase them.    

Woman Going to the Well

Spring, 2008, Allison Newsome has been invited as artist in residence, and to exhibit, at the Beatrice Wood Center for The Arts in Ojai, California.  For Allison,” the opportunity to work in Beatrice’s studio, surrounded by her artwork, folk art collection and vast library of rare art books, is a dream come true

Allison Newsome lives and works in Rhode Island.  In 2005-6, Newsome’s exhibition, “On Island”, traveled from the Newport Art Museum to the Fuller Craft Museum.  Newsome’s ceramic sculptures are in the permanent collection of The RISD Museum and the Newport Art Museum. 

Lighted Bell Buoy Figure

As a New England artist Allison Newsome’s present work addresses issues of the environment and human interaction as our landscape and human psyche have changed from the wilderness to the agrarian, with a focus on where the wilderness and garden meet. Allison’s recent work explores fundamental, utilitarian, methods implemented on our land and water.  Many of Allison’s sculptures feel rooted in the “Contact Period” between Native American and Europeans, with figures made up of wells (see photo), baskets, apples, picket fences, circles of corn, all held together with wattle and daub. For endless inspiration, Allison’s studio in Warren, RI, sits on the site of The Massasoit Spring, historically plaqued in 1902, as the summer home of Sachem Massasoit Ousamequin.  While making  her new body of work,  Allison read the book "The Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick,  which brought  her studio’s site to life when describing, Sowams Village’s (Warren) 1,000,00 acres of corn. Over the summer, on Prudence Island, Allison planted a field of corn, using the Native American technique of growing corn in 5 foot diameter’ circles with under plantings of squash and beans. This formation inspired the clay sculpture series,  “Woman Going To The Well” see photo.

When one enters the gallery they are immediately confronted by two ‘Lighted Bell Buoy Figures” see photo, seemingly at odds with the agrarian works.  These red and green channel markers are significant to Allison as she passes to and from Prudence Island.  They are a continual reminder of humanities impact on our wilderness, in this case the wilderness being the open sea”.