then as now:woodland pattern 1980- 2022

Then as Now: Woodland Pattern 1980–2022 on view from Oct. 10–Dec 3 at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, 273 E. Erie St., Milwaukee, WI 53202

A visual history of Woodland Pattern featuring more than 100 artists who have exhibited with us, Then as Now traces four decades of gallery curation that has consistently emphasized interdisciplinary practices, the permeable and ubiquitous nature of language, and the fluidity between poetry and other forms of art.

The culmination of four years of research by a team of seven curators, this major retrospective includes contributions from book arts, printmaking, fiber arts, collage, photography, film, sound art, performance art, painting, and sculpture—with a particular focus on works that incorporate text. Also central to the exhibition are various examples of visual poetry; works pertaining to the language of music such as visual scores and hand-made instruments; and pieces that reflect a DIY aesthetic, a fondness for found texts, objects, or sounds, and/or a delight in traditional crafts.

Thematically diverse, the exhibition pursues intergenerational and interregional lineages and affinities, with domestic, ecological, and social justice issues often predominating.

Featuring artwork by: Dinorah Márquez Abadiano, Helen Adam, Laurie Anderson, Renée Baker, Tom Bamberger, Stephanie Barber, Diana Barrie, Pamela Barrie, Emily Belknap, Mary Bero, Siara Berry, Jen Bervin, Lois Bielefeld, Susan Simensky Bietila, Dick Blau, Jaap Blonk, Peter Brötzmann, Phoenix S Brown, Jim Brozek, Tyanna Buie, Julie Chen, Thomas A. & Laurie Clark, Portia Cobb, Orly Cogan, Cecelia Condit, Jane Dalrymple-Hollo, Maria Damon, Eddee Daniel, Raoul Deal, Johanna Drucker, Paul Druecke, Tongo Eisen-Martin & Chris Peck, Kenward Elmslie, Theodore Enslin, Douglas Ewart, Leslie Fedorchuk, Karl Gartung, Thomas Gaudynski, vanessa german, Renee Gladman, Kate Greenstreet, Robert Grenier, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Lane Hall & Lisa Moline, Walter Hamady, Roberto Harrison, Jenny Hart, Molly Hassler, Boolah Hayes, Edgar Heap of Birds, Caren Heft, Dick Higgins, Terri Kapsalis, David Najib Kasir, Amos Paul Kennedy Jr., Faye Kicknosway, Susan E. King, Anne Kingsbury, Alison Knowles, Márton Koppány, Nykoli Koslow, Anika Kowalik, Katherine Kuehn, Okja Kwon, Nicolas Lampert, Vaughan Larsen, Fatima Laster, Ck Ledesma, Eric Leonardson, Burt Levy, Howard Leu, Ruth Lingen, Joel Lipman, Gina Litherland, Katie Avila Loughmiller, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Jackson Mac Low, Colin Matthes, Wilhelm Matthies, Marsha McDonald, Kim Miller, Linda Montano, Jeff Morin, Dennis Nechvatal, Steve Nelson-Raney, Katherine Ng, bpNichol, Chris Niver, Josie Osborne, Mary Osmundsen, Teresa Pankratz, JoAnna Poehlmann, Bern Porter, Hal Rammel, Ed Sanders, Gaylord Schanilec, Amanda Schoofs, Pati Scobey, Jill Sebastian, Anja Notanja Sieger, Clarissa Sligh, LaDonna Smith, Lisa Solomon, Buzz Spector, LaNia Sproles, Valaria Tatera, Evelyn Patricia Terry, Walter Tisdale, George Tysh, Fahimeh Vahdat, Cecilia Vicuña, Melissa Wagner-Lawler, Keith Waldrop, Rosmarie Waldrop, Dan S. Wang, Marjorie Welish, Della Wells, Davey Williams, Jody Williams, Jonathan Williams, Max Yela, Karl Young, Pamela Zwehl-Burke

2022 emerging artist fellowship!!

I am so honored to be selected as a 2022 Mary Nohl Fellow in the emerging artist category. Thank you Black Box Fund, Lynden Sculpture Garden and Mary Nohl Fellowship for this opportunity.

springboard for the arts:rural regenerator fellowship

Springboard for the Arts has selected 11 Rural Regenerator Fellows who live or work in communities of 50,000 people or fewer across the Upper Midwest. The inaugural cohort of Rural Regenerators includes:

• Alice M. McGary (Rural Central Iowa)

• Amber Hansen (Vermillion, South Dakota)

• Annie Hough (North Moorhead, Minnesota)

• Bethany Lacktorin (Ordway Prairie in Pope County, Minnesota)

• Elisha Marin (Albert Lea, Minnesota)

• J Erin Hutchinson (Herbster, Wisconsin)

• Inkpa Mani (Wheaton, Minnesota)

• Mai’a Williams (Winona, Minnesota)

• Molly Hassler (Watertown and Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

• Sandra Kern Mollman (North of Vermillion, South Dakota)

• Talon Bazille (Bad Nation, South Dakota)

This inaugural cohort is an exciting mix of individualartists, makers, and culture bearers, grassroots organizers, community development workers, public sector workers and other rural changemakers who are committed to advancing the role ofart, culture and creativity in rural development and community building. Each fellow will receive $10,000 in flexible funds to support their existing work or to launch a new project in their community, and will participate in two years of learning exchanges with their fellow rural artists.

Unraveled. Restructured. Revealed.

February 26, 2021 – May 23, 2021

Guest curated by Tyanna J. Buie, Unraveled. Restructured. Revealed: Where Contemporary Art and Diverse Perspectives Intersect brings together over 60 contemporary artists from across Wisconsin, the country, and world exploring inclusion and diversity through art.

Virtual exhibition coming March 5.

Mary nohl fellowship

Very honored to have been a finalist in the emerging artist category for the 2020 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship! Please read the full article here.

Portrait Society Gallery is pleased to present its fall exhibition, SEAMS: Contemporary Textile Artists, opening September 25 and running through November 28, 2020, curated by gallery director Debra Brehmer and fiber artist Heidi Parkes, with assistance from Paul Salsieder. 

The gallery is located at 207 E. Buffalo Street, Fifth Floor, in the Third Ward, Milwaukee, WI. Hours are Thursday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment. 

SEAMS features 17 regional and national artists working with fabric. The exhibition also inaugurates a newly constructed additional space for PSG, expanding the gallery’s square footage to 1600 feet. 

From the historically traditional patchwork quilts of 75 year old Milwaukee artist Ella Mae Brooks, to New York-based artist Mary Tooley Parker’s hooked rug tributes to the quilters of Gee’s Bend, to sculptural contemporary work by Judith Mullen, Jacqueline Surdell and Nirmal Raja, SEAMS traces an evolution of fiber work. The thread and yarn used to stitch, patch, enumerate, contain, define, elaborate, and connect, wanders between genres with a material freedom that holds an echo of ‘women’s work’  while defying domestic or art world categorical limitations.

The exhibition features new work by Milwaukee and Florida-based artist Sharon Kerry-Harlan who devoted the past winter to black and white compositions. Milwaukee artist-of-the-year in 2019, Rosemary Ollison, is represented with a new series of dyed, stitched and constructed denim jackets as well as wall textiles. Local legendary seamstress Madam Chino presents a three-story tall strip of 28 stitched together dress shirts, installed as a cascading ribbon. Cincinnati MFA student Josie Love Roebuck applies stitching to her painted canvases and Chicago based artist Judith Mullen finds nature-based textures in combinations of wire, plastic, fabric and glue. Co-curator Heidi Parkes presents new work using a variety of quilting techniques, with one work a diaristic account of COVID months. 

Artists include: Vanessa Devaki Andrew (Madam Chino), Ella Mae Brooks, Molly Hassler, Sharon Kerry-Harlan, Linda Marcus, Kirsten Meier, Shannon Molter, Judith Mullen, Amanda Nadig, Rosemary Ollison, Mary Tooley Parker, Heidi Parkes, Rosy Petri, Nirmal Raja, Josie Love Roebuck, Jacqueline Surdell, Charles Queen.  

mirror eye

Young Space is excited to partner with Far x Wide for a three-day exhibition at Ortega y Gasset Projects in Brooklyn, NY, to benefit Art Start. This exhibition showcases exceptional work by early-career and emerging artists, and 50% of proceeds from sales support the mission of New York City nonprofit organization Art Start in their continuing mission to identify and nurture young people through art (the other 50% to artists)!

January 3-5, 2020 at Ortega y Gasset Projects, 363 3rd Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Opening times: Friday 3 January: 1-6 (+ opening reception 6-9); Saturday 1-6; Sunday 1-4

Participating artists:

Alex Paik (Brooklyn, NY), Amelia Briggs (Nashville, TN), Brendan Shea (Portland, ME), Brian Rattiner (Brooklyn, NY), C. Anthony Huber (Iowa City, IA), Christian Ruiz Berman (Westport, CT), Darren Dempster (Brooklyn, NY), Ethan Stuart (Santa Monica, CA), Georgia Elrod (Brooklyn, NY), Georgia Hourdas (Brooklyn, NY), Ian Etter(Brooklyn, NY), Jason Rohlf (Brooklyn, NY), Joey Weiss (Brooklyn, NY), Joseph Dolinsky (Brooklyn, NY), Kara Cox (Providence, RI), Kiwha Lee Blocman (New York, NY), Leonora Loeb (New York, NY), Liz Ainslie (Brooklyn, NY), Loren Erdrich (New York, NY), Max Manning (Spring, TX), Molly Hassler (Milwaukee, WI), Nina Kintsurashvili (Iowa City, IA), Raymie Iadevaia (Los Angeles, CA), Roland Santana (Chicago, IL), Sharon Servilio (Jackson Heights, NY), Supaform (Moscow, RU), Taylor Loftin (Jackson, MS), Taylor O. Thomas (Tampa, FL), Travis LeRoy Southworth (Brooklyn, NY), and Zuleyka Alejandro (New York, NY)

making elbow room:

Queer demonstrations

A celebration of queer existence and visibility. These artists' work celebrates queerness as a state of freedom, and of play, and steeps in juice of full emotions.

Joe Acri * * * * * * * * * @joe.b.a
Oscar Chavez * * * * * @oachavez
Storm Dunder * * * * * @stormdunder
Charley Guptill * * * * @charfee
Molly Hassler * * * * * @mollyhassler
Michael Lagerman * * @lagerman.studio
Anwar Mahdi * * * * * * @boi_venus
Abbey Muza * * * * * * @abbeymuza
Colin Radcliffe * * * * * @colinmemaybe
LaNia Sproles * * * * * @laniasprolesartist

exhibition opening reception July 12th, 7pm - 1pm at yours truly studio, 833 east center street, Milwaukee wi

There again, the disappearance

curatorial debut****

Please join us for an artist talk and community discussion with Vaughan Larsen and Valaria Tatera!

Reception from 6–8 PM with the discussion starting at 6:30 PM

Of Disappearance Suits, an ongoing series of works by Maria Gaspar examining marginalized identities, the Chicago-based artist writes: “As a first-generation Mexican American from an immigrant family, I am interested in understanding the relationship between the politicized body and rural, remote, or romantic landscapes. I create disappearance suits for a specific location/history/context and then, through a series of performative gestures, I contend with what’s there and what’s not there. In return, my body disappears and reappears.”

Curated by Molly Hassler and Marla Sanvick, There Again, the Disappearance continues the conversation of the (in)visibility of marginalized bodies present in Gaspar's Disappearance Suits through photographs and installations by Milwaukee artists Vaughan Larsen and Valaria Tatera.

Please join us for a closing reception and discussion with the artists of these works that together hit an emotional pitch that is at once humorous, heart-wrenching, and strikingly beautiful.

This exhibition was made possible by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation's Mary L. Nohl fund.

emerging artist exhibition

For the 4th year, Var will exhibit emerging artists recently graduated from MIAD and UW-Milwaukee to be featured in our annual Emerging Artist Exhibition. Var seeks out artists that are producing engaging work, and active in Milwaukee's art community.

Featured artists include:
Molly Hassler, Melissa Mursch, Brian Pfister, Emma Ponath, Brennen Steines, Izzy Waite

This exhibition will be on display through April 20th, 2019.

memory palace:curated by Kate mothes

Please join us for the opening of Memory Palace, a national juried exhibition curated by Kate Mothes of YNGSPC — on view from March 1st to March 27th @ Jackson Dinsdale Art Center of Hastings College !!

French kiss:a valentine pop-up

sunday february 10th @ split fountain press

upcoming sales

vendor holiday pop up: december 2nd @ hawthorn contemporary

holiday sale: december 16th @ yours truly studio

Mary nohl fellowship

Very honored to have been a finalist in the emerging artist category for the 2018 Mary L. Nohl Fellowship! Please read the full article here.

Artist Talk: Woodland Pattern

Please join me for my artist talk Friday, November 9th from 7PM to 8PM at Woodland Pattern Book Center

fragile not found

Please join us for the opening reception of Fragile Not Found, works by Molly Hassler, Anika Kowalik, & LaNia Sproles! Friday November 1st from 6PM to 9PM at Woodland Pattern Book Center.

About the artists:

Molly Hassler is Bachelor of Fine Arts graduate from University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee with an emphasis in Fibers and a Certificate in Community Arts. She is an interdisciplinary artist using large – scale sculptural fibers works, printing and dying techniques, and community arts engagement to communicate ideas surrounding queerness, nostalgia (or even nostalgia for nostalgia), and family.

Anika Kowalik was born and raised out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While growing up, Kowalik had the experience of living in many neighborhoods in Milwaukee, exposing them to the unique way that racism historically has shaped the city today. After attending Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for their BFA in printmaking ‘17; Kowalik would utilize the language of printmaking and expand outside of its traditional two dimensional form. They use their personal experiences as a young black femme to explore the depths of generational and systematic oppression to create works that record their own history. As a person who is a part of a marginalized group, it is vital to unpack the truth through many facets of documentation. Kowalik finds it easier to communicate these personal experiences through materiality, expanding beyond the physical body we commonly search for and traditional forms of expression.

LaNia Sproles grew up in the segregated city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated with a BFA from Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She devotes most of her time conducting research on the philosophies of self perception, queer and feminist theories, and inherent racial dogmas; while also examining the contemporary works’ of Laylah Ali, Kara Walker, and poet Warsan Shire. The combination of printmaking and drawing inspires her to challenge these concepts and to push beyond the traditional expectations of not only the figure but printmaking itself. Through collage and assemblage she strives to conduct work that pays homage to imagery free from the barriers of social constructs and honest in its vulnerability.

EARTHSTOPPER: REVIEW

Presenting Nine Young Women Artists, an Article by Todd Mrozinski for Urban Milwaukee

EARTHSTOPPER

Real Tinsel is pleased to present EARTHSTOPPER, a group exhibition curated by Rachel Horvath featuring works by

Molly Hassler
Ariana Vaeth
Jenna Rose Marti 
Emma Ponath
LaNia Sproles 
Emma Smith
Jordin Alanis
Kelsey Parks
Rachel Horvath