By Natasha Anderson
Though historically best known for ceramics, Mica Gallery has an increased focus on other mediums including painting, drawing, lithographs, woodcuts and monotypes. Profiled here are three of the gallery’s artists who create two-dimensional work that is connected to, or influenced by, textiles in some way.
Garden in the Rain. Carmen Grier, artist
Drawn to WNC by the Penland Resident Artist program in 1994, Carmen Grier has a background in dyed fabrics from her studies at University of Iowa and Cranbrook Academy of Art. She now paints contemplative abstractions of the natural surroundings near her studio in the Bakersville area, beginning with observations of the landscape. She then applies gesso to panels and adds a layer of acrylic paint followed by oil pigments. The colors that emerge refer to her natural surroundings and to the ways modern life inserts itself into them. Her work is often described as luminous, light-filled and peaceful.
“How can I not be influenced by the landscape’s riot of color in summer and fall or the subtleties of line and shape in the winter and spring?” says Grier.
Colleen Connolly, artist
After traveling North America from Detroit to the Everglades, Colleen Connolly moved to the Penland area in 2010. At her studio, Flat Toad Farm, she practices eco-printing with linen and silk. Her process involves preparing fabric with mordants that enable the fibers to receive dye from plant material. She then arranges the plant material on the fabric before it is rolled and steamed. She extracts pigments directly from the plants themselves to form printed impressions on panels made for the table or wall.
“What I strive to capture in my art is the fine lines and colors of each plant, which I then use to create a finished composition,” says Connolly.
Jean McLaughlin studied textiles at the California College of the Arts and NC State University after an undergraduate focus on printmaking and painting at UNC Chapel Hill. She returned to her love of printmaking and painting in 2018 after retiring from a 20-year career at Penland. Her works vary from woodcuts and monotypes to lithographs of sketchbook drawings translated onto stones. Just as heavily process-oriented as her weavings had become, her printmaking techniques are now balanced with more spontaneous works in watercolor.
Gameboard. Jean McLaughlin, artist
“I love the nonverbal acts of drawing or carving or painting, the way I can be lost in time as I work,” says McLaughlin.
Mica is an artist-run gallery of fine art and contemporary craft. The gallery is located at 37 Mitchell Avenue in Bakersville and is open every day, April 1-December 31, with hours on Mondays-Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon-5 p.m. Follow the gallery on its website MicaGalleryNC.com, on Facebook at Mica Gallery NC or on Instagram at micagallerync.
