Metamorphic Exhibition and Workshop in Ellensburg, Wa.

“Stone Mother”, 2013, archival ink jet photograph on rag paper

Now until April 29th, I have an exhibition of work up at Gallery One in Ellensburg, Wa. called Metamorphic.
Here…let me quote myself from the Gallery One website!

Mandy Greer is a Seattle-based multidisciplinary artist who works in a symbiotic way with fiber-based installation, photography, film, performance, and social and environmental interactivity. For Metamorphic, Greer presents a collection of works from the last several years that explore the connection between the flux of our inner life and the geologic, translating the upheavals of stone, ash and magma into soft and malleable fiber that becomes a shadow of the domestic. This exhibition spans several bodies of work, and has been informed by an on-going series of residencies Greer does with her family in remote or isolated places, distilling into artworks imagery that questions assigned roles, the social and intimate projections on the family, and the boundaries between body, environment and imagination.

Greer centers mothering as a generative and artistic medium for her work, and challenges the dominant notion of the ‘solo genius artist’, rather focusing on the symbiosis within groups and defacto collectives. The maternal becomes a map for approaching social and ecological healing. Caring for and carrying children becomes a way to understand the collective body, the family as body, the body as ever-changing environment.

Transformation is central; chaos is woven into order and back into chaos. Using the physicality and metaphor of weaving, the subtle metamorphic passage of flesh and time is represented in glittering stone, erupting ash, dust, animal and flesh again. Greer transforms the detritus of our contemporary textile waste stream into timeless, elegant and raw conglomerations of inscrutable nature and the underbelly of human ceremonial imagination. By reclaiming the cast-offs of ‘fast fashion’ and reinvesting the material with painstaking hand-work, we are invited to enquiry on how value and meaning are ascribed, erased and altered.

Double Green Man, 2011

Snaefellsness Glacier Boy, 2012, archival ink jet on watercolor paper

Needles and Thread at Gallery One

This show also coincides with another show that I juried, called Needles and Thread, a national juried fiber show that I feel quite proud of! Many tender and strong artworks, so please visit if you are in Eastern Washington.

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Needles and Thread at Gallery One in Ellensburg, Wa. now through April 29, 2017

AND I will be traveling to Ellensburg on April 22nd, to do a Wall Weaving Basics Workshop at Gallery One. I’ll be featuring a sampling of Icelandic yarns from local farm Green Bow Farm. I just heard that it is sold out (yea!) but if you are interested, please contact them anyway and get on a wait list. Or you can encourage them to invite me out again!

Gallery One

11:00AM – 5:00PM

408 North Pearl Street, Ellensburg WA 98926
509-925-2670

Green Bow Farm visit, in Ellensburg, Wa.

I also wanted to share some pictures of just a really happy day! When I drove my work out to Ellensburg, I was able to stop by and meet Farmer Christina of Green Bow Farm! I adore all their products; in Seattle you can meet them at the West Seattle Farmers Market, as well get their incredible eggs at The London Plane.

Anyhow…my real goal was to meet George Costanza! One of the charming Icelandics in GBF’s flock who is Instafamous!

And I did! The sheep were all sheared, so not as photogenic but definitely comfortable, but follow GBF on Instagram at @greenbowfarm for some truly lovely pictures of farm life, especially now during the lambing season.

Farmer Christina took time out of her busy day to show me around their new farm, a huge project restoring an old family farm back to its natural functionality. The snow was just beginning to really melt, so the land was like a sponge; dried dormant plants beginning to soak in huge water flows.

I am thrilled to get to use their yarn!