Sarah Hahne
Metta: A New Look at the 4 Rs of Consumer Waste (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

About the Artist
Sarah Hahne has studied printmaking, painting, anthropology, comparative literature, and art education. She has exhibited widely in the Chicago area in several solo exhibits and numerous group shows, including shows juried by the late Ed Paschke and as well as Judy Chicago. Hahne has work in private collections throughout the United States. She has received degrees from Beloit College and the Art Institute of Chicago. She has also studied at the University of Illinois, Chicago campus, and the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing in Aix-en-Provence, France.

About the Work
”The focus of this body of art is the 4 Rs of consumer waste: reduce, reuse, recycle, and reclaim but the underlying theme is Metta. Metta is a 2,500 year old convocation. It is a 4 part thought, wish, or blessing that is sent out in 4 tiers, starting with the self and moving outward. In this work I have made a connection between the 4 aspects of Metta and the 4 Rs of consumer waste management.

As an artist, when I begin to look at a thought pattern or set of ideas and really embrace it, I do it viscerally from within and then try to apply it globally through visual means. When I began to look at how Metta was a part of the thinking behind my increased and renewed effort to look at my studio and art as a springboard for embracing the 4 Rs more fully, I also began to look at the deeper meaning or metaphor behind these thoughts.

The metaphor, or Metta-4, for me, is the journey. The personal, the heroes’ journey is one that we all take step by step throughout a lifetime. It is incredibly personal, unique, and individual. Each person’s personal life’s path or journey is absolutely original, and yet repetitious through a set of templates and patterns. The metaphor of the journey is best seen, for me, as a map but a map that is embedded in the art of the Oriental rug, the Persian garden, the mandala, and especially the quilt - particularly interesting because often there is not a central focus, rather each block has its own focus and works together as one. The original quilts were also the ultimate expressions of the 4 Rs the final artistic creation was a byproduct that gave warmth and beauty.

The “quilts” I make are really maps, in my mind, but they are maps that are an ironic homage, a reminder that we have strayed from the original purposes of living with and in our world. My personal Metta is a wish that we all come back home to ourselves and conduct our journey with safety, equanimity, health, and joy.”

For more information visit http://www.SNHahneArt.com.

M.E. Ware: Ritual Regalia for Contemporary Living (Click Here for an online preview of this exhibit)

About the Artist
M.E. Ware is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. She employs irony and humor in her art to expose the deficiencies of modern ideology and social discourse with regard to the human desire for meaning and a purposeful life.

Ware is Associate Professor and the head of Sculpture at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where she teaches a wide variety of studio and critical theory courses. In 2009, Ware was Artist-in-Residence at Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark. She is committed to research and teaching and conducts lectures, presentations and workshops at national conferences, seminars and universities.

About the Work
”This body of work consists of wearable and conceptually wearable garments designed to illuminate contemporary society’s need for ceremony and ritual as well as to question the commodification of spirituality. These garments and their display mechanisms use irony and humor to expose the deficiencies of modern ideology and social discourse with regard to our human desire for meaning and a purposeful life. The juxtaposition of traditional media such as cast iron and bronze with non-traditional, post-consumer waste products encourages a more thorough investigation of the issues these works embody: gender roles and job inequity, consumer debt, product poisoning, health care, natural resources and environmental destruction.

Each ritual garment is exhibited with a set of “Art-a-facts” that provide statistical information regarding the particular issue each piece addresses. The Art-a-facts are not explanations of the works or their intent, but serve to create a dialogue among the viewers by confronting them with disquieting information while seducing them with visually lush, densely detailed objects.

Ritual Regalia for Contemporary Living serves as a visual and conceptual nudge to remind us that ideology is more than a series of cultural assumptions. It makes us subjects; we are subject to it, so that we serve culture rather than culture serving us.” We see ourselves as autonomous and free, but the limits of our freedom have always, already been delineated by the ideology that provides the border of our tunnel vision (Thomas Perry).

For more information visit www.mewsculpture.com.