ARTIST STATEMENT
Through my art, I engage in world-making through the process of play and material-errantry. My form of world-making uses craft traditions as a flexible constraint; I collaborate with materials and colors to achieve a coherence and consistency finely attuned to my intuitive judgment. I look for openings in the making process where I can ply confident imperfections and deviations, subverting fixed expectations of the tradition or technique at hand. I often use bright colors and repeating patterns as a way of injecting each project with evidence of the exuberant aliveness I feel when making art. My practice seeks to alleviate daily doldrums and spiritless ways of living – instead, transforming objects and spaces into paratelic experiences. I gift these works to the viewer as an optimistic nudge towards joy, connection and a playful awareness of how the larger world could be.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Eleanor Anderson (she/her) graduated from Colorado College in 2012, and is a current MFA candidate in the Fibers Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She works using a broad range of media including textiles, ceramics, prints and collage. From 2016 to 2018 she was a Core Fellow at Penland School of Crafts where she has subsequently worked as a studio assistant. She has taught workshops at Penland, Pocosin School of Crafts, as well as been an adjunct professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY, The Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY, The Tides Institute, Eastport ME, and Praxis Fiber Studio, Cleveland OH. She has been featured in American Craft Magazine and has work in the collection of the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts and Carleton College. She was recently awarded the top ranked Outstanding Student Award from the Surface Design Association.
© Eleanor Anderson