ARTIST STATEMENTS

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CARTER ERNST

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I love the natural world with a passion, but it is quickly slipping into the realm of the artificial. My sculptures convey my anxieties about contemporary life: disappearing wildlife, clear-cutting, over-crowding, floods, drought, disease, and crazy politics are all underlying stressors that I find release from through the lens of nature and the immediacy of clay. These anxieties are also tempered with a sense of humor; one cannot cope in this world without it. As a seemingly wise raccoon once taught me: eat fish while you can, garbage when you can’t, and follow your nose to the fountain of truth.

 

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PAUL KITTELSON

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If trees could talk, we probably wouldn’t like what they have to say. They would speak in many different languages and dialects depending on where and when they were born. Most of the old ones are dead of course, but many still remember the good old days. They remember the stories about storms and squirrels and diseases, and the time that Elmer dropped a limb on that politician. Most of the young ones can’t imagine life without drip systems and genetic engineering. They can’t understand why the older generation won’t accept the fact that the days are getting hotter. They complain about the fact that the humans are killing us with their carbon, but hey, if they’re lucky, they might end up in an IKEA factory rather than burned up in a forest fire.