ARTifacts exhibit an education about process of creativity

Susan Maakestad's "Corral" (above) and Martha Kelly's "Three Sycamores"

When laying the groundwork for "ARTifacts," which opens at Perry Nicole Fine Art tonight, gallery owners Nicole Haney and David Smith issued a challenge to their artists: "Create a new piece of work and provide with it an object of inspiration or a tool used in creation."

Nearly 30 sculptors and painters, including Roy Tamboli, John McIntire, Elizabeth Alley, Arline Jernigan and Bob Eoff, responded.

Susan Maakestad's "Corral" (above) and Martha Kelly's "Three Sycamores"

Martha Kelly painted a vibrant modern landscape called "Three Sycamores" and provided a bench made by her husband, a woodworker. Mary Cour Burrows' work, "Caballo Oculto," is accompanied by a piece of braided horsehair mounted in a wooden box. And Brandon Smith's bovine miniatures come with the trowel he used to slather on the paint.

According to Haney, January is a good time for an educational exhibit. "People are hungry for something," she says, "and we've always wanted to illustrate how our artists work."

Susan Maakestad, an associate professor at Memphis College of Art, admits that she already had her painting, "Corral," in progress when she heard about the show.

"It became a question of what would I show with it. Something just clicked, and I got the idea about the cone," she says of the bright orange pylon that she brought to the gallery.

"Part of it was the color in the painting," Maakestad says. "Also, the theme of my work is things you normally don't pay attention to. I try to create some emptiness, some vastness in an ordinary environment."

With its slab of concrete that drifts off into the horizon, "Corral" -- inspired, the artist says, by a shopping cart corral at Target -- could be classified as an abstract painting or a landscape.

"It's intentionally a little ambiguous," says Maakestad, "but the artifact might give them some kind of clue, or a way into the work."

Painter Cathy Lancaster, a recent Memphis transplant, says she often cites fashion -- "fabrics, colors, or the way somebody puts an outfit together" -- in her abstract work.

Now viewers get an inside look at that creative process, via the handmade ruffled gown that inspired her diptych, "Valentine's Formal -- 1984."

"I saw that dress in a Seventeen magazine, and my mom made it for me to wear at a party when I was a junior at Mississippi State," Lancaster says, describing the dress as "a fun clue" that accompanies her work.

While it's easy to recognize the red tiers, which are rendered into rough shapes in the painting, Lancaster adds that the dress actually symbolizes something much deeper.

"I was bullheaded, and I tortured my mom, but she could make anything," she says. "The dress is such a sentimental thing for me, because artistically, I feel like we've been playing off each other my whole life."

ARTifacts: Art & Related Objects

Opening Friday, 6-8 p.m., at Perry Nicole Fine Art, 3086 Poplar Ave. Exhibit runs through Jan. 31. For more information, call 405-6000 or go to www.PerryNicole.com.

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