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Deb Curtis and Sabine Miner

Dates: May 5, 2012 to Jun 2, 2012

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Participating Artists:

Deb Curtis, 'Primitive'

About the artist...

Deb Curtis and Sabine Miner

In May 2012, the Corrine Woodman Gallery of The Arts Center in Corvallis shows artist Sabine Miner and Deb Curtis. Their work is paired together because of a shared looseness and innovative uses of their chosen materials. Both have a very personal approach, devoid of preconception on the traditions of the media they work in. Miner works in encaustic* paints, which she literally moves around the surface and pushes the substance of paint into thicker and thinner ridges and planes -- this results in abstracted imagery of flowers and plants. Curtis uses materials traditionally used for basketry, which she applies in a different technique: knitting. Where knitting is commonly done with supple yarns to make a soft fabric, Curtis’ use of material creates stiff constructions that are almost sculptural -- not necessarily what is generally thought of as 'fabric.'

Miner paints simply because it makes her happy. Of her work she says, ”My art does not need meaning to be art, it must simply be an extension of myself. Art for me is a need, like air or water, I must be creative to be whole.”

As a long-time basket maker and knitter, Curtis started her experiments of knitting with basket weaving materials during a “creative block” a few years ago. When working in the stiffer materials worked for samples, she realized she could combine her interests in basketry, knitting, and quilting to create patchwork wall pieces. Her work in this exhibit represents some of those ideas and their actualization.

*The term encaustic refers to painting with beeswax. It is one of the oldest painting media, going back to ancient Greeks, Egyptians and Romans who melted wax, colored it with earth pigments, and used the resulting material to create images, usually on wood, that were detailed and realistic in nature. Miner, by contrast, works in a loose style, full of expression and movement. She uses a pigmented beeswax/Damar resin medium and applies it with heated irons and other implements to a non-absorbent surface.