About this project

“She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. 

All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful.” 

-Terri StCloud

The artist says, “I have thought of this poem often during the past year as I was going through a season of personal transformation.  I knew my life might not be pretty in places, but I also knew that if I was going to survive, I needed to make some drastic changes.  The artwork in this exhibit is very expressive of my personal year-long journey.”

Her exhibit features a series of square, mixed-media pieces consisting of textiles and found objects.  Some include items found in the recycling bin, other came from resale shops (they were someone’s castoffs), while other items were picked up in a junk yard or in various places along the journey.  Sometimes playing pieces were robbed from a game, or perhaps an old puzzle.  Each broken, cast off, or discarded piece has become a part of the canvases in the display, and while each canvas is a stand-alone work, when displayed together they take on an entirely different look, a collection that she calls “Whole.”  While the pieces may not be beautiful in the traditional sense of the word, but the whole is more than a sum of its unfortunate parts.

The display also includes hand-glazed art glass, created using glass found in the resale shops and collected by friends & family.  Each glass piece is carefully cleaned, then glazed, with texture added on a potter’s wheel, and then thermo-hardened for durability.  The glazes and textures are non-toxic and dishwasher resistant.  In a manner of speaking, the “invisible” (clear) glass, is glazed which thus allows its form, function and true beauty to shine.

Carmen Rose sums up her intriguing show with this statement of purpose, “In a season of feeling invisible, broken and discarded I have created a series of personally meaningful works.  I hope that ‘Whole’ touches and helps each of us to acknowledge and remember our own imperfect, unseen and unexpected beauty.”

Your Pledge:

Your pledge will pay for stretched canvases, fabric, antique keys and other embellishments.  It will also cover the costs of printing postcards and shipping to get the items to you, plus some of the catering costs for the art opening.  It will also help me take one day off from my three jobs to hang the exhibit.

My work has been accepted in a local gallery as a featured artist for a two month exhibit.  The show is called “Whole” and comes from a season of heartbreak in my life.  The exhibit will feature a series of square canvases using hand dyed textiles, quilting techniques and found objects.  The show will also feature my hand glazed art glass.  I reclaim glass, glaze and add texture.  It is then thermo-hardened to a durable finish.

Ordinarily funding an exhibit like this myself would be no problem but I’m strapped for cash because I’m going through a divorce.  I refuse to allow my difficult circumstances to keep me from putting together a great exhibit.  This is what I do, this is who I am.  I am, quite simply, an artist and a student of color.  Please help me share the work I love.  

Thank you,

Carmen Rose

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Watch my progress and get a closer look at the collection as I create them here.

Thank you!

-Carmen Rose

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Please see the project update section for an update.  Thursday, April 28th, 2011.

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Check out this collection of photos from the project on Flickr.