Cover of The Scribe 25th Edition

The Scribe: 25th Edition

March 2026 · Ohio's Nonprofit Arts Newspaper

Letter From the Editor

Things are starting to warm up outside, and in Apollo Press as well! There's no shortage of reasons to get out and enjoy Ohio's art scene.

This edition features a look into Owens Community College's Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery and their incredibly impressive exhibition Passages, several artist features, and of course the typical Scribe Bulletin and Brief. Be sure to sign up for our online arts digest, the best way to stay up to date on Ohio's art scene.

Our 2nd Annual Arts Spotlight Mixer is also officially rescheduled to be on April 18th, 6-9pm! We will be back at the Assembly restaurant in Toledo, and will have the entire venue to mingle in this time. In addition, we will have a special menu and an open bar! Early bird tickets are on sale now at Eventbrite, and general admission starts April 5th.

If you enjoy reading The Scribe, please consider a small donation!

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Jeffrey Darah President and Editor


The Scribe's Arts Spotlight Mixer

101 Summit Street, Toledo, Ohio 43604 April 18th, 2026 from 6-9pm

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Meet Talented Artists from The Scribe! the-scribe.org/mixer

Open bar and free food!

Win Raffle Prizes!


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SESHAT SAYS...

SUBMIT!

Why you should send us your art...

[email protected]

The Scribe is a monthly arts publication that is created and published under the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Apollo Press.

It is the first Ohio-wide visually-designed arts newspaper! Stocked in locations without paywalls for our readers, The Scribe makes Ohio art visible and accessible to the public.

SUPPORT THE SCRIBE!

Help showcase Ohio art! Consider donating or sponsoring this publication!

Jeffrey Darah President and Editor 419-470-9489 [email protected]

Audrey Johnson Public Programs Officer

Dylan Sarieh CFO, Secretary, and Editor 567-277-5659 [email protected]

Brooks Behnfeldt Social Media Specialist


Freelance Writers Wanted!

The Scribe is looking for experienced arts journalists to cover visual arts, creative communities, and cultural development across Ohio. We're interested in writers who can dig deeper than event coverage, who understand the difference between journalism and promotion, and who can make arts infrastructure and creative practice accessible to general readers.

We cover community impact, local history, art education, civic arts systems, wellness through creativity, and cultural perspectives. If you have clips that demonstrate reporting skills and a commitment to balanced, source-driven journalism, we want to hear from you.

Send pitches and writing samples to [email protected]. Read our full guidelines at the-scribe.org/freelance.

$100/one-page article (~350 words)

$170/two-page article (~600 words)

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STAY UP TO DATE!

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Page 3

THE BULLETIN

Artist Opportunities Across Ohio

Submit by 2nd Friday of each month the-scribe.org/bulletin

EXHIBITION CALL RESIDENCY GRANT / FELLOWSHIP FESTIVAL / FAIR


## Lake Effect: Artists from Cleveland Now Cleveland Museum of Art

DUE: April 24, 2026


## 80th Ohio Annual Exhibition Zanesville Museum of Art

DUE: April 24, 2026


Ohio Governor's Youth Art Exhibition

Statewide

DUE: March 5, 2026


"America 250" Exhibition

Columbus (Main Library)

DUE: April 24, 2026


feverdream Residency

Zanesville Museum of Art

DUE: April 24, 2026


CVAC Figurative Exhibition

Zanesville Museum of Art

DUE: March 6, 2026


McDonough Museum Emerging Artist

McDonough Museum

DUE: March 5, 2026


Poetry Contest

New Ohio Review

DUE: April 15, 2026


Put your call in 200 locations across Ohio

Share your call for artists, gallery event, or community art opportunity with a statewide audience.

No design required. Just send us the details.


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Premium Listing

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Full list of opportunities: the-scribe.org/bulletin

Limited space in print edition. [email protected]

Page 4
By Camille Sipple

Lynne Provance: Painting With Glass

A large, intricate stained glass panel with geometric starbursts and floral motifs, featuring clear, textured, and iridescent glass.

A Lifelong Fascination with Light

An art form that some may think has been lost to the sands of time is still very much alive for Lynne Provance, and continues to captivate her today.

At six years old her gaze was already fixed on stained glass as she sat, daily, watching the light dance through the windows of her childhood church.

"Light has always fascinated me. I can stare at the changing light outside. I can stare at the clouds forever. I mean, light is my canvas," Provance said. "It never fails to amaze me."

As she learned how to create her own pieces, Provance said she realized that she could make truly dynamic pieces of art that reacted to all kinds of light sources, based entirely on the type of glass she used.

"When a piece is backlit... the glass changes depending on the kind of textures and colors. And it dances all day long. And there are so many different and opacities in glass that I can end up with two different art pieces off the same pattern, just because of the lighting."

Provance practices the Tiffany-style of stained glass which involves wrapping the edges of individual, hand-cut glass pieces with foil before soldering them together; the style allows for more flexible and detailed designs.

A close-up of a stained glass panel featuring circular and crescent shapes with a pink geode-like center, surrounded by dark red, white, and clear glass.

QUICK SCROLL

Stained glass artist and educator teaches workshops that have launched students into their own businesses.

@provancelynne


Page 5

ARTIST FEATURE

A stained glass panel with a heart shape in pink and green, outlined in black.

An Educator at Heart

Above all else, Provance defines herself as an educator. From performing arts and music to math tutoring and stained glass workshops, she prides herself on offering new skills to others.

"I mean I have fun making my own art. I have fun selling my art and putting them in art shows and whatever but I'm really about education," she said.

Over the years, Provance has offered a variety of workshops, allowing participants to walk away with their own, signed piece of stained glass art. When she shows her students that they can create their own pieces, Provance said many are amazed and for some it's life-altering.

"About 90% of my students have opened up their own studios in their homes and some of them own their own businesses now," Provance said. "So I'm really honored that that's happened."

Inspirations and Interests

Though she doesn't have a single favorite piece of work, Provance said she has a special affinity for natural work like her water lilies and irises. However, she is always up for a challenge and added that she loves tackling different art styles and translating them to glass. Abstract work and impressionism are just a couple of her interests as of late.

"It just gives me a chance to create and do what I really, really enjoy doing."

What's Next?

On the horizon, Provance is set to teach a 12 hour stained glass class at the HopeCAT in Sharon, Pennsylvania. Over four sessions, the course will allow participants to learn the entire process of stained glass, start to finish. The sessions begin March 3 and spots can be reserved on the HopeCAT's website.

In the future, Provance said she is looking forward to hosting more workshops at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown.

A circular stained glass panel featuring water lilies and lily pads in shades of green and blue, with pink and white flowers.

Page 6

406 Submissions and Counting...

How Passages Became Northwest Ohio's Largest Student Art Exhibition

A large, colorful gumball machine sculpture is displayed in front of several framed artworks on a wall.

Date January 30th to March 20th, 2026

Address 7270 Biniker Rd., Perrysburg, OH 43551

Hours Hours vary based on the day

The Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery at Owens Community College is currently filled with the work of high school students from across northwest Ohio and parts of Michigan. Passages, the college's annual juried high school art show, opened on February 6 and remains on display through March 20 in the Center for Fine and Performing Arts on the Toledo-area campus in Perrysburg Township.

This year's show marks a significant milestone. The show received a record 406 submissions, with 165 pieces accepted from 17 local high schools. For context, the first iteration of Passages in 2022 featured just 62 works. The numbers dipped slightly to 52 pieces in 2023, then climbed to 157 in 2024 and 240 in 2025 before this year.

A wide shot of an art gallery exhibition with many people viewing artworks displayed on the walls and pedestals.

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Where Passages Began

Passages traces its origins to 2021, when Shelby Stoots, then a gallery curator and now Center for Fine and Performing Arts Manager, began exploring how Owens could create stronger opportunities for high school artists. While Northwest Ohio has a long tradition of arts education, there were few comparable regional exhibitions designed specifically for students ready to take their work into a more formal setting.

The result was a program built to feel both accessible and serious. High school teachers nominate students in grades 9 through 12, and participants submit work digitally across categories including Fine Art, Photography, Commercial Art, and Animation/Character Design. Faculty from Owens' Creative Arts and Media Department jury the exhibition, and awards are presented during the opening reception.

From the start, the goal was not simply to display student work, but to introduce young artists to the structure and expectations of a professional exhibition environment.

People looking at artwork displayed on a wall in a gallery. One person in a camouflage jacket is pointing at a piece of art.


A Launchpad for Young Artists

One of the most defining aspects of Passages is the way it mirrors the application process professional artists encounter when submitting to galleries. Students upload their work digitally, faculty jurors review submissions, and selected pieces are installed in a formal gallery space. For many, it is their first direct encounter with how exhibitions actually function behind the scenes.

The awards carry practical meaning as well as recognition. The Owens Community College Passages Merit Award is presented to overall first, second, and third place recipients, each receiving a monetary award that can be applied toward tuition at Owens. Bronze, Silver, and Gold awards are also presented across four categories, offering multiple points of recognition for different disciplines and approaches.

Over the past five years, participation has steadily expanded. Twenty- eight high schools across Ohio and Michigan have contributed work to the exhibition, with several schools returning year after year. The opening reception serves as another important moment of connection, bringing together high school students, Owens students, faculty, and families. Conversations that begin around the artwork often continue into mentorship, enrollment, and further study.

Several former participants have since enrolled at Owens, turning their experience in Passages into the beginning of a longer educational path. For students considering careers in the arts, the exhibition offers both encouragement and a glimpse of what comes next.

A framed artwork featuring musical notes and a trumpet, displayed on a gallery wall.


The Gallery and Its Legacy

Passages takes place in the Walter E. Terhune Art Gallery, a 1,300-square- foot exhibition space within the Center for Fine and Performing Arts. Since opening in August 2003 as part of an $11 million expansion, the gallery has hosted a rotating schedule of exhibitions that includes faculty shows, student exhibitions, visiting artists, the annual Athena Art Society juried show, the BIG Read exhibit, and summer artist residencies.

The gallery is named in honor of Walter E. Terhune, a longtime Toledo businessman and philanthropist. A 2003 donation to the Owens Community College Foundation from KeyBank's Terhune Memorial Fund helped establish the space, continuing a legacy that dates back to 1926, when the fund was originally created by Terhune's daughter, Alice Crosby Terhune.

Within this setting, Passages becomes more than a student exhibition. It places emerging artists inside a gallery with institutional history, professional expectations, and a visible connection to the broader arts community. For many participants, seeing their work installed here marks the moment when art shifts from classroom assignment to public presence.

A group of people looking at artwork displayed on a gallery wall. The lighting suggests it is evening.

Page 8

Seshat's Calendar

Art Events for March 2026

View our online calendar at the-scribe.org/calendar

Want your event highlighted here and online? Get featured for only $75! ★ = Sponsored Events


Toledo

Cursed! The Power of Magic in the Ancient World

Mar 21-Jul 5 @Toledo Museum of Art

Symphonic Sci-Fi

Mar 14, 8PM @The Peristyle

Great American Songbook with Aubrey Logan

Mar 28, 8PM @Valentine Theatre

The Simon & Garfunkel Story

Mar 4, 7:30PM @Valentine Theatre

Opera Cabaret

Mar 21, 7PM @Toledo Opera

Sounds of Italy

Mar 20, 8PM @The Peristyle


Columbus

Artemisia Gentileschi: Naples to Beirut

Through May 31 @Columbus Museum of Art

Hew Locke: Passages

Feb 14-May 24 @Wexner Center for the Arts

Short North Gallery Hop

Mar 7, 4-10 PM @Short North Arts District

The Outsiders

Mar 17-22 @Ohio Theatre

The Outsiders

Mar 17-22, 7:30PM @Ohio Theatre

Amadeus Live

Mar 6-7, 7:30PM @Ohio Theatre

La Chinoise

Mar 5, 2:30 PM @Wexner Center for the Arts


Cleveland

Dara Birnbaum: Technology/Transformati on: Wonder Woman

Jan 13-Mar 29 @Gallery 224B

Water for Elephants

Mar 10-29, Hours vary @Connor Palace Theatre

Brahms's Third Symphony

Mar 5-8, Hours vary @Mandel Concert Hall

Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons

Mar 4, 8PM @KeyBank State Theatre

Short. Sweet. Film Fest.

March 2-8 @Atlas Cinemas

Beethoven's Fateful Fifth

Mar 12-15 @Mandel Concert Hall

Page 9

THE BRIEF

## Recent Arts News from Across Ohio

Updated Daily - the-scribe.org/thebrief


AWARDS

OAC Awards $375K to 77 Ohio Artists in Individual Excellence Grants

The Ohio Arts Council distributed $5,000 to each of 77 artists across seven disciplines. Three recipients are Dr. Ayendy Bonifacio for his novel ParaFlora and Dr. Matt Foss, who plans to shoot an indie feature in


AWARDS

April Sunami Awarded 2026 Aminah Robinson Artist Fellowship

Columbus artist April Sunami will spend three months working in Aminah Robinson's restored Shepard neighborhood home studio, awarded by GCAC and the Columbus Museum of Art.


EXHIBITIONS

CMA Presents Its First Exhibition of Native American Prints and Drawings

still/emerging opens Feb. 1 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, featuring roughly 30 works from the 1950s through today by artists representing multiple tribal affiliations.


EXHIBITIONS

Ohio Craft Museum: Milestones, 100 Years of Miles Davis

On view Feb. 15 to April 4, this exhibition features Black artists whose works reflect the spirit and cultural legacy of jazz, inspired by Davis's 1958 album Kind of Blue.


EXHIBITIONS

Artemisia Gentileschi: Naples to Beirut at Columbus Museum of Art

Baroque painter Gentileschi's Neapolitan period works, including Bathsheba and Hercules and Omphale (both c. 1635-37), are on view through May 31, 2026.


EXHIBITIONS

Dayton Art Institute Opens Dedicated Gallery for Feminist Art

A new gallery funded by the Sara M. and Michelle Vance Waddell Collection opens Feb. 7, housing works by Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Catlett, Ana Mendieta, and others through January 2027.


EXHIBITIONS

Toledo Museum of Art: Beeple Studios — TRANSIENT BLOOM

A free digital art exhibition by Beeple Studios runs through May 31, 2026 in Gallery 18 of TMA's Green Building.


NEWS

Brite Winter Festival Returns at New Home in Waterloo Arts District

Cleveland's 17th annual midwinter music and arts festival moves to the Waterloo Arts District on Feb. 21, with 37 performers across eight stages, fire pits, immersive art, and local food.


NEWS

Playhouse Square Names Karamu House Its First Affiliate Company

Playhouse Square established an official affiliate company relationship with Karamu House, the first such designation for a professional Northeast Ohio arts organization.


LITERARY

Ohio Launches Yearlong Toni Morrison Tribute on Her 95th Birthday

The statewide celebration began Feb. 18 with a Cleveland kickoff at Karamu House. Writer Namwali Serpell visited Ohio for three events tied to her new book On Morrison, published by Penguin Random House.


FILM

Ohio Goes to the Movies: 250+ Free Screenings Across All 88 Counties

Part of the America 250-Ohio initiative, the program runs throughout 2026. February highlights include Shawshank Redemption in Columbus, The Deer Hunter in Youngstown, and a red-carpet premiere honoring Phyllis Diller in


EXHIBITIONS

CAC: FACES, Don't Get It Twisted Opens Feb. 20

The fourth Paloozanoire exhibition makes its Contemporary Arts Center debut, featuring 16 artists exploring storytelling around textured and ethnic hair through painting, sculpture, textile, and installation.


OPPORTUNITIES

CMA Invites Cleveland Artists to Submit for Lake Effect Exhibition

In honor of its 110th anniversary, the Cleveland Museum of Art is accepting proposals for Lake Effect: Artists from Cleveland Now, a juried group show at the CMA Transformer Station.


OPPORTUNITIES

Riffe Gallery: Quilt National '25 Opens Jan. 31

Highlighting both heritage and contemporary quilting practice, the exhibition runs through April 10, 2026 at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus.


OPPORTUNITIES

2026 Ohio Artist Registry Exhibition: Call for Entries Open Feb. 9

The OAC and Friends of the Library open entries for a juried statewide exhibition on Feb. 9. Three Juror Choice Awards of $500 each. Deadline: April 24, 2026.


NEWS

DEC Arts Ohio: Heartland, Ohio Through 250 Objects, Opens Feb. 7

A statewide exhibition exploring people, ideas, and moments that defined Ohio across 250 objects, running through April 26. Part of the America 250 Ohio initiative.


EXHIBITIONS

Tony Foster: Exploring Time Watercolor Diaries Open Feb. 21 at DAI

Dayton Art Institute presents 40 years of wilderness watercolor journals by British artist Tony Foster, traveling from London. Foster will speak in Dayton in March.


OPPORTUNITIES

Canalway Partners Seeks Artists for 5th Towpath Trail Lantern Parade

Five artists or groups are needed to create large-scale lanterns from recycled materials for the March 7, 2026 parade along the Towpath Trail.


THE SCRIBE

Ohio's Nonprofit Arts Newspaper

Scan to read the full digest the-scribe.org/thebrief

Page 10

Tiara Grayson's Forgotten Materials Into Art

A colorful, abstract painting of a building with a steeple and a tower, featuring bold green, yellow, and orange hues, with textured white background.

From Found Object to Form

Tiara Grayson is a mixed-media artist based in Cleveland, Ohio. Her creative path began in her teens when she discovered art therapy as a way to process emotion and find self-expression. Early experiences visiting thrift stores with her mother and grandmother planted seeds for her later fascination with found objects. A cousin who worked as an illustrator also shaped her early artistic awareness.

Tiara's work has expanded from traditional oil painting into a multidimensional practice that includes acrylic painting, geometric abstraction, collage, and assemblage. She works with hand-painted papers, discarded metals, wood, hardware, fabric, and recycled packaging, materials that carry their own histories. Her process involves sanding, layering, scraping, and reconfiguring surfaces to reveal what lies beneath, both physically and symbolically. The resulting pieces balance structure with intuition, order with improvisation.

Among her pieces, "Sanctuary" holds particular personal meaning. Inspired by a Spanish-style Catholic church she passes daily on her way to her studio, the painting reinterprets the building's architecture through geometric abstraction. For Tiara, the work represents both the physical structure and the emotional refuge her studio provides, a space for release, reconnection, and uninhibited creation.

A close-up of a mixed-media artwork featuring concentric circles in yellow, red, and blue, with some metallic elements and a dark background.

A portrait of Tiara Grayson smiling, with a mixed-media artwork in the background.


[Advertisement: A dark banner with the text "QUICK SCROLL" and a description of Tiara Grayson's art, along with her website and social media handles.]

Cleveland mixed-media artist transforms discarded materials into geometric abstractions exploring resilience and reinvention. tiaragraysonart.com @tiaragraysonart
Page 11
"The resulting pieces balance structure with intuition"

Abstract artwork with geometric shapes, including a red rectangle and a circle, against a textured white background.

Practice in the Community

Tiara volunteers at Judson Park Retirement Community, where she teaches workshops and has exhibited in multiple group shows, including her first solo exhibition. Working with seniors has deepened her understanding of creativity as a lifelong practice and remains central to her identity as an artist.

Tiara aims to demonstrate that art is a language accessible to everyone, regardless of age or background. Her work invites viewers to reconsider overlooked materials and spaces, offering visual metaphors for resilience and reinvention.

Her work is currently part of the Feverdream curation program, which places selected pieces in professional interior settings. She also sells through ArtClvb, an online platform connecting artists with collectors, curators, and galleries. Tiara works from her studio at 78th Street Studios in the Gordon Square Arts District, Northeast Ohio's largest art and design complex.

Abstract painting with bold geometric shapes in red, orange, yellow, and blue, with a white textured area in the center.

Close-up of a metal object with hanging chains against a textured, light-colored background.


Page 12
By Michelle Pizzurro

Between Screen and Street: Adiah Bonham's Red on Gray

A large abstract painting with a bright red section on the left and a textured gray section on the right. The red section has a faint smiley face drawn on it with a thin, metallic line.

A portrait painting of a person in a dark suit with a yellow tie, seated and looking towards the viewer. The background is abstract and painterly.

Where Red Meets Gray

At first glance, Adiah Bonham's Red on Gray series is easy to define: paintings featuring opposing zones of extreme color contrast and composition. Composure versus chaos; glamour versus gloom. A visit to her studio, however, reveals the work captures the oscillation between the authentic and the manufactured worlds we experience through our phones and media.

A work titled America Is Smiling! is a cornerstone in the series. On one side of the canvas, a red expanse engulfs sparkling diamond jewelry arranged as a nod to Bonham's own "red saturates American media." From fast-food ads and lingerie campaigns to patriotic iconography, red conjures hunger, arousal, and consumption, where status pressures and media messages relentlessly invade our mental and physical space. In her words, "exploring the gray around me, I started to notice just how frequently cadmium red is used in contrast to the gloomy gray streets of Columbus."

Where the red registers at a glance, the gray side of the canvas demands time and resists instant readability as eyes adjust to kinetic brushstrokes. Abstractly rendered concrete streets and urban scenes contained in a Snapchat screen represent the more tangible and less easily filtered realities of our physical world's changing infrastructure.


A young woman with long brown hair, smiling, standing in an art studio with paint supplies and canvases in the background.

QUICK SCROLL Columbus artist who explores the tension between digital imagery and lived experience through bold color and layered compositions.

byadiah.com @byadiah

Page 13
![A close-up of two people, one with their arm wrapped around the other's bare shoulder, both looking at each other. The person on the left has their hand resting on the rope-like material wrapped around them. The person on the right is wearing a patterned sweater.](../../images/The_Scribe_25th_Edition/img-067.webp)

Inside the Making of the Series

Although Red on Gray has been Bonham's focus for the past four months, the finished series extends themes consistent throughout her young career. A term from her 2025 thesis at Kent State University, "Gooey America," is her moniker for stripping away money and social standards to expose the absurdity of everyday actions. Between canvas work and pasting over magazines and ads, creating densely layered compositions that transform cultural "nonsense" into "goo," inviting viewers to see the falsehoods of marketing dissolved through a satirical lens.

"worlds in uneasy coexistence"

Her work outside of the studio also connects to the philosophies behind Red on Gray. Over the past three years, she has sent friends and family contrived Christmas portraits, posed with strangers at the mall, staged family announcements, and fabricated narratives to practice the commercial and performative traditions of heteronormative bliss. Although her relationship is authentic, as she cohabitates with her partner, the scenarios are deliberately exaggerated, exposing how easily it can all be staged and circulated.

Ultimately, through Red on Gray, Bonham does not offer a moralistic rejection of the concrete or the material. Instead, she reveals how inseparable they have become. Red on Gray holds both worlds in frames, suggesting we are bodies in motion and images in frames, concrete and screen glow, gray and red.

Red on Gray is exhibiting Saturday, March 7, 2026 - Monday, March 30, 2026 at Blocfort Gallery at 162 North Sixth Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215.

Adiah Bonham is a 2025 graduate of Kent State University and is based at Millworks Art Studios. To see more of her work, visit www.byadiah.com and Instagram @byadiah.


A collage of images. The top image is a screenshot of a social media post with text overlay. Below it is a photograph of two people sitting together, looking at each other. The bottom image is a spread from a magazine titled "RED GRAY" with text and photographs.

A screenshot of a social media post with a person standing in a suit. Text overlays include "MASTER CONTROLLER" and "NEWS AND COMMENTARY".

A photograph of two people sitting together, looking at each other. The person on the left has their arm wrapped around the other's bare shoulder.

A magazine spread titled "RED GRAY" with various articles and photographs.


RED ON GRAY Ideas I Had Before I Began, Nov 2023

Post MFA Conversations (6 paintings) and 21 QA conversations

Red on Gray will open up my mind and cut out all of my referential painting. When I first started, I had a lot of anxiety. I knew I am bored. Instead, I will seek images that will be the most interesting to me. The searching and curiosity will translate to more important and more interesting ideas from my head. Would it be important for me to be more interested in the images that will impress me enough? I recently saw a quote from a friend that said, "I am prepared to never arrive." I am not sure if I am from an artistic background or if I made up my mind in my head, I arrive too. I am not sure if

Page 14
By Michelle Pizzurro

Abstract artwork with blue and green splatters and concentric circles. Abstract artwork with swirling orange, yellow, and pink colors.

Making as Metamorphosis

The Origins of a Material Mindset

For artist Anne Spurgeon, making has always been a way of understanding the world. As a child, she watched her older brother return from Saturday art classes and felt an immediate pull toward the imaginative space; the comfort of making. She describes herself as a kinesthetic and visual learner, someone who processes experience through touch, movement and material engagement. Creation was never optional; it was instinct.

Spurgeon started her formal training at the Columbus College of Art & Design where she learned in a rigorous technical-focused program. At The Ohio State University, she stepped into a more conceptual environment. That said, came alive in her creations across mediums: oil, ink, video, ceramics and collage.

Throughout her career, one theme remains constant: transformation. In her early work, created during graduate school and her 18 years in New York, Spurgeon explored the shifting boundaries between the private self and the performer. She examined how identity morphs internally and externally, drawing from her experience as a musician and performer. These works were intimate studies of becoming.

"They echo my earlier interest in the body and self."

A colorful, stacked sculpture made of curved, hollow shapes with white spheres.

[Advertisement: Quick Scroll - A Columbus artist explores transformation through collage, ceramics, and natural forms, inspired by movement and material process. annespurgeon.com]

Page 15

A Return to Ohio and the Natural World

Today, transformation lives in the materials themselves. After moving back to Ohio just before the pandemic, Spurgeon reconnected with the natural world, taking advantage of Columbus' parks and trails, hiking, observing, and slowing down. Seeds, spores, cells, eggs and circular, symbiotic systems became recurring motifs. Nature's systems offered a new lens for understanding change.

This shift led her to Suminagashi, the ancient Japanese technique of floating ink on water. Spurgeon prepares a tray, lets the ink drift, play and collide in a controlled chaos of idea and intention, then captures the paper onto the surface. That first layer becomes the seed of each collage. She then stains the surface with tissue papers, building color and texture, allowing initial marbling patterns to guide the composition.

When Clay Becomes a Line

Her ceramics echo these forms, circular, cellular, kinetic. Not unlike starting with the playfulness of the ink on water, she lets the clay take its own shape in her hands until the moment is captured. Inspired by German Venezuelan artist Gego (Gertrud Goldschmidt), who redefined drawing by extending the line beyond the page into three-dimensional form, Spurgeon's Drawing in Space ceramic works are increasingly colorful, vibrant, open and kinetic, embracing movement and negative space.

The philosophy perseveres through Spurgeon's ceramic "fried egg" works. What started as forms inspired by breasts, shifted unexpectedly when a friend thought they were eggs, a transformation she embraced with humor. When someone pointed out the resemblance, she immediately thought of two fried eggs. On how they echo her drawing in space, Spurgeon says "they also mark a shift in my work, toward the landscape, place, and the environments that shape how we live and move through the world."

Spurgeon's work honors the transformation of play and understanding her surroundings by making a fundamental constant that will take on a new dimension this summer, when she exhibits alongside her brother in Blood Harmonies, a joint show running June 5 through June 28 at Blockfort, 162 N. 6th St., Columbus, OH 43215.

A close-up of a painting with swirling yellow and white colors, with circular shapes in purple and grey.

A collection of colorful paper cutouts and yellow leaf shapes arranged in blue trays on a wooden workbench.

A sculpture made of three interconnected rings, two in pink and one in beige, resting on a white shelf.

Page 16

We Make Art Visible

The Scribe is the first Ohio-wide, visually-designed arts newspaper!

Each month, 4,000 public copies reach over 200 libraries, galleries, cafes, and businesses across Ohio without paywalls, subscriptions, or gatekeeping.

Art connects, inspires, and transforms. Help us make it accessible to all.

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Who is "The Head"?

Atum was one of the most important creator gods in ancient Egyptian mythology, particularly in the religious center of Heliopolis. According to Egyptian creation myths, Atum emerged from the primordial waters of chaos, called Nun, as the first divine being. He was believed to have created himself through his own will and power, earning him the title "the self-created one." As the first god, Atum then created the next generation of deities by producing Shu (god of air) and Tefnut (goddess of moisture) from his own body, either through spitting, sneezing, or other bodily acts depending on the version of the myth. These two gods then gave birth to Geb (earth) and Nut (sky), continuing the divine family tree.

Atum was often depicted as a man wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, symbolizing his role as a universal ruler.

He's above all the other Ancient Egyptian Gods!

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