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2024-2025 Artists-in-Residence Opening Exhibition

JULY 5 – JULY 28, 2024 | KNOXVILLE GALLERY

The Arrowmont Artists-in-Residence Program provides early career, self-directed artists time, space and support to develop new work and be an active part of the Arrowmont community. Each year, five artists are selected to participate in the 11-month program, which begins in mid-June and continues through late May of the following year. Started in 1991, the Arrowmont Artists-in-Residence program celebrated 30 years in 2021.

Artists-in-Residence are given a monthly stipend, shared housing with private bedrooms and meals (during workshop sessions), and a private well-lit studio with climate control, a basic work table, shelving and sink. Residents provide instruction for Arrowmont’s celebrated children’s education program, ArtReach, and are offered paid teaching opportunities.

Arrowmont welcomes the 2024-25 Artists in Residence; Lela Arruza, Breana Ferreira, Johnny McCaffrey, Grant Turner, and Sam van Strien.

Lela Arruza | 2024-2025 Arrowmont Artist-in-ResidenceLela Arruza is a contemporary paper artist from Apex, North Carolina. She

received the Chancellor’s Scholarship from Appalachian State University and completed her BFA in ceramics in 2023. Her background as an adopted Asian American artist encourages her to explore identity and culture through paper; utilizing an origami technique called Golden Venture Folding. She draws inspiration from traditional Chinese porcelain ceramics. Arruza is a 2023 recipient of the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship, and her work has been exhibited at the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum.

website | instagram

Each of the vessel forms within my blue and white series are composed of thousands of individual origami pieces created through a technique called Golden Venture folding. Beginning with a standard sheet of printer paper, I fold the paper in half and tear along the fold, repeating this process until 32 rectangles are produced. Then each rectangular piece is folded into origami triangles that will fit together like Lego blocks. I find myself drawn to repetition and utilize this art form to discuss concepts of comfort and community.

The method of Golden Venture folding was popularized in 1993 when a ship called the Golden Venture ran aground in New York. Many immigrants onboard were from China’s Fujian Province, and due to strict immigration policies, they were imprisoned. During imprisonment, many folded and assembled various paper sculptures which were sold or donated to the community. The rich history behind Golden Venture folding contains aspects of craft and community evident in my own work. Each piece I make displays my interest in intricate and clean design, but also focuses on exploring my own identity and place within my community

Grant Turner | 2024-2025 Arrowmont Artist-in-ResidenceGrant Turner is a multidisciplinary artist from Wapakoneta, Ohio. Turner brings his illustrations to life through the arts of enameling, metalsmithing, and digital fabrication. His artistic process reflects the layering of possibilities, turmoil, heartache, love, and hope that accompany the human experience. Turner earned a BFA in Digital Arts from Bowling Green State University in 2022, after which he continued exploring his practice during his 2023-2024 residency at Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft.

 

Sam Van Strien 2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence AIRSam van Strien is a visual artist who examines the relationship between architecture, finance, and capitalism. In his research and studio-based practice, Sam employs various techniques such as rubbings from buildings, laser-cut engravings of photographs, and prints sourced from archival records.
Sam received his MFA in Painting & Drawing from Ohio State University and his BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins. His artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at venues such as The Koppel Project in London, UK; Keumsan Gallery in Seoul, South Korea; and the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock, TX, USA. In 2021, Sam was featured in The Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize exhibition, the UK’s leading drawing prize. He has participated in several residencies, most recently at the NARS Foundation in Brooklyn, NY, with the support of Arts Council England and the Netherland-America Foundation. Sam is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN.

 

Breana Ferreira | 2024-2025 Arrowmont Artist-in-ResidenceBreana Ferreira (she/her) was born and raised in Southern California and received her BFA in Ceramics in the Spring of 2022 from the University of North Texas. Her practice revolves predominantly around surface and ornamentation through the integration of hand building, throwing, painting , and printmaking to craft functional ceramic objects with loaded layered surfaces. Within the last two years Breana has worked as an emerging studio artist and educator in association with the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, CA and the Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, IL.
My practice fixates on the documentation of the rhythms, repetition, and rediscoveries within my own life. I’m intrigued by the honesty of mundane moments, the intimacy of domestic spaces, and the truths behind daily discomforts and how each collectively captures the spirit of a person. I strive to craft extensions of the self in the same way a photo can capture the character of a person or the bittersweet nature of a moment to exist as a reminder of life’s impermanence.
In this way, I think I try to craft a kind of secret poetry into the work. One that often speaks about learning to maneuver within adulthood while unfolding childhood. About the daily attempts at positivity and perseverance in the presence of intrusive thought and self-doubt; How over time it becomes so easy to stray from ways of play and become overwhelmed by ideas of purpose and productivity. I create with the belief that when the memories, worries, and dreams we carry around start to tangle together with time, it’s the routines we practice and the objects we craft and collect that help ground us again.

 

Johnny McCaffrey | 2024-2025 Arrowmont Artist-in-ResidenceJohnny McCaffrey (they/them) is a queer and trans woodworker and sculptural artist from Olympia, WA. Their work focuses on themes of reclamation, reinvention, and playful curiosity, both conceptually and materially. Craft and art making have been a through-line in all areas of their life – from a familial lineage of makers to working as an art installer, handler, home builder, and carpenter. Johnny earned a BFA in Craft and Fine Art from Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA in 2021, and attended Penland School of Craft in 2023 for a fall concentration in woodworking.
There are stories to tell.
Without words.
With the heart
And hands. the Body speaks
and It knows before you do.
What It knows is expansive. beyond the limits of ego. beyond and deeper.
So deep that there are just no words.
Just attraction. a flicker of something deep in your belly.
Stick with the feeling. don’t name it. follow it.
It is in you.
My work explores material realities//possibilities in relationship to my//ourphysical, emotional, and spiritual experiences of being a human in a sometimes//increasingly maddening world.
I am enchanted by the histories of the reclaimed materials I find and am equally engaged with the form these materials will take in my hands. My process is an enigma– organic, intuitive, yet critical, political, and calculated. Coupled with a desire to reveal untold stories, hidden realities, and truths just below the surface, my work seeks to be a physical manifestation of justice in all forms for all.