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Sandra J. Blain Galleries
Material Reverence
April 7 - May 16, 2025
2024-2025 Artists-in-Residence Closing Exhibition
The closing exhibition for our 2024-2025 Artists-in-Residence centers on their unique practices and the intersection of tradition and technology within art and craft. Each artist embraces these tenants in different aspects of their work, marrying their artistic practice with their individual experience as a resident on Arrowmont’s campus.
Featuring artists Lela Arruza, Breana Ferreira, Johnny McCaffrey, Sam van Strien, and Grant Turner
Material Reverence explores how these artists honor the histories embedded with their medium and reveal what can emerge through the act of making. They draw close, attuned to the dialogue between touch and texture. They follow its pulse – the way it resists or yields, the way it carries the marks of past lives. Their work remembers.
They do not impose meaning; they uncover what is already there. In their hands, material is more than a means to an end – it is a record, a reckoning, a reverence.
Materials remember. They carry the trace of hands, the spirit of purpose, and the weight of history. To work with material is to work with time. When hands meet surface – wood, clay, paper, metal – past and present fold into one another. Material is not just a substance; it is a witness, a collaborator, and a keeper of memory.
– Kelsie Conley, Assistant Curator, Knoxville Museum of Art
Lela 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. Each paper vessel is composed of thousands of individual origami pieces created through Golden Venture folding. By meticulously cutting, tearing, and folding every piece before construction, my work emphasizes the time and labor that goes into learning a craft. I have developed a series of Gatlinburg inspired vessels utilizing flyers from popular tourist destinations to capture this unique community and map my time here as an Arrowmont Artist in Residence.
Breana 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 integrates clay with the two-dimensional arts to develop a visual narrative that explores the boundaries between function and sculpture. Since graduating, Breana has worked as an educator and resident artist in association with the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Southern California, the Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago, and most recently Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee.
Johnny McCaffrey (they/them) is a queer and trans woodworker and sculptural artist from Olympia, WA. Their work focuses on themes of reclamation, reinvention, curiosity, disruption and justice both conceptually and materially. Reclamation of material, history, place, and stories play a vital role in all their creative pursuits. Craft and art making have been a through-line in all areas of their life – from a familial lineage of makers to their work 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.
Sam van Strien is a visual artist who examines the relationship between architecture, finance, and capitalism, exploring how these forces shape the built environment. 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. Through these strategies, he seeks to convey the tactile and visual boundaries that shape our encounters with architecture. His work serves as documents, records, and visual remnants of our built environment, questioning whether the essence of architecture can be truly captured through mediated images, or if it exists only as concrete matter, as a place we can touch and see.
Grant Turner (He/Him) 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. Grant received his BFA in Digital Arts from Bowling Green State University in 2022. Since graduating, Grant has worked as an educator and resident artist in association with Pocosin Arts School of Fine Craft and most recently Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
