This powerful exhibition offers an opportunity to understand mental health issues though fine craft. This exhibition at the Ohio Designer Craftsmen/Ohio Craft Museum 
at 1665 W. Fifth Ave, Columbus, OH http://www.ohiocraft.org opens on July 10th (1-4) and runs through August 21st and is partially sponsored by a PFW Grant. Artists included in this powerful show include:
- JESSE ALBRECHT
- ROSE CLANCY
- JENNIFER LING DATCHUK
- EDWARD EBERLE
- KAITLYN EVANS
- LYN GODLEY
- JOAN IVERSEN GOSWELL
- MEREDITH GRIMSLEY
- MICHAEL JANIS
- GRACE KUBILIUS
- SOPHIA JUNG-AM PARK
- ALISON SAAR
- SWOON
- IAN THOMAS
- This is Michael Janis’ statement and his image”Echoes” is featured above.
“Human social interactions are complex behaviors. Often many are unaware of how they are acting, feeling and interacting with others. We live so often in a condition of being obscured from ourselves and others. The things that can isolate one can be social conventions, politeness; or it can be personal: timidity, self-fear or self-blindness, fatigue.
I used clear glass as a way of seeing through ones actions and intents. Each element of the glass works in Echoes depicts a pair of overlapped faces created in fused glass powder arranged so as to create a new, third face. The imagery suggests the struggle to balance the different worlds that collide together, of out of body experiences and of contrasting mixed state episodes.
I see the interaction of the non-aligned faces as a depiction of the fate of both the inner and outer worlds. I wanted to show a sense of connection between the worlds. One cannot change without leaning a little further into the shared world, and without recognizing that even in one’s solitude, one is always at some point touching someone else.
