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CATHARINE CARTER: When I think about the title of this show, “Breathe” I am remind­ed how often we go through our busy day with­out stop­ping to take a breath and check in with our feel­ings. It is in those moments when I stop and take a breath, the act of inhal­ing and exhal­ing can put me in touch with my thoughts and allow me be open to inspi­ra­tion. My art starts with rec­og­niz­ing an espe­cial­ly promi­nent or trou­bling thought or feel­ing that that makes me won­der why it has my atten­tion. My piece ‘Open Book’ cel­e­brates how a great sto­ry can spark your imag­i­na­tion. In ‘Bub­bles’ I was think­ing about the fragili­ty of life and ‘Omen’ is the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a fore­shad­ow­ing feeling.

SUSAN HOPE: Breathe…We all do it. It is auto­mat­ic. It is life. As I antic­i­pat­ed a fast approach­ing dead­line, and as you might imag­ine, had to calm­ly breathe.. a lot… and grate­ful­ly wait for the ideas to rise out of atten­tion to the moment. Some­times the inspi­ra­tion just was­n’t there. Some­times the muse was miss­ing. Some­times the glass or the kiln did­n’t coop­er­ate. Stay­ing focused was a challenge.The work for this show reflects my con­tin­ued exper­i­men­ta­tion with glass as it is bro­ken, frag­ment­ed, crushed and melt­ed again and again. Work­ing in this tech­nique enabled me to cre­ate more painter­ly images, unlim­it­ed col­ors and a vari­ety of tex­tures. It is a slow process. Each fir­ing in the kiln can be as long as 24 hours and each piece is fired 4–6 times before they are cleaned and pol­ished. I now see these ‘down times’ as the breath tak­en in the space between bursts of activ­i­ty. It was good to have time to think and rest. In the silence of the kiln the many bro­ken pieces of glass became fused into a whole piece again. Just as in my life, cre­ation and heal­ing hap­pen in the qui­et and rest as I patient­ly, intentionally…breathe.

JUDE LOBE: The title BREATHE to me is about find­ing peace and calm in the beau­ty of nature. Our exhib­it is a call out to breathe and find the beau­ty around us. Rather than fret­ting about the past and/or future, BREATHE means live in the moment.  My art is inspired by the nature around me which con­vinces me all liv­ing and so-called ‘non-liv­ing’ things have ener­gy and are inter­wo­ven and con­nect­ed to sup­port one anoth­er’s sur­vival. By lis­ten­ing and view­ing nature around us we can learn all that we need to know. And so, we should rec­og­nize that as a part of nature, and our sur­vival, depends on the sur­vival of the nat­ur­al world around us. Pro­tect­ing it allows us to BREATHE.