Part III: CWE-based artists create during the pandemic

 

Nancy Exharu, whose studio is located in the CWE, said that “During this really challenging period I am keeping my sanity devoting my time to two artistic disciplines, ceramics and writing.”

“Both disciplines require isolation and concentration. As for my writing, I write in Greek, my native language. I am part of a group of Greek writers overseas and we have been meeting once a week regularly all this time, over Skype. It is a way to keep me going and feeling less isolated. These past months I have had my stories published in Greek magazines.”“Working with clay is soothing and therapeutic. It is also challenging since I can no longer use the studio I used to glaze and fire my work. So I take the challenge and I explore new venues and ways of creating. I work with porcelain that I treat as a non-precious surface. I treat it rather as a paper (my ceramics are very thin) where I lay my mark. It is an interesting hybrid between ceramics and printmaking.”

For now I am accumulating the ceramics in my CWE studio, focusing on production and waiting for the day when I can open my studio doors and have shows and sales.  But now is a time for making art.”

Visit Nancy Exarhu’s website and on Instagram for more information. And be sure to read Roxanne Philips excellent interview with Nancy in March, when announcing an Award for Excellence for Bird, above, which was entered in Art Saint Louis’ virtual exhibit.

Junko Eccles

Long time CWEnder Eccles emailed:  “As a cancer survivor I have been super careful during the pandemic, I almost never go out. A friend cooks for me and delivers weekly to my place. When I need fresh air, I go up to (the late) Marjorie (Hoetzel’s) rooftop (top photo), she is still in my mind. (Hoetzel and Eccles shared an art studio.)

During the pandemic Eccles has been practicing calligraphy, copying 1000 year-old poems  in Chinese, left above, and Japanese, right, on Japanese rice paper.

“In order not to waste any of the rice paper, which is very expensive, I then use it to make collages I call ‘recycled paintings,’ Eccles said. Above: Recycled #1, acrylic on rice paper.

Recycle #3, acrylic on rice paper.

Eccles’ self-described sidekick Susan L’Engle, above right, Professor Emerita, Saint Louis University, reached out when she heard I was doing this post: “I recently moved to Lakewood, Ohio, but keep in touch with Junko every Sunday on Zoom. Junko wanted me to send you some pictures of what I have been doing with her practice calligraphy papers–she gave me bundles of them to use as packing material during my move.”

“The calligraphy is so vivid and pictorial that I decided to recycle all the packing papers, smoothed them out and used them for various projects in my new apartment.” The projects include the stuning lampshade and cylindrical container she uses for storing papers.

Former CWEnder Stan Jones

Jones’ reaction to “being quarantined and going stir-crazy since March” was to paint a 20″ x 16″ abstract oil painting he named Joe. It depicts the view from his 3rd floor studio overlooking the Pulitzer Arts Foundation’s Richard Serra sculpture Joe (named after Joseph Pulitzer), and the view south on Spring Avenue toward SLU’s campus.

For more info, [email protected]

I’ll be posting more artists and their work soon.