Bird Ross

medium: textiles
wisconsin arts board artist fellowship award winner, 2002
wisconsin academy gallery artist

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Okra Studies (Numbers 1 and 2) 2000 Textiles	Accordian Cone 2000 Textiles	Gathered Box 2000 Textiles
All Added Up 2002 Sculpture	6000 Knots 2002 Sculpture	6000 Matches 2002 Sculpture
Little Blue Mitten 2000 Textiles	Dozo 2000 Textiles	Gone Bobbin 2000 Textiles
Jeweled Grapefruit 2001 Sculpture

Contact information
Artist resides in: Madison, WI
Email Address: bird@uwalumni.com
Web site: www.birdross.com

Artist statement
Problem solving, not cowboys or concoctions in chocolate, is my weakness. It is the challenge I take by the horns regardless of the beast to which they are attached.

The teapots gleefully emerged from an insatiable desire to fabricate a familiar object out of unrelated materials. How do you create a handle: bend a spoon, borrow one from a suitcase, break off the back of a doll's chair, stitch one on the edge of a mitten?

Vessels out of maps? I fell in love with the map paper first and then adapted it to my interest in creating vessels. I didn't see why I should resist the incredibly pliable, strong and clay-like qualities of these nautical maps. The maps became the focal point of this vessel series, in which I explored the metamorphosis of a two-dimensional plane into a 3-dimensional object.

Before grapefruit skins air-harden they are almost flesh-like. As a raw, supple and organic material, there are incredibly seductive. The require a certain intimacy from the start. What way of working would complement them, elevate and transform them? By taking some apart, putting them back together, encrusting them with jewels or incorporating them with an overabundance of French knots, I feel like I've captured some of their possibilities while also investing in their inherent qualities.

When these various explorations are successful, they result in a strong relationship of materials to form. You support the material and it supports you. It becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Teapot, vessel, grapefruit or...? I want to resolve the problems of "how" while never letting go of "but what with" and "why not." I want to taste the surfaces with my fingers and smell the results with my eyes. I want to hear the materials dancing, knowing their togetherness was always meant to be.

Biography
Bachelor of Arts in French, Tulane University, 1980. Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992.

Grants/Awards
2002 Wisconsin Arts Board artist fellowship winner
2001 Wisconsin Arts Board Percent for Arts Purchase

Exhibitions
2002 The Work Gallery/Sofa, "Found Object Art," Philadelphia and Chicago
2001 Mesa Arts Center, "Contemporary Baskets," Mesa, AZ
Yuma Symposium Gallery, "Presenters Present," Yuma, AZ
2000 Sofa, "Teapots Transformed," Chicago
Wustum Museum of Art, "Who Knows Where or When," Racine, WI
1999 Madison Arts Center, "Wisconsin Triennial," Madison, WI
Cleveland Institute of Art, "Trashformations," Cleveland
1998 White House Blue Room, "Holiday Tree Ornaments," Washington, DC