Submitted by Alchemy Art Center.
Join Alchemy Art Center at the SJIMA on Sunday, Oct. 29, for the final installment of our 2023 Artist Talk Series! This month, visiting artists Sarah Gonzales Busse and Jenna Tessler discuss creating art as a social and/or personal statement.
The talk will take place at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art (in the upstairs workshop area of the SJIMA, located at 540 Spring St.) from 5:30-7:30 p.m. This free event can be attended in person or via zoom- visit https://alchemyartcenter.com/events for more information.
Sarah Gonzales Busse, based in San Antonio, Texas, works in print and natural-dyed textile, focusing on individuals as signifiers and paradoxes within the human condition. She is drawn specifically to how individuals and groups inhabit intergenerational histories, cosmology patterns, sacred geometry and cultural geographies. Her work often features women and children as primary messengers and receivers within natural, domestic, spare or abstracted landscapes.
Her materials and approaches have ranged from painting, drawing and sculpture, to more recently working with natural dyes and traditional methods on paper, print and textile works as she reacts to being an artist and mother in these times of evolving cultural narratives, performative digital living and really dire global climate and economic uncertainties.
Jenna Tessler (She/They) is an artist working through her ideas in the mediums of photography, mixed media and writing. Her art practice is influenced by her minor in expressive art therapy that emphasizes process over attaining a final product. Through artmaking, she aims to bear witness to and further process her own experiences, especially ones that feel untouchable, difficult or traumatic. The work that she will be sharing centers around the neurodivergence in her family and the relationship she has with her brother. She self-identifies as a “Glass child,” a term used to refer to the sibling of someone with a disability.
Tessler earned her BFA in Photography in 2021 from Lesley’s School of Art & Design (formerly Art Institute of Boston, Mass.). She has spent the last few years exploring some of what the arts world has to offer. Notably, she has assisted at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops in New Mexico; Headlands Center for the Arts in Marin Headlands, Calif.; and the Photo Center Northwest in Seattle, Wash.
To see more upcoming events at Alchemy, please visit: https://alchemyartcenter.com/events.
The Artist Talk Series is part of Alchemy’s Artists in Community Program, which creates opportunities for artists from diverse backgrounds to live and work on San Juan Island. This program is supported by the San Juan Island Community Foundation, the Horizons Foundation, ArtsFund, ArtsWA, the Norcliffe Foundation, the San Juan County Arts Council, and by donations from members of our community.
For more information about Alchemy, please visit www.alchemyartcenter.com.
