The SEGway News
April 27, 2017
Page 3
Personality
Kaitlyn Weaver: ‘100 Pieces’ at the Bridge Cafe
Kaitlyn Weaver is wrap-
ping up her last month as
a student at Taylor Univer-
sity. As a senior, she’s spent
the last several months cul-
minating her work and ex-
perience to prepare for her
Senior Art Show.
Kaitlyn came into Taylor
University undecided on
her major, but after talking
with professors and stu-
dents, decided to pursue Art
Education. “I always heard
the phrase,‘You can do a lot
with Art Ed’, and that was
encouraging to me because
I never necessarily saw my-
self as a teacher.” Kaitlyn
desires to teach art, but in a
slightly different way.
She’s so appreciative of
the teachers who spend the
full day teaching new prac-
tices, but she’s realized that
this group-style teaching
can be quite exhausting.
“There would be something
really tragic about not mak-
ing my own art because
of exhaustion.” Kaitlyn is
looking forward to develop-
ing studio-style classes with
more one-on-one time with
clients.
Her own art-making has
been a therapeutic and life-
giving experience, and she
can sense a clear difference
in her mind when she’s in-
volving herself in creating
compared to times that she
is not. Of the many medi-
ums that Art Education ma-
jors have the opportunity to
work with, Kaitlyn chose
display ceramics and water-
color for her Senior Show.
A large part of Kaitlyn’s
inspiration has been her love
for the natural and the out-
doors. Kaitlyn spent most
of her young years outside
in the country. “I feel that
the outdoor space gave me
a lot of space to be creative
with my time. I have space
to breathe or make up weird
games. The outdoors play a
large role in my creativity”.
In a past project involv-
ing woodcarving, she was
encouraged to find a plant
in the ground, identify it,
and learn what it’s history
For this body of work, I chose to pursue two media
that have been my favorite and that I continually come
back to in art: watercolor and ceramics. Working with
watercolor has never been easy for me; in fact, I have
been quite challenged by this complex medium, but for
this reason it has been all the more rewarding to keep
pursuing. In ceramics, I feel a little more secure and self-
assured, simply because I have had the most experience
with it out of any art form. At the same time, ceramics
is a medium that I have continuously found to be new
and exciting, as I have come to more fully understand
the minutiae of working with clay. There is something
about working with clay that feels so natural for me, it’s
as if I find my most creative self when ceramics is what
I am doing.
Watercolors
Through the exploration and research of plants as a
source of medicinal healing and well being, I came to
realize and marvel at the interconnectedness of plants
and organs, both which sustain life. My watercolors be-
gan with a spark of interest in researching the medicinal
uses of plants, which came out of a printmaking proj-
ect where I researched the common plant with a small
purple flower, prunella vulgaris, or the heal-all plant.
I found such satisfaction in representing this plant by
means of the intricate woodblock carving and printing
process, that I wanted to continue exploring plants in
my watercolors. I found that just researching plants and
painting them was not communicating the depth of what
I wanted to show about the essentiality of plants to our
lives, so I took a new approach. I painted a pink peony
with exaggerated roots coming from the top of the page,
which resembled the shape of lungs. In the middle of
these roots, I placed a small heart to depict this connect-
edness between life and plants that I wanted to portray.
From here, I continued delving into the beauty of organs
and fell in love with the way the line quality of roots and
veins were so closely related.
was. She developed this
woodcarving project into
a watercolor series explor-
ing roots and their structure
alongside vital organs.
Kaitlyn has drawn to-
gether her work with water-
colors into a display called
‘100 Pieces’ which was
displayed at Taylor Univer-
sity. In this display, visitors
were invited to choose a
bisque-fired ceramic bowl,
and paint whatever they
wished on it. Kaitlyn loved
watching viewers connect
and interact with the piece.
“I love the idea of viewers
being invited into the work.
My watercolor pieces don’t
have glass in front of them
because I want the person
to be involved and up close
with it”.
The Bridge is happy to
announce that they will be
hosting Kaitlyn’s ‘100 Piec-
es’ series along with her wa-
tercolor series for the month
of May. Kaitlyn plans to of-
fer visitors a bowl of their
choice from ‘100 Pieces’ as
a thank-you upon donation
towards a collection being
taken up for a local organi-
zation. Make sure to drop
by The Bridge next week
to view her work, and find
more information on this
donation opportunity.
Ceramics
In both handbuilding and wheel throwing, I seek to
achieve beauty in simplicity, creating very even, flow-
ing forms, finished with neutral colored glazes and firing
techniques. In the work for this show, I wanted to be able
to form connections between my watercolors and my
ceramics by use of similar forms and colors. The Raku
firing and horsehair techniques seen in the pieces, Rest-
less and Intertwined, was one method through which I
sought to represent similar line qualities to those seen in
the paintings.
My intention for One Hundred Pieces was to bring
the viewer into participation with the unfinished process
of small, bisque fired ceramic bowls. I wanted guests to
be able to interact with my work and to become an in-
tegral part of the exhibition by allowing them to choose
a bowl, to paint it with watercolors, and