MassMusings

Today, we have a conversation with Mario Arteaga, our current Studio M artist.  His exhibition is titled Heated, and it is displayed through March 9th. Mario has a Bachelor of Science in Fashion Merchandising with a minor in Accessories. In 2024, he earned a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in Jewelry, Metals, and Enameling from Kent State University, and currently teaches in that department. He also works as a CNC (computer numerical control) machinist apprentice at Kennametal in Solon, Ohio. In the exhibition Heated, Mario relays the emotional connections between his family, fear, and his own world view.

The Massillon Museum appreciates operating support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark, marketing support from Visit Canton, and the support of the citizens of Massillon. This exhibition is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Views and opinions expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the museum.

On today’s episode of MassMusings, we interview current Studio M artists Grant Ederer and Stephen Tornero about their exhibition A Fair Trade, which is on view through January 5, 2025.

A Fair Trade features ceramics by Grant Ederer, and weaving by Stephen Tornero. To create the exhibition, the artists traded artwork over several years to inspire one another. The result is like an elegant improvised duet expressed through repeated shapes, textures, and colors in the gallery space. Learn more about the artists below, or click here for further exhibit information.

Grant Ederer is a ceramicist living and working in Akron, Ohio. He studied industrial design at Pratt Institute (2016), which cultivated his interest in functional, sculptural, and tactile characteristics of clay. He uses a wide variety of techniques in his studio practice including wheel throwing, hand building, mold making, and slip casting. He is inspired by biomorphic forms and how they interact with architectural lines and elements.

Stephen Tornero is a textile artist and art teacher from Canton, Ohio. His weavings focus on using color with dye and resist techniques to create patterns on the surface of the cloth. Using a mixture of traditional techniques with nontraditional methods, he creates artwork that pushes textiles as an art form while maintaining their connection to the past. Stephen teaches art to middle school students and art education courses at Kent State University.

The Massillon Museum appreciates operating support from the Ohio Arts Council and ArtsinStark, marketing support from Visit Canton, and the support of the citizens of Massillon. This exhibition is funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Views and opinions expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the museum.

Through the Looking Glass is an exhibition of porcelain sculpture by Ohio-based artist Kimberly Chapman.

Chapman works through a female lens, exploring the lives of fiercely independent women who lived on the fringes of respectable society. Tiger trainer Mabel Stark and sideshow performers Myrtle Corbin and Kittie Smith are among the women portrayed in the Studio M exhibition.

Chapman focuses on what women endure, shedding light on dark subjects, including insane asylums, silencing women, the worldwide refugee crisis, and domestic violence. Her creamy white objects force the viewer to contemplate universal cruelty and injustice through the female lens.

“It’s in my DNA to heavily research past and present offenses and find creative ways to make something solid that says, 'This really happened and is still happening today,’” Chapman explains. “I like to think that I’ve joined the ranks of feminist artists that stepped beyond their comfort zone and used art to amplify women’s issues.”

She employs hand-building, slip-casting, and press-molding techniques. She stretches the clay to create an “otherworldly” appearance, using clear glaze and luster to avoid obscuring the essence of the clay’s natural beauty.  

Since her 2017 graduation from the Cleveland Institute of Arts, where she won the school’s most prestigious award, Chapman's work has been featured in more than 50 solo and group exhibitions in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Before that, she used her marketing degrees from Cleveland State University and Ashland University during three decades of marketing corporations and colleges.

The artist’s article “Out of the White Cube” was published in Ceramic Monthly in October 2022. Other feature stories include: The Cleveland Arts Network Journal, March 2021, Cleveland Magazine’s Community Leader, February 2020, Northeast Ohio’s Canvas, Spring 2019, and Ceramics Monthly, December 2018.

A member of numerous arts organizations, Chapman serves as co-chair of the Cleveland Institute of Art Advisory Council and is a member of the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Women’s Council.

Massillon-based artist Emily Bartolone explores, through her artworks, the intersection of shape and color and how those elements can express human experiences and relationships encountered in daily life.  

Emily Bartolone obtained her BFA from the University of Dayton, and her MFA from Kent State University.  Her artwork has been shown at Project Gallery V, New York; the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati); Abattoir Gallery(Cleveland); the Galleri Urbane (Dallas); the Oceanside Museum of Art (San Diego); and the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, among other venues.  Her paintings have been featured in publications such as Art Hole (London) and Okay Cool Magazine (New York).  Bartolone was awarded first place in the 2024 Miami University Young Painters Competition for the William and Dorothy Yeck Award. 

Raw Material is a solo exhibition by Katie Davis that explores themes of feminism and domesticity.  Davis is a mixed media painter and installation artist.  Her color choices and visual language have a direct relationship with her materials, which are sourced from retro interior design trends and textiles.  The artwork uses formalism and abstraction, held in tension with whimsy and playfulness.  Her rich surfaces combine layers of paint, lace, buttons, old curtains, or clothing.  Davis is the recipient of numerous awards, and her artwork has been published in New American Paintings, Archer Magazine, and INPA 10, among other publications.  She is represented by Sarah Gormley Gallery, and is also a faculty member at Columbus College of Art & Design.

On view in Studio M from April 6–May 19, 2024

Portrait of US  is an evolving audiovisual archive of intimate stories told by ordinary people. The artists Monica Jane Frisell and Adam Scher create the audiovisual portraits in their Nomadic Photo Ark, a roaming black-and-white darkroom and art studio, as they weave across the United States.

Frisell and Scher visited Massillon with the Nomadic Photo Ark from September 25 through October 6, 2023.  Their Studio M exhibition will include audiovisual portraits of Stark County residents whom they interviewed, along with other portraits from the project.  

McDonald creates large-scale oil paintings that are tied to reality, but exist in a different place. In Another Life: A Tale of Love, Loss, and Living explores the artist's inner world and how it has been affected by her experiences.  She is influenced by religious texts, mythology, and pop culture. In her paintings with vivid colors, she depicts women in environments where they are free to be themselves. In other, more realistically-colored paintings, her self-portraits face the viewer, reflecting the constraints of expectations placed upon her as a woman in contemporary society. Themes of feminism, love, loss, freedom, and heartbreak are present in all of the paintings. 

The artist, who works and lives in Massillon, received her BFA in painting from Kent State University in December 2023. She has been making art since she was a child, when she often visited the Massillon Museum. While she was working on her degree, bands invited her to paint during their performances. Her live music paintings were featured in the exhibition Frequency of Color in September 2023. McDonald paints large-scale oil paintings in her Massillon studio. Her new body of artwork explores the hidden aspects of love.

Elena Masrour, an Iranian artist now based in Birmingham, Alabama, works as a visiting assistant professor at Birmingham Southern College. She received a master of fine arts in painting from Kansas State University in 2022 and a bachelor of fine arts in fabric and textile design from the Tehran University of Art in 2013.

Drawing inspiration from her homeland, Masrour’s artistic vision centers on the profound impact of religious propaganda over the past four decades, particularly after the Islamic Revolution. Through her art, she sheds light on the social transformations that have ensued, with a specific focus on the experiences of modern Iranian women.

Set the Twilight Reeling is poised to be an emotional experience for visitors. Carlson (1954–2020) communicated using a language of line, colors, space, form, contrast, and gesture to express narrative, and above all, feelings. The artwork draws in visitors and reminds us to recognize the experiences of others and find ways to connect.  

Carlson wrote of his own work, “It is important to me, to paint my conviction about the subject, the spirit and less of the details. I choose the most barren, perhaps most brutal way to say what I want strongly and with the fewest possible things necessary.” The artist was dedicated to creating and to the creative process, working constantly in multiple media.

Alexandra Nicholis Coon, MassMu’s executive director, noted “John channeled the weight of his emotions into a creative process.” She explained he had so many stories to tell and were it not for his life being cut short, would undoubtedly have continued to impact the Northeast Ohio art scene, and the country, with his powerful paintings and expressive artistic voice. “Massillon Museum is honored to represent a portion of John W. Carlson’s prolific career in the form of this exhibition and full-color catalog.”

This exhibition and the accompanying catalog introduce the complexity of Carlson’s artistic life. The exhibition’s aim is to create an atmosphere of connection, a goal aligned with that of the Massillon Museum’s mission. Set the Twilight Reeling includes videos, sketchbooks, and items from Carlson’s studio to communicate his intention, thought process, and working environment.  The studio objects function as the record of a process. 

Carlson makes it clear through the videos in the gallery that he is speaking directly to his audience, acknowledging them in a direct, informal manner that creates a connection through the screen. Although not present in person to experience audience responses and people responding to one another at this exhibition, the spirit in which the artist created, and lived, will undoubtedly be alive in the gallery space. 

Born in 1982 and raised in the Midwest Rust Belt, Ish Ishmael is a documentary-style photographer, an installation artist, and a vagabond. Infatuated with exploring the diverse approaches that humans take in late-stage capitalism, Ishmael traverses the arteries of the USA in her Toyota minivan, seeking disparate threads of commonality through the collective American dream. Ishmael weaves together conflating experiences between the lines of her vastly constructed boundaries. She holds a BFA from Seattle University and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art.