“Tending the Balance” Exhibition Opening Reception at Carnelian Art Gallery

Carnelian Art Gallery, located at 221 King St., Suite 102, in downtown Madison, is pleased to announce its fourth art exhibition of the year, titled “Tending the Balance,” whose theme is centered around ongoing care, as well as the intentional effort to maintain equilibrium, whether emotional, relational, internal or in nature. It also touches on connection, transformation and growth.

The exhibition will kick off with an opening reception at 5 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 5, at the gallery. As always, admission is free and light refreshments will be served. Tending the Balance is slated to be on display until Halloween, or Friday, Oct. 31.

Participating artists include Amanda Langer, Aaron Laux and Eric Peterson, who all specialize in three-dimensional artworks.

“Tending the Balance is an exhibition that I hope encourages people to examine how they can bring steadiness into their lives and retain it,” said Carnelian Art Gallery marketing director Emilie Heidemann. “Through stillness, we find clarity and truth. We discover, once again, who we are.”

Tending the Balance’s opening reception is to include a poetry workshop put together by C. Kubasta, who is the president of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, as well as the executive director at Shake Rage Valley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Kubasta writes poetry, fiction and hybrid forms. Find more information about Kubasta at ckubasta.com.

Kubasta’s poetry workshop centers around the exhibition’s theme, and will prompt reception visitors to approach a piece in the show that speaks to them, and ultimately write a short piece about it. Visitors are then welcome to share their poems on social media by tagging @carnelianartgallery and @CKubastathepoet and using the hashtag, #tendingthebalance.

The workshop will last throughout the duration of the opening event, but Kubasta will put on a short presentation regarding the workshop at 6 p.m.

Following the presentation at 6:30 p.m., Langer is set to deliver an artist talk regarding her background, some of the technical aspects of her work and the concepts and ideas that inform the sculptures she creates.

“My work is an exploration into the contrasting and often conflicting natures we hold within us and around us,” Langer writes on her website. “By exploring the dualities within the materials I work with, I seek to similarly expose the variability within ourselves. I enjoy investigating how fiber and metal can be combined in new and surprising ways, and I believe it shows how the multitudes of elements between humans and our societies have infinite potential to combine and work together to find harmony.”

Langer earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in 2017 and has since worked in ecological restoration while pursuing art on the side. She is currently returning to her art in pursuit of melding her two primary passions into one cohesive whole.

“I am excited to show my work at Carnelian,” said Langer. “As a new gallery to the Madison scene, it brings a fresh attitude toward art and its role as an art institution in the community, and it’s a privilege to be a part of its journey and impact.”

More about each artist

Born in 1972, Laux, according to his website, first understood that his life would be driven by a need to create at the age of five. His individual evolution, growth as a professional artist and commitment to community has largely been shaped by exploring the alternative. After three years of undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he followed his passion and accepted an apprenticeship with artist Steven Spiro. This blossomed into a decade of mentorship and training in wood sculpting technique which grounded Aaron’s technical skills and unique vision.

Throughout the remainder of his 20s and early 30s, Laux eschewed convention by deciding to go off the grid. Building and living in a yurt, he poured his passion and intellect into personally understanding the experiences of the first humans. Art for him at the time was survival, learning long lost skills that connect us to the natural world. This included the process of making stone tools, which is a symbolic element in his current contemporary mosaics. Other experiential education including world travel – especially living in South India for a year – contributed to Aaron’s interest in the ways other cultures relate to the natural world. This relationship with our environment is a constant theme that he explores in his work and life. From 2016 to 2018, Laux was a Fellow in the Clark Hulings Fund Business Accelerator program. This experience helped Laux bridge the gap between the necessity of creating an income, with the vision and spiritual side of making art. Within Laux’s diverse portfolio, you will find original art, commissions, community-based projects, public art, as well as functional and architectural works.

In 2015, Aaron was selected to participate in GLEAM, an exhibition at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison. GLEAM celebrates the symbiosis of art and nature with installations of predominantly light sculptures throughout the outdoor gardens, Aaron’s entitled “Luminous Grass.” In 2018, Laux was invited to exhibit his functional art with the Handmade Craft Invitational at the Dubuque Museum of Art. This exhibition featured a selected group of regional artists whose work is influencing the current functional art movement. Both of these exhibitions exemplify Aaron’s innovative approach and commitment to helping us understand how we connect to the natural world.

Laux has become increasingly vocal – and with a young daughter increasingly worried – about the impact of human caused climate change. He was recently selected to participate in “The Phoenix from the Ashes,“ an exhibit of public art organized by the Madison Arts Commission which explores climate change issues, including deforestation.

Peterson is the purveyor of Mobius Frame Art, located at 5000 Turner Ave., in Madison. He has, according to his website, over 20 years of fine art experience, and his works are strongly influenced by the movements of contemporary art and mid-century modern minimalism, as well as Japanese motifs.

Peterson’s aesthetic takes from the aforementioned styles with strong crisp lines, bold fields of color and shimmering accents of metallic ripples that can be observed in his artworks.

“We are so unbelievably excited to showcase the works of local talents like Amanda, Aaron and Eric,” said Carnelian Art Gallery owner and head curator Evan Bradbury. “Not only that, but this is the first exhibition in the Carnelian Art Gallery’s history that will feature exclusively three-dimensional artworks. Please join us to both celebrate fine art, and invest in Madison’s broader art community.”

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