This last Thursday we finally had our reception for the mentor protege program. It was very enjoyable just like always. It was nice to be able to talk about my work with others in the community that came to see the show. It was also nice to see a bunch of my friends and fellow student artists that were featured in the show.

A little about the mentor program for those of you that don’t know. The mentor program started back in the fall of 2008. It was created by my college art professor Marjorie Nilssen along with her husband Robert Mattson and has been funded by a grant. The program gives the opportunity for some of the best art students at Ridgewater College to team up with professional artists in the community. The students and the artists work together throughout the school semester on their own time and two shows are put on at the end of both the fall and spring semesters.

The following is a list of the art students and professional artists that were featured in this show and a little about each of their pieces.

Martin Nelson | Bill Gossman

Martin Nelson

My piece is a sculptural landscape. It incorporate ideas from nature and the world around me. Below is my artist statement that describes a little more about the my sculpture.

I have always been fascinated by the world around me, and recently it has become an inspiration for the artwork that I have been creating. The forms and environmental themes that are represented in these sculptures can be seen in the beautiful and vast landscapes all over the world. In this particular piece the southern desert landscape is being portrayed in its most raw and driest state. The form and texture that is created with the clay takes on the natural forms that can be found in the outside environment. These sculptural pieces have a distinct beauty to them, and they show a new dimension to the world that is around us.

Bill Gossman

Bill had a large ceramic pot and plate that he featured in the show. Both pieces were fired in the wood burning kiln. Both of his ceramic pieces were very nice and our work complemented each other very well.

Marisabel Bautista | Robert Mattson

Marisabel Bautista

My very good friend Marisabel has done some amazing work over the last year and the pieces that she included in this show reflected her hard work and creativity. She worked with Bob on drawing and ended up creating an art book and three large mixed media drawings for the show. Both of her pieces had strong similarities but were very different in the way that they were created, the materials that were used, and the ideas and meanings that were behind them. Her book was presented under glass with an image slideshow on a TV screen behind it. At the show the glass was removed and people were allowed to page through the book. The large drawings incorporated watercolor, oil stick, and photo transfers.

Robert Mattson

Bob is a painter and much of his recent work are oil and steel paintings. I find his paintings to be very interesting and thought provoking. These particular paintings are half and half, one side is a sheet of steel screwed to a board frame and the other side is a oil painted canvas.

Paola Pena | Craig Edwards

Paola Pena

Paola worked with Craig Edwards creating ceramic pieces. She constructed and glazed some square shaped plates and made some masks that were molded from her own face. I really enjoyed looking at the masks that she created.

Craig Edwards

Craig is a local potter that lives in New London, MN. He lives near Bill and they have worked together from time to time. He had two small pots in the show, both were very similar, but each had their own textural and color differences.

I was very honored to be involved in this program for two semesters and be able to work with Bill Gossman in his studio. Now that the funding has stopped the program will be coming to an end, but of course that does not mean that I stop working on my sculptures or working alongside Bill.

What is next? I will probably start working with Bill again towards that end of March when things start to wind down a little bit around here. I have many ideas in my head right now along with some sketches that are already drawn up for some new sculptures. I think that I am really onto something with my current sculptures and ideas and i just need to keep working and see where things lead me.