Jane Lawrence, Mixed Media Artist

Artist Statement:

Artist Statement:

It’s an artist’s job to exhume what’s buried alive inside of her.  And so, I dig.

I was digging long before I had the proper tools for the art of expression.  As a very young child, I penciled random letters together, repetitiously showing my work to Mom, asking, “Does this spell anything?”, “How bout this?”.  The thrill when I accidentally created a word with meaning gave me my first inkling that I had the tools, and that if I used them, I could say anything I wanted.

I spent the bulk of my life using a pen for a shovel. And for most of those years, it was the perfect tool for me.  Archaeologically, even if what I was writing to exhume was burrowed deep, ink could coax it to the surface.  Paper words- in distinctly marked graves- with ink and paper lying almost flush.  Over time, they began to feel one-dimensional. 

As I grew experientially older, and buried more and more living thoughts and emotions and history, what I was exhuming only tunneled deeper.  Consequently, my sentences got longer and longer.  No matter how many letters of the alphabet I strung together, even with italics, it wasn’t breaching the depths.  It wasn’t reaching where I needed my art to go. And so I started looking for a shovel with a broader scoop and a longer handle. 

I began romancing clay in 1989.  What began as a flirtation became an outlet that became an obsession that became a life-path.  The deeper I dug, the more organic and dimensional the artifacts of expression.

For me, turning faces and words to stone allows for the study of living fossils, in our perpetual state of Self-burials and excavations.

Even as art digs up & exposes & expresses the sameness of you and me, we try to sneak our distinctions into the crevices, crannies, nooks and holes. Tamping down a new layer of cover over this piece of art or that one, secretly believing that it’s a coincidence or irony that we see not just ourselves, but one another in the work.

The integrity and intention of my art is based on an invitation to make eye contact with what lies between, what’s buried below and what is hiding in plain sight. Sculpting allows you and me to experience and share the gravitational pull between beauty and the eye of the beholder, i.e., the ancient bond between a wink and a nod.

I hope that you will not only look, but gently touch. And that if what you see or read or feel makes you think, you’ll ask yourself, “Does this mean anything to me? How bout this?”

 Benjamin J. Lustig, Photographer

Artist Statement:

The journey of photographic work is created to establish a better understanding of my place within the natural environment. While growing up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, fly-fishing, backpacking and camping became my first form of education and intimacy with the wilderness. These experiences instilled within me a deep appreciation for the Western landscape. And because this region is my home, there is a great emotional impact that exists whenever I return from the Carolinas to reunite with family and photograph.

These photographs are not intended to convey environmental issues or human impact on the land, although this cannot be avoided. Rather, the images are created to communicate a sense of belonging through the use of space, time and physical attributes. In photographing to find coherence to this idea of positive integration I discovered that the photographs do not lend themselves to the concept that man and nature are the same, nor do they merely summate neutrality between the environment and myself.  Only through a large gathering of quiet visual information I am convinced that the images depict our coexistence as a state of harmony rather than just definition.  I believe we are needed by nature to account for what nature is, as well as it gives meaning to who we are – validating each other’s importance.  These images are to serve as a bridge between my current emotional state of mind, the legitimacy of personal place, and beauty of my environment.

Benjamin J. Lustig

January 2008

Benjamin J. Lustig received his Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Photographic Media at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Photography at Pitt Community College in Greenville, North Carolina.