Artist Jenny Dowd inspired by everyday objects

Selections of her mixed media art are on display at the Bingham Gallery.

By Gabrielle Lipton

Published Nov. 3, 2009

Objects seen on a regular basis often make people lose their incentive to give them a second thought. Leave it to an artist to revisit the meaning that sometimes fades into the background of everyday living space.

MU graduate Jenny Dowd seeks to accomplish this with her work. On display at the George Caleb Bingham Gallery's Alumni Exhibition, Dowd's take on a table and chairs as well as collections of books use steel, casing, porcelain and mixed media to show her ability to re-invoke the significance of such items.

This selection from Dowd's installation "Tenuous Record" is one of the many projects she has completed since receiving her MFA from the MU art department in 2005. Having moved to Georgia, then back to Missouri and now to Jackson Hole, Wyo., Dowd has spent her time since graduate school teaching, working and collaborating her artwork, which consists of clay sculptural ceramics and mixed media ceramics, with literature.

Her work has been shown all around the U.S. but one of her prouder moments came at the very beginning of her career in 2006, when she was featured in the "Premio Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro International Competition for Young Sculptors" in Milan.

"It was really special because it really started the work I was making after graduate school," Dowd said. "I was not expecting to get in to it, so I entered just a drawing, just a sketch of something I was going to make, and then I got in and I had to figure out how to make it. It started what I did for the first full year after that and gave me something tangible to work towards after grad school."

A recent accomplishment of Dowd's is "Collection," a collaborative book between Dowd and writer Tammy Christel, which pairs haikus written by Christel with photos of Dowd's work.

The idea for this project originated in a workshop Dowd took about business skills for artists. When Dowd was made to write a three-sentence statement about herself as an artist, she instead wrote a haiku.

"I thought 'Oh gosh, I can't do that,' so I wrote a haiku," Dowd said. "It was the only way I could force myself to think small. From a haiku, you can say so much in so little."

Christel had seen and written an article about one of Dowd's gallery shows in Jackson Hole, which then led to Dowd contacting and working with her to produce the book.

"It was really cool seeing her process as a writer," Dowd said. "She started with tons of words she thought of when she looked at the artwork and then she started pulling out certain words and turning them into haikus."

This unique collaboration is one of many exemplifiers of Dowd's innovative outlook. She works with porcelain, paper clay, terra cotta, graphite, wax and thread to create installations that have been based around everything from small boats to books to, her most current endeavor, teeth.

"My inspiration comes from my collections, little objects I pick up, whether I use them or re-state them," Dowd said.

Her display in the gallery shows the same sort of thought. The groups of porcelain books bundled together with thread stem from the walls of the gallery, offering a different take on such common objects.