2024 POP Artist Showcase Announced

“There is something intoxicating about standing in front of a spinning piece of wood and poking it with sharpened steel instruments. The sounds, the smells, the moment in time; being the first to reveal what has been hiding within the log. Each cut, every curve directly translated from my hip through the tool to the wood as I shift my weight from one leg to the other. Cutting away all that does not belong to the form in my head, until what is left is a vessel of my creation, embellished by mother nature. I am as much in love with the process as I am with the object.”

My work is focused primarily upon hollow form vessels. It is my goal in every piece to create a sense of “fullness”, though within the thin walls of wood only air remains. I enjoy the challenge of hollowing through the smallest hole I can, that fits the chosen form. I have and continue to experiment with surface treatments such as carving, brushing, or branding. Yet, I always find comfort in returning to the elegant simplicity of pure form and the natural beauty of wood. In the world of cooking, it is often said that top quality ingredients treated with respect and prepared simply are hard to beat. I think about that every time I cut into a log from the bounty of the Pacific Northwest.” ~ Kevin Jesequel

“I am drawn to the primal beauty of nature, the strangeness and sensuousness of it all. In the Flint Hills of Kansas where I reside, 250-million-year-old marine fossils dot the limestone of the rocky prairie, and handling such artifacts sets my imagination ablaze. I feel connected to the ancient history of the ground underfoot, am made to appreciate all that lives and grows around me, and am reminded of my own small place in this world. Accordingly, I create sculptures that combine the familiar forms, textures, and colors I observe in nature, with my goal to evoke the same enigmatic feelings I have when pondering the primordial landscape: curiosity, awe, reverence, and perhaps a little fear of the unknown.

We sometimes forget that the landscape lives and breathes in its own way, and every object and being within has its own story. Wood, with its lived history, is an intriguing sculptural medium because it imbues my work with its characteristic warmth and unique combination of strength and fragility, regardless of how the surface is carved, textured, or colored. I feel successful when something I make seems animate, when it shortens the distance between the worldly and other-worldly.“ ~Heather Marusiak