Chasing Ghosts 10 Artists pierce the Veil through Remembrance, Legacy, and Beyond and they put the hallow in Halloween!
KENNY BASS
"I thought I was bringing home snapshots. Apparently, they weren’t finished with me. I made Spent with a disposable camera in Iraq in 2003. Looking at that small print now, I see what the frame holds and what it cannot: empty shell casings cover the ground, but much of what I carried home remains invisible.
That’s what draws me back to the hard things. The photograph gives me something concrete to share when an explanation falls short. I can start with a picture without pretending I have a neat ending."
Kenny Bass
COLIN SMITH
“Pollution is the ghost of our production, a spectral remainder that refuses to decompose or disappear.”
Jesse Birch, Black Diamond Dust
"I have always been drawn to photographing the lasting impacts humans have had on our planet, particularly the scars we leave behind in pursuit of progress and prosperity.
The history of coal is a powerful example of how a fleeting economic boom can leave a legacy of deeply polluted waterways, abandoned landscapes, and underground mine fires that burn for more than a century.
Through my photography, I seek to capture these haunting remnants of human activity—places where the past refuses to disappear. We rarely confront the environmental consequences of our pursuit of temporary gain, yet these ghosts remain, quietly shaping the landscape for generations.
For me, Chasing Ghosts is about making the invisible visible and remembering what we have chosen to leave behind."
Colin Smith
PATI HAYS
"Having had several encounters since childhood with spirits from beyond the veil, this theme, Chasing Ghosts resonates quite strongly with me. The shifting boundary between what we know as "reality" sometimes thins, allowing us to glimpse into the shadowy places beyond.
The melancholy that accompanies grief and loss is balanced by hope and the potential for a spiritual awakening - for a new beginning."
Pati Hays
JOY BROOM
"Look at these beautiful bones--the loveliest decay! They lived
propped up in the earth outside my studio door for years; I have no
memory of where they came from. The very process of saving
them--brushing them off, drawing directly on that worn smooth surface,
dipping them in purified beeswax, embedding the thread as
bloodlines--was just the thing to tie my own ancestors back to a
larger Natural History. This Verum Ultimum theme (Chasing Ghsosts: Piercing the
veil Through Remembrance, Legacy, and Beyond) calls out to all my work."
Joy Broom
JENNIFER ROTTINGHAUS
"I'm drawn to the hidden stories held within wood, particularly the natural details that reveal something of a tree's life and history. Hollows, knots, spalting, and weathered edges each contribute to the character and individuality of a piece. In Hollow’s Edge, the tree's natural hollow became an integral part of the bowl's form, shaping the direction of the piece. I find beauty in the relationship between what has changed over time and what remains. Working with wood allows me to honor those traces of the past while giving the material a new form and another chapter in its story."
Jennifer Rottinghaus
JOEL KELLEY
Artifact
Left to rot. Worthless to some, dead to some. Punished by the elements of life. But a new perspective, a different understanding and vision of what could be emerges. This is not the life that once was…but it honors this creature’s past in another realm.
Vibrant color and intricate designs breathe a new kind of life into this artifact. Now attention, intrigue and recognition return. The same but not the same. The shape when recognized and a few elements are visible that whisper of a previous life.
The irony is embraced that redemption speaks via the jawbone of a once silenced living being.
Renewal may not show itself as we often envisioned it.
Hope and art live on.
Joel Kelley
KELSEY LEIB
"I am drawn to the hope that we can see beyond black-and-white. That we can understand nuance, notice details, and hold many conflicting realities as truths. Whether it is exploring the concept of existing between physical and spiritual worlds, holding countless identities, or seeing the truth that lies in the heart of fiction, I hope my work encourages us to pause, to think more deeply, to unroot ourselves from a single perspective and open our eyes to multiple truths."
Kelsey Leib
SUSAN GRACE
"“Harbinger” was inspired by this passage, which to me expresses the desire to glimpse something meaningful and coherent in a hidden, shadow world:
"She could, at this stage of things, recognize signals like that, as the epileptic is said to—an odor, color, pure piercing grace note announcing his seizure. Afterward it is only this signal, really dross, this secular announcement, and never what is revealed during the attack, that he remembers. Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back.”
― Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)
Susan Grace
BRENDA WARD
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
-Abraham Lincoln
Quote shared by artist Breanda Ward
BARRY JORDAN
"The human condition at its rawest rub is vulnerable, transitory, a mere handsbreadth in light of eternity. Even as naivety and brut intellect segue in trade for a chic sophistication—a measured step of reasoned restraint—our steps remain numbered, the skin on our feet likewise thin and taunt on earthen paths or sun scorched cement. Stripped of bluster and bravado, the soul finds her foremost footing, a tender and tenuous engagement with monster and mundanity alike as she steps into the day, into the night, and onward into the ever after. For now, we walk in the Garden because we have feet."
Barry Jordan
LAEL SALAETS
"We are the summation of experiences. Objects are a conduit to open or revisit those memories (particularly for those of us with ADHD.) In depicting still life, with a focus on the wear and tear as a vital aspect of the composition, offers a glimpse of experiences imprinted by others over time.
Experiences involve loss - of someone, something, a place or idea. I wonder if we spend much our lives grieving and that these external memory devices enable us to connect, heal and move on.
The way is through."
Lael Salaets
BOB CONGE
"So often in our fractured society the every day atrocities escape view like ghosts wandering among us hidden in the fine print of terms on the back of credit card applications that go unread by most. Punishing rates and penalty fees that would astonish a mob loan shark, designed to keep the least effluent among us indebted to the indifferent greed of the American Bank for a life time of dread and fear. These are the real monsters dressed in 1000 dollar suits sitting in leather chairs across the 3 inch thick cherry desk tops with the smiling mask.
The intent of my sculpture is to bring focus to contemporary issues affecting the quality of life in this century and give voice to those who suffer in silence."
Bob Conge
Laurie Mika
"Compelled to respond to our current political landscape, I created Up In Smoke,
a work that frames despair (the burning book), with hope, depicted by the dove that rises from the flames. Like the phoenix, it symbolizes renewal born of ashes and proof that ideas and knowledge cannot be destroyed, only reborn. It is a hope for peace and a way to find the light in all of the darkness."
Laurie Mika
Susana Berdecio
"Photographers capture miniature moments in time. I have always been drawn to landscapes with abandoned structures as intersections of memory and heart. To photograph old, abandoned buildings, is not to document decay, but to speak to the Buddhist concept of anicca, the impermanence and evanescence of being. Everything changes."
Susana Berdecio
ADELINE SIDES
Thoughts of an early passage into fables, rituals, and taboos, seep through. There is a familiarity, a presence, faint at first but growing. The details tell a story.
Visitor
Her piercing gaze,
haunts and unsettles,
rattles the soul,
and touches the mind.
Between fear and curiosity,
The quiet screams,
The darkness fills with brilliance,
and pulls from a psychic depth.
Peering through hidden doors
connected to other realms.
Did you hear the voice, or feel the touch?
Maybe you heard the guitar?
Adeline Sides
RUTH KEITZ
"Memento Mori literally means, “remember that you will die.” Just as the seasons turn from spring to summer to autumn to winter, the cycle of life moves from birth to life to death. As in the 17th and 18th century Dutch paintings, empty shells remind us that we are mortal, that life is fleeting, and that we will all die.
Obituary notice photographs show us the physical changes wreaked by time and the ultimate conclusion of the life cycle. I was particularly struck by the obituary inclusion of a deceased newborn’s footprint…a footprint in the sands of an all too short a time."
Ruth Keitz
SHEARY CLOUGH SUITER
"I was drawn to the theme Chasing Ghosts because the phrase symbolizes the perplexing human propensity for living in the past or the future rather than accepting and embracing the present. True reality exists only in the current moment. Yet our heads are constantly consumed by ruminations on what was or what will be. What we should have said or done. What we will achieve or acquire. Chasing the ghosts of what we once had, or wish for, rather than gratitude for what we have."
Sheary Clough Suiter
KELLI COOPER
"I love the theme of chasing ghosts because ghosts are such a universal symbol and they never fail to elicit a response from the viewer. The imagery and even just the concept of a ghost draws out an idea, a feeling, or even a whole storyline from people. Whether they find them scary, cute, melancholy, mysterious, beautiful or horrifying, people are intrigued by ghosts. For myself, I like the idea of the unknown, of the shadow world, and of a sense of beauty mixed with sadness. If we are being honest, we all love chasing ghosts."
Kelli Cooper
JOHN DIEPHOUSE
"My art has several recurring themes, one of which is imagery that is suggestive rather than direct and provides an almost subliminal nod to memories that are seldom easily expressed as literal or factual recollections. Particularly of interest are experiences that struggle to surface in our consciousness and often hover on the periphery of our awareness, never being fully brought into the light but also never fully suppressed. The act of creating images is often a process that reflects a successful effort to tap into this stream of semi-conscious thought and feeling."
John Diephouse
BOBBIE JANSEN
"My painting 'Ghosts' is about the way memory leaves us with a limited imprint of an experience or person, which time then begins to fade until it is barely perceptible or gone."
Bobbie Jansen
MARYANNE MOODIE
"During both of my pregnancies, I imagined having a daughter. I have two sons, but those imagined relationships stayed with me. The daughters I imagined grew from wondering where those feelings go when life takes another direction.
Weaving gives me time to sit with things I haven’t quite found words for. I can follow a memory through the materials without needing to resolve it.
In this work, two delicate woven forms sit within a frame wrapped in reclaimed silk. You can see through them, but they still cast a shadow. I wanted to give those imagined daughters a presence, while keeping the sense that they could almost disappear."
Maryanne Moodie
ELLEN ROSEWALL
"I am a fiber artist because I’m always chasing ghosts. When I create something new, I’m participating in historic traditions thousands of years old. I see the women who painstakingly made flax and wove sails for Viking ships. I see women in the Shetland Islands knitting as they walked to market (they really did!). I see women in early America using a simple embroidery technique called “chicken scratch” to liven up garments made of humble gingham, and Japanese women mending clothing with visible stitches in beautiful patterns. These women and many others sit on my shoulder as I create."
Ellen Rosewall
SYLVIA BANDYKE
"I was drawn to the theme Chasing Ghosts for a very personal reason: more of my loved ones are on the other side of the veil now and I want to stay close to them. Think they are chasing me sometimes in a loving way."
Sylvia Bandyke
ELIANA BODINAKU
"I am drawn to the hidden things because they are the places where truth
resides. My work explores the fracture between the rational mind and the
emotional essence—the ghost of what we have become when we disconnect
from our core. I paint the shadow not to dwell in it, but to illuminate
it, to give it a shape so it can be seen, understood, and perhaps
transformed.
Carl Jung wrote: 'Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will
direct your life and you will call it fate.' This is exactly what I try
to do: to bring the invisible into the light, so that what guides us is
no longer a ghost, but a conscious choice."
Eliana Bodinaku
KENT O'DOHERTY
"I have done guided Jungian meditation a number of times, and the first time I came across a small stone house - set in a dark forest with smoke rising from the chimney. Inside there were 7 people (five men and two women) all dressed in heavy, silver hooded robes seated around a long and heavy wooden table. They were talking and the room was filled with a golden light. It was very clear to me then, as it is now, that these people are my guiding force - The Council as I refer to them. Perhaps they lived in this soul before my time, I am unsure. They are the people I could feel looking through my eyes when I was a child, and they are the deciders of where my art moves to and when."
Kent O'Doherty
BOB HAFT
"As a working artist I continually draw inspiration not only from the beauty of the natural world but also from the complexity of my interactions with people, some of which can be disturbing and difficult. Since art is a form of personal expression, making it is often an antidote to dealing with one's emotional responses to trying situations. Sometimes it’s necessary to shout how one feels, but at other times one needs only to whisper."
Bob Haft
JACK STRATON
"It is a very fraught thing to wander through a former city-scape
soaked in the anguish, loss, pain, and anger of people's lives
shattered by wildfire, and try to extract beauty of a sort. But it is
important that those who are removed from the destruction find an
emotional connection with those whose lives are overturned by such a
disaster. The emotions bound up in these photographs, somewhat like a
spell, can only get their power from the real emotions I feel as I
photograph. So I have come to welcome the ghosts of survivors' dreams
floating past me as I work."
Jack Straton
ALMA MUELLER
Are You There
by Alma Mueller
Are You there?
I feel You here
how will I know?
give me proof.
My psychic friend says You are:
that You talk with him at times
but You offer no glimpse into the secrets that We shared,
our deepest places—
no proof.
One day my psychic friend texts:
You insist—go to the kitchen
feel a different temperature.
It is Me.
Can it be?
I rush to the kitchen,
stand in the warm rays of sunlight pouring through glass.
Can it be this?
nice, but, I can feel this any sunny afternoon.
I turn, closer to the stove,
slowly feeling a changed sensation.
Is it heat?
The empty burner has been on all day.
Then I knew.
It is You.
