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statement
Conversation, discussion, debate – my work is about dialogue. The pieces negotiate the ordinary and the refined, the work of hands and the work of the mind, the deliberate and the intuitive, the flawed and eccentric, the serene and the obsessive. These pieces are in pieces, they only become interconnected when their various parts are assembled and attached to the support, relationship forged. I have long considered this quote from poet Andre Breton a mantra that continues to whisper to me, “The mind is wonderfully prompt at grasping the most tenuous relation than can exist between two objects taken at random, and poets know that they can always, without fear of being mistaken, say of one thing that it is like the other.” Each part, of itself, must be its own composition, yet when combined with the other elements they create this community, interacting each with the other, inviting us to join the conversation.
biography
A native South Carolinian, Fran Gardner lives and works in the communities of Heath Springs and Lancaster, not far from her birthplace, Hartsville. She earned her BFA from Columbia College (1982) and later, her MFA from Vermont College of Norwich University (1993). She is a professor of art and art history at the University of South Carolina Lancaster where she teaches a variety of foundations studio courses and art history, appreciation and art education. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally and published in several journals and books.
• "Witness to Creativity" installation at the Florida Museum for Women Artists, Deland, FL (2010)
• Twice accepted, Craftforms national exhibition, Wayne Art Center, Wayne, PA (2003-03 and 2006-07)
• Twice accepted, Through the Needle’s Eye, Embroiderers’ Guild of America, Inc., traveling throughout the United States for 3 years (2008-11 and 2004-07)
• Twice accepted, American Craft Council’s Spotlight exhibit, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, TN, 2007 and Blue Spiral 1, Asheville, NC, 2003
• FIRST PLACE AWARD, Southeastern Biennial Juried Show: Fiber Fantasia, Chattahoochee Handweavers Guild, Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts, Duluth, GA, 2007
• Three times selected, 35th, 37th and 38th Annual Clay, Fiber, Paper, Glass Metal, Wood national exhibition, Octagon Center for the Arts, Ames, IO (2006, 2005, 2003)
• Reviewed in Needle Arts Magazine, vol. 39, number 4, pp 13-14, with full color reproduction, 2008
• Reproduction in Expressive Drawing: A Practical Guide to Freeing the Artist Within, by Steven Aimone, Lark Publishing, 2009
• Featured in Crafting Personal Shrines, by Carol Owen, Lark Publishing, 2004
• Cover art, Moving House, Lisa Hammond, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007
• Feature article, “Layer Upon Layer,” Fiberarts Magazine, 31.1, 2005: 44, by Rhonda Sonnenberg
career highlights
