Sharon Meyer Postance
I grew up amid the fields of corn in southwestern Minnesota and now live on a farm in northern Minnesota surrounded by forests and swamps, reeds and willow, and in winter, endless expanses of snow punctuated with drifts of dried grass.

Making sculptural vessels (non-traditional baskets) enables me to combine the forms of clay vessels with the tactile qualities of fiber.  I use recycled paper, handmade paper, papers from Japan, Thailand, Nepal, and India, silk from Japanese kimonos, embroidery thread, sisal and jute twine, fleece, wire, pigment, whatever materials the vessel requires. 

The coarse fleece of ancient sheep evading extinction; dried, seemingly dead grasses, which in winter bend before the wind but do not break; seed pods with their rough textured exteriors and silky inner membranes; these are my influences.  I want to pay attention to the small, the seemingly insignificant part of our world, the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly, the iridescent green beetle that hides behind the flower.  I want my vessels to capture the spirit of the natural world we all inhabit.

View Sharon Meyer Postance's Gallery

Selected Exhibitions
American Art Company, Tacoma, WA – Third Sculptural Basket Invitational, 2005
Duluth Art Institute, Duluth, MN – “Worldly Goods” (solo exhibition), 2005
Waters of Superior, Duluth, MN – “Thirteen Moons” exhibition with Christine Herman, monoprints, 2003
Talley Gallery, Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN – “Elemental Forms:  Contemporary Fiber Vessels” (solo exhibition) 2002
National Basket Organization Biennial Conference, Abiquiu, NM – “All Things Considered II” (juried exhibition) 2002
The Chicago Athenaeum, Schaumberg, IL – “Made from Scratch:  Invitational Exhibition of Fine Craft, 2002

Grants
McKnight.ARAC Career Opportunity Grant, Arrowhead Regional Arts Commission, Duluth, MN, 1999
University of Minnesota, Duluth – Artist Lecture Series, 2001

Collections
Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN

portrait: Christopher Felver