I went to Clairissa Stephens MFA thesis exhibition Thursday, 4-24-14

Clairissa was my drawing 1 instructor, so I really wanted to be able to see her thesis exhibition, "Interior West". Sadly I was not able to until the very last day of the exhibit, but I was able to talk with Clairissa about it while she was photographing her work.

"Interior West" was a series of works she had done about the Nevada landscape. One of the first things I noticed about Nevada when I moved here, was the mountains. I come from the valleys of California, and had rarely, if ever, experienced mountains like these, so I loved her subject matter. She had done several cartographic pieces, making a cartographic map of different peaks, and placing a rock she found at the top where the peak was in her map. She also had several root systems she had drawn, and then one piece in the very back that was more of a sculpture. The one in the back was a series of rocks suspended two inches apart at heights that suggested the 360 view of crystal peak. All of the rocks she had collected herself from her visit there.

The fact that she had a rock from each of these mountains I felt really made this work very strong. It showed that she had been there, that she had not merely copied a map from the internet, but visited the location itself. I also found it very fitting that she did most of the work in silver point, Nevada being the silver state. Silver was one of the themes I found floating through the work.

All in all I was very impressed with the exhibit, and with Clairissa's body of work.