Art by Steve Ward and James Riley
The Murfreesboro Center for the Arts will host The Pfeilstorch Incident and Other Conspiracies, an exhibition of collaborative art in a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, printmaking and poetry by a group of longtime friends, in its gallery from June 11 to Aug. 2.
An artists’ reception will be held on Friday, June 14, from 6–8 p.m.
The group of artists responsible for the work on display includes Steve Ward, Mark Hackworth, Audrey Naffziger, James Riley, Saul Gray-Hildenbrand, Ken Carder and Louie Staeble.
“I have always enjoyed working collaboratively. There is a lot of pleasure to be found in the process of engaging with someone else’s imagination,” Ward said. “Like a group of musicians jamming until they find a groove worthy of refinement, collaborative work sometimes results in moments of blissful connectivity and something greater than anything you could achieve alone. That’s not always the case, of course; notice I said sometimes. But even bad jamming often results in a satisfying joyful noise.”
“The Land of Shovels” by Mark Hackworth, Steve Ward and James Riley
He said that the group of artists and writers have remained friends across a span of 40 years.
“We hope viewers will enjoy the work as much as we enjoyed making it,” Ward said.
Ward is a resident of Murfreesboro who taught design, drawing, printmaking and art theory for a number of years at MTSU.
Gray-Hildenbrand is a resident of Murfreesboro who works in a variety of media from drawing to painting to sculpture. Through his complex and peculiar creations, Gray-Hildenbrand reveals his “profane love of the absurd.”
“Orange” by Mark Hackworth and Steve Ward
Hackworth lives in Athens, Ohio, and works in printmaking, drawing and painting. He has received two Ohio Arts Council artist grants. He lives with poet Audrey Naffziger.
Naffziger co-founded the ATCO-Hocking Writers’ Collaborative, partnering college writing students with adults with disabilities in order to write poetry, short stories, plays and music. A Fulbright recipient, Naffziger’s writing has been published in numerous literary journals and she has published three chapbooks.
Riley is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Al Smith Fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council and an Individual Artist’s Fellowship from the Ohio Arts Council. His work has appeared in numerous literary magazines over the years. He is currently the English Program Coordinator and a Professor of English at the University of Pikeville in Pikeville, Kentucky, and will soon release a new poetry book, Broken Frequencies.
“Charlotte Mint” by Ken Carder and Steve Ward
After attending Bowling Green State University as an art student, Carder traveled to North Carolina in the summer of 1981 to apprentice with glass artists. In 1984 Ken was chosen to be an Artist in Residence at Penland School of Craft and began operating his own studio full-time. He has exhibited work both nationally and internationally and is represented in numerous public museum collections.
Louie Staeble is a photographer based in Bowling Green, Ohio.
The Murfreesboro Center for the Arts is located at 110 W. College St., Murfreesboro; its art gallery is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information on The Pfeilstorch Incident and Other Conspiracies art collaboration, contact Ward at algykrebbs@gmail.com or 615-896-6754.
