Bluegrass and Backroads

Bluegrass and Backroads has a new episode featuring Leslie Nichols art.

Each week, Kentucky Farm Bureau’s Emmy Award winning Bluegrass & Backroads travels the back roads of Kentucky, to capture its rich agricultural heritage, its intriguing people and its unique locations.

Join Bob Shrader and Matt Hilton, as they search for unique stories in the Bluegrass State; discovering its people, culture and rural charm.

The episode featuring Leslie and her work airs on KET from February 14-20, 2015. Here is the station schedule to find a time you can view the program.

2014 STUDIO NEWS RECAP

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! 2014 was a busy and exciting year in the studio. Here is a recap of the year in studio news.

Leslie Nichols presenting at the Casper College Humanities Festival

• The year started with a trip north to Casper, Wyoming where I presented at the Casper College Humanities Festival. The interdisciplinary festival, which focused on storytelling, was a highlight of the winter and you can view my lecture, “Gender and Storytelling in Typewritten Portraits,” online.
   
• One of the most anticipated events of this past year was the release of Barry Tullet’s Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology, which included 2 of my works. I was thrilled to have my work appear in the book’s review in the Metro, a daily distributed in the London Metro, as well as sites such as Slate and Brain Pickings. Needless to say, this was great exposure for my work.
   
• Important collectors saw my work in Typewriter Art. Marvin Sackner contacted me in April and acquired Siobhan (Grimké 1837) for the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, in Miami, FL. Having work in a prestigious collection means that piece is in good hands for the long term.  
   
• The addition of my work to a public collection was complemented by acquisitions to 15 private collections. Thank you all for your support of my work!
   
• I exhibited work in ten shows in 2014 including a solo exhibition titled A Decade of Text at the Lucretia C. Begley Art Gallery on the campus of Lindsey Wilson College. Group exhibition highlights include Susanna Coffey of SAIC choosing my work for the Red Clay Survey 2014: Contemporary Southern Art at the Huntsville Museum of Art. I was awarded a $1,000 Merit Award by Linda Benedict-Jones of the Carnegie Museum of Art in the Northern National Art Competition at Nicolet College Art Gallery in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Additional exhibition venues included the Evansville Museum in Indiana, the Lore Degenstein Gallery at Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, the Sleeth Gallery in West Virginia, The Kentucky Museum, and Ellis Walker Gallery in Kentucky.
   
• In 2014 made an effort to stay connected through social media and started a Facebook fan page that just reached 500 fans this week! Now you can “like” my Facebook page, "follow" @lesnicholsart on Twitter,  and "follow" @leslienicholsart on Instagram.

Here is to a great year! Thank you for your support of my studio practice, I am looking forward sharing the New Year with you.

Leslie Nichols

Zion National Park 2015 Artist-in-Residence

Zion National Park has selected Leslie Nichols to serve as the park's April 2015 Artist in Residence. Her project will depict the images and stories of various people that "make" Zion National Park. She will spend the month of April immersed in the park collecting materials to create portraits.

The Artist-in-Residence program at Zion honors and continues a long tradition of artists using their work to facilitate a conversation on the value of nature and preservation. Leslie is excited to bring her unique work to  this tradition which began in the early 19th century with Hudson River School painters and Transcendentalist writers like Thomas Cole and Henry David Thoreau.

Evansville Museum Mid-States Art Exhibition

A new typewritten portrait by Leslie Nichols will be on display in the 57th MID-STATES ART EXHIBITION at the Evansville Museum. Her piece, Kathy (Stanton 1892), was chosen for the competition by artist and educator Ephraim Rubenstein. This portrait of artist Kathleen Swift is created with text from "The Solitude of Self" written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1892.

First inaugurated in 1948, the purpose of the MID-STATES ART EXHIBITION was to showcase emerging artists from the Evansville area, including artists from  Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, or Tennessee. Over the years, the objects collected through the Mid-States Exhibitions have created a wonderful and extensive collection of contemporary works by artists from a variety of educational backgrounds and talents.  Many of the objects can be viewed in the Permanent Collection galleries of the Evansville Museum. 

The Red Clay Survey: 2014 Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art

Leslie Nichols' work will be on display at the Huntsville Museum of Art through October 26, 2014

Two of Leslie Nichols' typewritten works were selected  for the Red Clay Survey: 2014 Exhibition of Contemporary Southern Art hosted by the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama. Initiated in 1988, the Red Clay Survey is a recurring juried exhibition open to established and emerging artists in 11 Southern states. The Survey “takes the pulse” of current art through a selection of works determined by a juror with strong national credentials. This year’s juror is painter and educator Susanna Coffey of New York City.

The series intends to recognize and encourage excellence, and provide a permanent record of the development of regional art through the publication of a comprehensive exhibition catalogue. See the exhibition catalogue here.

Ebony, typewritten portrait by Leslie Nichols

Award of Excellence at the Northern National Art Competition

Leslie Nichols' intimately-scaled typewritten piece, "Kaitlin (Paul 1923)" received a $1,000 Award of Excellence at the 27th Northern National Art Competition. The juror, Linda Benedict-Jones of the Carnegie Museum of Art, commented on the work:

"I just think it's remarkable, when you step back you see an abstract portrait of a young woman and you're not even quite sure what it's made of and then the closer you come it's letters from a typewriter. And then it actually means something because these are real sentences and real words . . . The competition is steep but I still believe ['Kaitlin'] sets itself apart, it stands apart, it's uncommonly good and what I think as a juror it's my responsibility to find things that are uncommonly good"

The Northern National Art Competition is on display from July 22 – September 12, 2013 at the Nicolet College Art Gallery in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. This national exhibit was juried by Linda Benedict-Jones, Curator of Photography for the Carnegie Art Museum. Benedict-Jones selected 87 of the 512 pieces into the juried exhibit.

Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology

Leslie Nichols has two works included in the publication Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology. by Barrie Tullett. The publication is available for purchase in stores and online. The book is published by Laurence King, a London based independent publisher well known for books on the creative and visual arts. The varied work and studio practices of the artists that Tullet features in the book are inspiring.

Tyepwriter Art: A Modern Anthology

The publisher's description: "The first typewriter artist to find fame was Flora F. F. Stacey, with her butterfly drawing of 1898; but since the very beginning of the typewriter’s existence, artists, designers, poets, and writers have used this rigorous medium to produce an astounding range of creative work.

This beautiful book brings together some of the best examples by typewriter artists around the world. As well as key historical work from the Bauhaus, H. N. Werkman, and the concrete poets, there is art by contemporary practitioners, both typewriter artists who use the keyboard as a "palette" to create artworks, and artists/typographers using the form as a compositional device. The book will appeal to graphic designers, typographers, artists, and illustrators, and anyone fascinated by predigital technology."

From Our Perspectives: A National Women's Art Exhibition

Lois (Woolf 1929) is featured in the exhibition, FROM OUR PERSPECTIVES:A National Women’s Art Exhibition. This is the first time my work has been exhibited in Michigan and I am honored to be included.

FROM OUR PERSPECTIVES:A National Women’s Art Exhibition.

September 26 – October 25, 2013 Hours: Monday – Friday, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm

The Wallace Smith Theatre Gallery OCC – Orchard Ridge Campus, 27055 Orchard Lake Road, Farmington Hills, MI OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, September 26 – 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

For more information call 248.522.3642

Leslie Nichols Included in From Our Perpectives 2013