“Out of the Woods” came to the University of Idaho Prichard Art Gallery amid COVID-19. The gallery’s previous exhibit, “Four Old Guys,” only extended for a week. The regular shows from Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) students, which normally extended through the summer and into the fall, were postponed. When the Prichard was reopening, nothing was planned until the director, Roger Rowley, contacted local artists Ted Kelchner and Andria Marcussen.
“They’re pretty much consistently making new things,” Rowley said. “And that’s how this came into being, not by any means of the normal trajectory array that we would organize an exhibit, but under the circumstances, it gave us something new and different to put together.”
Kelchner and Marcussen work independently and collaboratively. The married couple met in Rochester, New York in the 1980s and wanted to get away. Marcussen entered graduate school at UI and graduated in 1996. They live together north of Potlatch, with an assortment of animals as neighbors.
Along with their visual art, they create all sorts of music. The couple goes to places like Spokane, Seattle and Portland. Other musicians follow their shows.
In their studio, they create across all mediums, including drawing, painting and sculpture.
The medium they choose for each project is driven by the idea of what’s appropriate to the artwork. In their most recent exhibit, they used paper, photography and sculpture for a wide range of pieces.
Marcussen worked on two sets of projects. For her first project, she made flower arrangements photographed to be the size of a thimble.
“Looking at the very tiny arrangements takes a second to realize the ratio to human scale,” Rowley said. “You begin to perceive what’s going on.”
Her second project enlarged Letraset press type stamps to appreciate the quality and graphics. The exhibit is in a corner of the gallery to simulate the pages of a stamp book.
For his own portion of the exhibit, Kelchner wanted to focus on what has become more important during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kelchner created folded sculptures, all monochromatic. One series highlighted “cowboy pants” in a range of sizes. Some sculptures are tall enough to reach the ceiling. He arranged the sculptures in the gallery like a “standoff.” His second series he described as “a rain of boxes.” Kelchner mentioned how people have come to rely on delivery services.
The event has been at the Prichard since June 26 and will be available for viewing until Sept. 5. The closing reception has been cancelled.
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Emily _ A_ Pearce.