To celebrate women’s challenges and tragedies in a way that is imbued with hope, the Dixie State University Sears Art Museum presents “The Red Dirt Girls: Peace’d Together.”
The exhibit will open with a panel discussion and artist reception featuring local blue-grass group Red Dirt Girls from 6 to 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 1. “Peace’d Together” will be on display Oct. 1 through Jan. 14, 2022, and admission to the exhibit and opening events is free.The Red Dirt Girls — Kirsten Holt Beitler, Jenna Mae Linewaver, Miriam Rawson and Peg Wheeler — have experienced loneliness, divorce, loss of home, friends that were untrue and life’s constant challenges and surprises but have emerged with their optimism and humor intact. Pulling from these experiences for inspiration, The Red Dirt Girls use art to tell their stories and celebrate great women with canvases full of color. With grit, determination and skill, these artists highlight the role women have in shaping the attitudes of those around them while sharing uplifting and positive messages.
“The most important thing is that the art speaks for us individually and collectively as women,” Rawson said. “We have messages we want to share, and this is a great way to do it.”
“Peace’d Together” will be accompanied by art created by The Firm, a collaboration of four ceramicists. Shane Christensen, Michael Schmidt, Stephen Heywood and Brian Jensen exhibit individually but also show collectively under the name The Firm. Each artist earned a Master of Fine Arts from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and is active in ceramics and teaching. In their exhibit, which is on display in the Eccles Grand Foyer, the four friends share their experiences, escapades and purpose in life and ceramic.
“Artists in The Firm have all advanced in their art form and contributed to the ceramics community as a united entity,” Kathy Cieslewicz, director and curator of Sears Art Museum, said. “Their love of clay presents functional ceramics, finesse of quality, detail and craftsmanship, always with a twist of creativity.”
Located in Dixie State’s Dolores Doré Eccles Fine Arts Center, the Sears Art Museum is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and offers free admission. For more information, visit www.searsart.com.