invitational exhibition

New Challenge-Based Artwork: Construct

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Once again interrupting my Japanese posts to remind you that the invitational You Want a Piece of Me? exhibition which I previously posted about here ends on August 17, 2025, so due to the gallery’s open hours you have two more dates left in which to stop by! I’ll get more into that below, but first, let’s do a deep dive into what I did.

This show asked artists to create art using a jigsaw puzzle, or puzzle pieces, as part of the art - and to leave at least some portion of original puzzle visible. You may recall that last year we did a similar challenge using board games, and here is what I did for that Advance to Gogh show in 2024!

For You Want a Piece of Me?, I needed to recycle puzzles - but I don’t own any, so I stopped by a thrift store and perused their offerings. I ended up buying three puzzles, mostly based on the differing scale of the pieces. I hadn’t decided what to do yet, but I figured owning these puzzles was a good first step. They were, in order of scale: L.O.L.Surprise! Floor Puzzle [large pieces], Milton Bradley lambs puzzle [medium pieces, 1 original piece held in an octopus tentacle], Milton Bradley Big Ben waterfall puzzle [small pieces, 1 original piece held in an octopus tentacle].

I pondered what I wanted to do with them for some time, as I wanted to make something that was still my own but that also satisfied the challenge parameters. I eventually decided I’d make a sort of topography out of the puzzles. This required actually building them, which for the 1000 piece puzzle took far longer than I wanted it to; I ended up building the other two easily but only assembling a few sections of the Milton Bradley Big Ben waterfall puzzle until I had enough connected material to satisfy my needs.

Then I built up a patchwork foundation, purposefully rejecting any edge pieces as I wanted the sculpture to communicate growth potential along its full border. After I glued it together and somewhat leveled its base, I then sculpted an octopus atop it. I formed the octopus out of QCC, clutching a mid-sized puzzle piece in one of its tentacles and a small piece in another. I also added some sand ridges. After curing, I painted the whole sculpture! Here are some progress pictures:

And here’s the finished piece! This is Construct, acrylic, QuickCure Clay, glue, and puzzle pieces, 16x25.67x3.25", 2025.

If you want to see Construct and the other Gallery 103 You Want a Piece of Me? entries in person, you can stop by either tomorrow (Saturday, August 9th) or next Saturday, August 16th between 10am and 1pm. Gallery 103 is located on the ground floor of the Ho-Chunk Centre located at 600 4th St, Sioux City, IA 51101.

My Kansai Gaidai University Solo Show!

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Mia and I set out for Kansai Gaidai quite early, and arrived around 10am. We immediately greeted the Center for International Education’s staff and headed over to the International Communication Center to install the show. We strategized about the movable wall placement and then began to place and hang all of the artwork. Here are some images of the results, as well as the advertisements and KGU show panel:

While at Kansai Gaidai, I stayed in guest housing. I led a toast at the Asian Studies Program Completion Ceremony for the graduating class of students, and also attended a staff dinner. My hosts were very kind and welcoming! I had some free time on my hands as well, so I went into Kyoto to see Iwatayama Monkey Park in Arashiyama, checked out the Kyoto Handicraft Center and the Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design, visited Zohiko Lacquer Shop, and attended the non-verbal play Gear. I also did a pretty far-away day trip to the town of Shigaraki, which is famous as one of the six ancient kilns of Japan and also the birthplace of the infamous tanuki statues you can find everywhere in Japan.

Once the exhibition ended, KGU staff once again kindly helped me and together we repackaged it into the shipping crate! After I said farewell, I headed down to Takeo-onsen for my second artist residency at Arts Itoya!

My Solo Show in Yamanashi City is Open!

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I’m so excited to share that my solo show in Yamanashi City’s Nezu Memorial Museum opened today!

The exhibition poster I designed for Living Bridges: Art, Ecology, and Sister City Connections.

As you may already know from previous posts, Yamanashi City is the Japanese sister city of Sioux City; I met their visiting delegation in honor of our 20th year of this sister city relationship at Morningside University in November 2023 and then visited Yamanashi City with Morningside University board member Mia Sudo in July 2024 after my Arts Itoya residency in Takeo-onsen, Japan.

Between then and now, many folks have come together to help celebrate all of these connections and the 20th year of Yamanashi City’s incorporation by having me present a solo art show in Nezu Memorial Museum! This has been a monumental undertaking that could not have been accomplished without the support of many people including Morningside University board member Mia Sudo, the Morningside University administration, Yamanashi City mayor Takagi, Ms. Yokoyama from the Yamanashi City Local Resource Development Division, numerous Yamanashi City Hall staff and Morningside University colleagues.

Living Bridges: Art, Ecology, and Sister City Connections will be on exhibit from April 26 - May 24, 2025, and I will be on site during its final exhibition week!

Photos from the "Food for People" Show at USD!

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As you may recall from this post, I was invited to participate in the show Food for People at the University of South Dakota Art Galleries. I attended the closing reception on Friday, March 28th, and it was fun to see all the other artwork on display as well as chat with some of the participants and viewers! Here are a couple of photos I took of the show statement as well as of my own installed artwork. In making these tile paintings, I intentionally have not grouted them into a fixed viewing situation, and I found it interesting how this show’s preparator chose to orient and install them!

Returning to Japan for Two Solo Shows in May 2025!

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As you may recall, I attended a month-long residency at Arts Itoya in Takeo-onsen, Japan in June 2024. Bookending my residency, I traveled to other locations in Japan including Sioux City’s sister city, Yamanashi City. I am now very excited to share that thanks to the support of the Yamanashi City Hall and the encouragement and backing of Morningside University board member Mia Sudo, I have been invited to return and have a solo show in Yamanashi City in May 2025 in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Yamanashi City incorporation at the Nezu Memorial Museum Exhibition Building. After that exhibition’s conclusion, the show and I will continue on to Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata (part of the Kyoto metro). Yamanashi City, Kansai Gaidai University, and Morningside University are all assisting to make these amazing opportunities possible.

I am extremely honored and grateful for the chance to exhibit with both of these institutions! 楽しみです！ベストを尽くす！

Upcoming: Food for People Invitational Group Exhibition at the USD Art Galleries

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I’ve been invited to exhibit an artwork in the upcoming group show Food for People at the University of South Dakota Art Galleries, which “seeks to build community through thoughtful discussion of food.”

The show will run March 4 - April 1, 2025 with a closing reception on Friday, March 28th from 5 - 7pm. The address is: University Art Galleries, 414 East Clark Street, Vermillion, SD 57069.

New Artwork: Synthesis, and Upcoming Invitational Exibition

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In late December I was invited to participate in an upcoming exhibition and fundraising support event called The Maskuerade for local art gallery Vangarde Arts which has, as is unfortunately the case with many arts organizations, suffered during the pandemic.

Vangarde Arts has been a great supporter of the arts in Sioux City as well as of Morningside College, so I happily agreed to participate. Vangarde provided each invited artist with a white cotton 3-ply face mask, and asked that each mask be made into a unique artwork. The pieces are then to be auctioned off with the proceeds going to support their organization.

This was more of a challenge than I think many viewers might realize for several reasons:

  • The substrate (the face mask) is rather small and of a defined form already, so there’s limited room to work.

  • As an artist, I think you want to embrace the media you’re working with - so making it unrecognizable as a face mask to me ends up defeating the purpose of the challenge.

  • While I think one could pretty easily paint on a cotton mask as a canvas, I question whether viewers will easily differentiate an original painting from an existing fabric print. This meant I felt I needed to get somewhat sculptural while still embracing the substrate and its intended function in order to really make it transform identifiably into an original artwork.

  • I didn’t want to lose my own artistic focus and hand - I wanted to make this piece work within my oeuvre rather than existing outside of it.

I mentally wrestled for weeks just in trying to develop a concept, and then with only a vague starting point in mind I then physically wrestled with the mask itself for a couple weeks to try to see if that manipulation would inspire me to come up with an artistic solution. Finally all the reflection and experimentation paid off, and with an idea in mind all I then had to do was execute it!

This is Synthesis, a wearable mixed media artwork including a white cotton mask, thread, acrylic, gel, Cladonia rangiferina “reindeer lichen,” Tillandsia usneoides “Spanish moss,” pine needles, and bark. Its dimensions are 7x13x4.5”.

Synthesis, a wearable mixed media artwork including a white cotton mask, thread, acrylic, gel, Cladonia rangiferina, Tillandsia usneoides, pine needles, and bark; 7x13x4.5”, Shelby Prindaville, 2021.

The Maskuerade exhibition will have open house hours on February 11, 12, and 18 from 6-7pm in Vangarde Arts which is located at 416 Pierce St, Sioux City, IA 51101. An online auction will be open from February 15-18, and a silent auction and Fat Tuesday on Friday celebration will be held February 19 at 6pm with a live auction following at 7pm.