Intricate Connections

Hera Gallery is proud to present Intricate Connections, a Hera Members Exhibition featuring: Molly Kaderka, Michelle Henning, Viera Levitt, & Elizabeth Lind.

The exhibiting artists invite viewers to examine how we are bound by the interconnections between people and places within our community and how these connections extend to the greater astronomical and spiritual universe. Molly Kaderka is exhibiting a “recent series of drawings tak(ing) cues from both astronomy and geological formations. Using traditional ebru marbling techniques, these pieces explore the balance between order and chaos as well as the visual language of the largest and smallest objects known to humans.” Michelle Henning is featuring a new series of portrait paintings “celebrate(ing) the inspiring people that form the group known as "MilSpouses". Henning says “Military Spouses are often misunderstood or mis-represented…I interviewed former/current military spouses that I know personally. I collected the good, bad, happy, painful, stories and looked for the threads that bind us.” Elizabeth Lind is exhibiting a collection of work titled Women, Water, and Illumination. Lind says “lately I've been drawn to the effect of illuminated stone - a fascinating juxtaposition of two very different substances. Light and transparency have always mesmerized me but didn't enter into my own work until recently. Throughout everything, the recurrent themes of women, water, and branches appear and reappear, surfacing from distant pivotal memories.”  Viera Levitt is showcasing “An Uphill Battle, a project exploring the responsibility of citizenship in a small town that has a beloved public school at its heart, one slated for closure,” which will also feature some yarn graffiti outside of the Hera Gallery’s walls.

Join the artists each Thursday night of Wakefield RiverFire at 7pm to learn more about their work and process.

Michelle Henning

Artist Statement: 

I was a military spouse for 20 years. To honor this closing chapter of my life, I developed a project to interview and paint several military friends with the theme of the overlooked, often unseen spouse. This is not absolute, and it is not to detract from the service of the soldier, but Military Spouses are often misunderstood or mis-represented. I want to celebrate the inspiring people that form the group known as "MilSpouses". For that reason, I interviewed former/current military spouses that I know personally. I collected the good, bad, happy, painful, stories and looked for the threads that bind us. I included my story, to illustrate a common theme; there are thousands of these same connections in each military community. 

This is a small glimpse of those who stand beside their soldiers. Although the stories are anonymous, they show how we are not that different from “civilian spouses”. We share many of the same hardships, in different forms, and we are not Superheroes. During the time of Covid, coordinating over zoom, email and FaceTime, I completed 10 oil paintings that represent the strength and spirit of these friends to accompany the stories. Strength, beauty and diversity, and tremendous courage, I wanted this to show through in these portraits, while keeping their identities secure.

Molly Kaderka

Artist Statement: 

My collective body of work as an artist stems from an earnest desire to create beauty and meaning. I find the most compelling way to do this is to use my artistic practice as a way to search for and evoke for my viewers elements of the sublime.  To experience the sublime is to simultaneously feel and cognitively understand the serendipity and the insignificance of one’s own existence, and to submit to this experience in the face of something greater and more mysterious. This experience of both feeling and understanding how small we all are is unique to humans, but it is not an everyday or universal experience and it can be profoundly transformative. It is the great awareness of the world and one’s own place in it.  

My recent series of drawings takes cues from both astronomy and geological formations. Using traditional ebru marbling techniques, these pieces explore the balance between order and chaos as well as the visual language of the largest and smallest objects known to humans.

Viera Levitt

Artist Statement: An Uphill Battle, 2022

A project exploring the responsibility of citizenship in a small town that has a beloved public school at its heart, one slated for closure.

What is my responsibility as a citizen to change things that are not quite right?How does one confront the arrogance of power? How much energy and will power do I have to get engaged?Should somebody else fight for what I believe in? What if nobody does? When I speak out and no one hears, does it make a noise?Can magic survive amidst resignation? How do I make the tree be heard? Can I do it, one stitch at a time?

These are the questions I am exploring in my project, “An Uphill Battle”. The title refers not only to the ‘school on the hill’ between the town center and Hera Gallery, but also to lawyers and advisors with whom I have been consulting, along with other parents, when discussing the possibility to overturn the decision to close a beloved school. 

As I walk to school on the wooden bridge with my twins every morning, we count the turtles and frogs in the river, say hello to all other kids and parents, watch the ducks and listen to birds, I am thinking about how to change the direction of this nice little town that is moving away from public good towards the good of the few who can afford it. 

After many meetings, writing dozens of letters and speaking up first shyly and later louder, I needed to do something different. I decided to focus on one tree and have created a piece of yarn graffiti outside the school as a symbol/manifestation of my civic responsibility… To speak up with the awareness of my responsibility, as a mother and citizen, who's been muted during ‘public comments’, ignored during meetings and trapped behind the arrogance of power.

I am planning to cover more trees just outside the school with yarn graffiti, sometimes called ‘yarn bombing’ and work with other parents / community members as this exhibition progresses, in the hope of growing a positive narrative to this issue and to the world. 

Thank you to a fellow crafter, Jennifer DeMetrick, for her support and wonderful granny squares. Thank you to all amazing kids, teachers, staff members, parents, and neighbors who have made and will make this community a better place.

Elizabeth Lind

Artist Statement: Women, Water, and Illumination

Lately I've been drawn to the effect of illuminated stone- a fascinating juxtaposition of two very different substances. Light and transparency have always mesmerized me but didn't enter into my own work until recently. Throughout everything, the recurring themes of women, water, and branches appear and reappear, surfacing from distant pivotal memories.

I have been entranced by stone for the last 25 years after studying under Tayo Heuser at RISD. It's varying densities, capabilities, transparency, strength, and seeming moods fuel my ideas and art practice. Each stone is unique and has it's own potential. To explore the method of Direct Carving, finding an unknown and unpremeditated design, using the chisel to respond to the stone's characteristics, is engrossing. It makes hours fly by unnoticed.

This show has the evidence of several constants- women, water, and branches- but also the new directions of fantasy and illumination. I tend to not take my work seriously and instead give in to the pleasure of this enchanted world. Water lifts and liberates if not resisted. In "Calm" I depict myself, floating on the buoyancy of currents, at home with whatever the outcome. This inherently beautiful stone- agate, gave me the ability to thin forms to the breaking point. I gauge risk by the sound the stone makes as it's hit with the chisel's tip. The dark rivers of sediment throughout the piece dictated it's form and outcome. The initial plan swerved in response to densities and the unpredictable.

As a child I was constantly drawn to transparency. The idea of capturing and slowing light's path as it passes through stone, is fascinating. "Calm" let me play with light, and its' paths, throughout the piece. I am always drawn to curvilinear lines. It was mesmerizing to direct them though the water and floating roses, but only if the stone's makeup would allow it. These illuminated curves broke free in "Journey II", as I experimented with pure fantasy in constructing a Norse boat surging out of an actual tree. The nets of lights below are meant to represent the sea. A companion piece in "Journey I", again references the idea of releasing control and being swept up in an uncontrollable flow, as a woman relaxes in a fantastical boat, held within illuminated branches.

This exciting, unpredictable journey is the sculpting process itself. I don't use models, maquettes, or interim plaster depictions to refine a design. The design is dependent on the stone itself. and my interdependent reaction, resulting in a collaboration of form, matter, and light.