Vetri is pleased to present In Danger: Fragile Ecosystems, a group exhibition featuring the work of Jennifer Caldwell & Jason Chakravarty, Mark Clarson & Jamie Randall, Kelly O’Dell, and Raven Skyriver. These Pacific Northwest-based artists use recognizable flora and fauna to raise awareness of environmental loss and preservation in our changing ecosystem. Using their distinct artistic voices, they address these concerns in subtle, playful, yet poignant ways.
Vetri and the exhibition’s featured artists will be donating six-percent of sales from works included in this exhibition to Conservation Northwest to assist with protecting old-growth forests and other wildlands, connecting large landscapes and vital habitats, and restoring native wildlife from the Washington Coast to the British Columbia Rockies.
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 5 5 – 8 PM | 1404 First Ave. Seattle, WA 98101
Jennifer Caldwell & Jason Chakravarty
Jennifer Caldwell (nee Umphress) is an artist based in Kingston, Washington. Originally from Redwood City, California, Caldwell started blowing glass after moving to Hawaii, and later apprenticed with Cesare Toffolo on Murano, Italy. She has worked in glass for 18 years, and teaches workshops internationally. Her work is held in the Kobe Lampwork Glass Museum collection in Japan, and she was recently commissioned by the Corning Museum of Glass. Vetri has shown her work since 2008. Her work is constantly evolving, but she still draws her biggest influence from the ocean.
Jason Chakravarty is a mixed media artist based in Arizona. He worked for four years in a commercial neon sign shop before earning his MFA from California State University-Fullerton. He teaches neon and kiln casting workshops at universities and glass centers nationwide, and exhibits his work nationally. Vetri has shown his work since 2015. Within his glass works, Chakravarty focuses on the narrative. His work often reflects on human relationships, communication, and social networking.
Mark Clarson & Jamie Randall
Mark Clarson and Jamie Randall have collaborated to produce a series of hand engraved glass decanters based on extinct birds. Rooted in taxidermy, ethnography, and anthropology; these pieces share a direct symbolic connection with those of the natural history lexicon. Influenced by the stylistic techniques employed by fine Victorian glassmakers, these decanters reference the very era in which many of these birds entered into extinction.
Kelly O’Dell
Kelly O’Dell was born in Seattle, raised in Hawai’i, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest. When she was very young, her artistic parents made their living using stained glass, furnace glass, and pressed flowers. O’Dell studied glass at the University of Hawai’i, Pilchuck Glass School, and eventually relocated to Washington as a member of the William Morris Winter Crew. Through glass sculpture, her work explores themes of “Memento Mori,” as well as extinction, preservation, origin, and human impact on the natural world. She resides in Stanwood, WA with her husband Raven Skyriver and their 7 year-old son Wren.
Raven Skyriver
Raven Skyriver started blowing glass in high school at the age of sixteen. His mentor, Lark Dalton, taught him how to build glass blowing equipment and trained him in the traditional Venetian technique. From 2003 through 2007, Skyriver worked on William Morris team in Stanwood, WA. His focus in the area of sculpture, and the depiction of marine life is inspired by his island upbringing, and informed by the creatures that inhabit this fragile ecosystem. Skyriver shows his work nationally and has been featured in group shows internationally.