Artists Dick and Nancy Weis of Castleton, VT each have their own inspiration, style and medium, but this upcoming show puts their work side by side and invites viewers to make connections. The couple formed Otherweis Limited in 1974 as an umbrella for their various art activities, including their studio work in painting, drawing, printmaking, fibers, handmade paper and installation, as well as their work as artist-educators. With graduate training at American University and George Washington University as a foundation, they have exhibited and taught in many locations throughout the United States and abroad.
Richard Weis has an affinity for the land that is rooted in his Northern Minnesota origins where the family’s hunting, logging, and seasonal work was a matter of survival.
Nancy Weis has worked in encaustic painting, handmade paper, fiber and other media over the years. She is particularly interested in elements of culture that are common to many different societies. “Nearly every non-technological society has used similar natural objects (feathers, stones, bones, twigs) for decoration. Circles, spirals, and handprints have been universally used as symbols, but their meanings and purposes vary. There seems to be a common visual language that leads us to similarities in what we recognize as purposeful and meaningful”. she says.
Her encaustic assemblages are attempts to call on that universal language to create emotional response or ritual space. The work does not intend to be read literally or to explore any particular culture, but rather to make ordinary objects particular and important, making them into a symbolic language.
