The Fort Atkinson Club has announced it will be hosting the Frances Jones Highsmith Art Show.
According to a recent news release, the show is named for and in celebration of the memory of Frances Jones Highsmith, and will feature several local artists, including Mark Skudlarek, Angie Szabo, Brian Szabo and the late Kim Karow.
The event will include an opening reception on Saturday, April 2, from 4 to 7 p.m.
The public is invited to the reception where artists will be available to talk about their work.
Several works on display will also be for sale.
About the artists
According to the release, Skudlarek is a potter from the Cambridge area. His journey began in 1978 while attending Saint John’s University in central Minnesota. Originally interested in painting, he took a ceramics class and was drawn to clay.
As quoted in the release, Skudlarek said, “It simply felt right.”
In 1981, he traveled to central France and worked in the historic pottery village of La Borne. It was there he had his first experience firing wood-burning kilns. He was immediately seduced by the process and results from these kilns. Returning home in 1983, he sought an apprenticeship with Todd Piker at Cornwall Bridge Pottery and in 1988, moved to Wisconsin where he established the foundation for his first wood-fired kiln. In 1998, he moved his operation to his home property and built a three chamber Japanese inspired kiln, the release stated.
Brian Szabo, Fort Atkinson, is a Sicangu Lakota artist who creates contemporary jewelry with traditional motifs using bone, horn, silver and other traditional materials.
Szabo was raised on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. He grew up watching and working alongside his father, Paul Szabo, an accomplished silversmith. Szabo began learning the art of silverwork in high school and also began using natural and traditional elements in his work. Buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, bone, horn and antler are traditional materials that have been utilized for centuries for a variety of applications in Native traditions. Szabo takes these elements and mixes them with silver and stone in order to create pieces steeped in tradition with a contemporary twist, the release continued.
Angie Szabo grew up in Waunakee. She enjoyed making art in all forms, and was fostered in that passion by her high school art teacher, Mary Luckhardt.
Szabo attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was awarded a fellowship in Silversmithing her senior year. Szabo was selected as a 2004 Teach For America Corps member in the inaugural South Dakota Corps. and was placed as an art teacher at the middle school on the Rosebud Reservation, home to the Sicangu Lakota. In her pursuit to learn more about Native American art, specifically Lakota, she discovered a local silversmith, a renowned artist and educator, Paul Szabo. While enrolled in Paul Szabo’s class, she was introduced to his son, Brian. The couple was married and moved to Wisconsin.
Szabo creates jewelry in brass, copper and sterling silver with unique stones. She also creates drawings, paintings, mixed media and ceramic art.
“Most of her work is very feminine in nature and often highly reflective of our natural world. Angie is both an artist and an art educator. She is also a member of the Black Hawk Artists Group,” the release stated.
Karow was know for her meticulously detailed drawings in silverpoint, graphite and mixed media collage. Work featured in the show is representative of that which was created over Karow’s lifetime.
Karow described her work as having “two points of view, sometimes happening simultaneously: the point of view of the scientist shown in image selection, and the feminine point of view seen in image execution. The hand of the woman artist is seen tending both the image and the subject within, metaphorically evident in the soft sheen of silk, hand sewn stitches,” the release noted.
According to the release, Karow had a gift for creating nature-themed pieces of great depth and sensitivity and impeccable attention to detail.
“Kim will be remembered for her dedication to prairie restoration, her amazing silverpoint drawings, her printmaking and collage work, and her many contributions to the field of art education,” the release read.
Karow was a long-time member of Black Hawk Artists.
Jones Highsmith was born Mary Frances Cole to Edward Cole and Helen Elizabeth (Schlosser) Jones June 2, 1927. She grew up in Fort Atkinson, attended Hoard School, Emery Junior High School through freshman year then graduated from Milwaukee Downer Seminary in 1945. She attended Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., for two years, transferring to the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, graduating in 1950 with a BFA in Fashion Illustration. In 1965 she moved to Phoenix, Ariz., where she concentrated on her education and attended classes at ASU to become a certified art teacher. Jones Highsmith taught middle school art and later ran the art program at Washington Elementary School District #6 in Phoenix. She completed a master of fine arts in arts education and also an educators certificate. While she was there, the Washington District grew from 10 to 31 schools in a ten year period, the release stated.
“We are honored that her daughters, Sarah Crane Paddock, Elizabeth Paddock Mitten and Catherine Rochelle Paddock have allowed us to honor Fanny’s design sense and artistry by holding this show,” the release continued.
An example of work created by Mark Skudlarek.
An example of work created by Angie Szabo.
“Silver Flower” by the late Kim Karow.
An example of work created by Brian Szabo.
Contributed photos.
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