KIM CRIDLER​

Trained as a metalsmith, Kim Cridler was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), earned an MFA in Metals from the State University of New York at New Paltz (New Paltz, NY), and studied at Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting (Madison, ME). Kim has taught in art programs across the country including the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Madison, WI), the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI), San Diego State University (San Diego, CA), Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ), Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN), and Penland School of Craft (Penland, NC).

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“Cridler comes from a long line of anxious farmers who worried about everything. But if that sense of uneasiness resonates in her work, she also knows that the natural world is a place of quiet and disquiet alike. And if our current relations with the natural world are increasingly uneasy and unstable, those apprehensions also offer the opportunity for transformation. How do we heal?... How do we move through a day, through a year? What Cridler’s pieces capture is that way things get broken, stuck, wind up in some unexpected, maybe wrong place. And therein, the possibility of grace.” [i]

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Kim has shown her work in galleries and museums across the United States, including previously at the Metal Museum in 2013 as a part of the Tributaries exhibition series. Her work can be found in the public collections including the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts (Little Rock, AR), the Chazen Museum of Art (Madison, WI), the collection of the Grand Valley State University (Allendale, MI), the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture (Phoenix, AZ), the collection of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NYC (Mamaroneck, NY), the Museum of Fine Arts Houston (Houston, TX), the Racine Art Museum (Racine, WI), the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (New Paltz, NY), the Scottsdale Contemporary Museum of Art (Scottsdale, AZ), and the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (Oshkosh, WI).

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“Part of my practice includes direct observation and drawing the animate things from woods and fields around my home. Drawing keeps me engaged in careful looking, gives time and space for a contemplative task, and sharpens my consideration of patterns in even the most ordinary life forms. This practice of observation connects me. It also makes me reflect on our collective desire for certainty; to control and contain that which we are from. Fabricating these works involves a simple and accumulative process of joining small parts together into a larger body to express a sense of movement within still objects and creating a narrative line. In this structure and movement there lies the sense of contingency and potential for instability.” [ii]

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[i] Akiko Busch, Master Metalsmith: Kim Cridler | Holding exhibition catalog.  

[ii] Kim Cridler, “Kim Cridler – Statement,” courtesy of the Artist.