Artist Statements

Dora Agbas (Instagram handle: @doraagbas)

Existence-tissue, paper, thread, and composite gold leaf, 2023, $1000

The ephemerality of life is masterfully captured in Frost’s poem. The empirical universe is constantly formed and reformed. Presence is generated from Absence and falls back to Absence to be re-manifested. My work is a meditation on the beauty and fragility of existence.

Lauren Bass (Instagram handle: @laurenbass_art)

Finding Gardens in the Dark Places, oil on panel, 2023, POR

Nothing Gold Can Stay reminds me of the cyclical ebb and flow of hope and despair we go through in our lives. I have to remind myself that no matter how dark and cold winters are, green always returns. Birds will sing, bugs will buzz, and all of the small creatures and beings that make life vibrant will emerge for a new year. Nature will take and give, and even in the quiet and still of winter, I take comfort in the fact that I will see the sun shine through leaves again. This piece envisions a pathway to an unknown place- but even in the dark shades of leaves, the promise of hope and sunlight can be gleaned from beyond.

Jess Belangee-Englert (Instagram handle: @jbelangee)
Perish Play, oil paint, gouache, colored pencil, watercolor, pastel, 2023, POR

Slime Suit, oil paint, gouache, watercolor, marker, pastel, 2023, POR
Deceiving myself and pretending but growing and decaying all at once. Let it die and be destroyed, be genuine and queer. Comfort in slime, coated and drunk. Hiding myself once before, but nothing stays. Dyke, fag, let it happen. Embrace rebirth through play and muck.

Sadie Goll (Instagram handle: @sadiegoll)
Jessie’s Eye, lithograph, 2023, POR
One Eyed Jessie, lithograph, 2023, POR
The lithograph, One-Eyed Jessie, was derived from my experience working on a horse farm in Kansas that specialized in the breeding of horses.  The horse named Jessie had a fungal infection in her eye and it inevitably had to be removed. In Robert Frost's poem Nothing gold can stay, talks about the constant change and how even our health can slip away.

Sammie Jane Hardewig (Instagram handle: @sammiejanestudio)

Nothing Gold Can Stay (But it never entirely goes away), Reclaimed house paint, metallic gold house paint, and steel rods, 2023, POR

My immediate thought after reading this poem was perhaps nothing gold can stay, but it never entirely goes away. I thought of loss, specifically the loss of a loved one. Though we lose people, they live on inside us through memories and the ways they impacted our lives. I wanted to create a piece that displayed both sides of the paint skin.  Due to the opacity of the material, the gold layer isn’t visible from the green one, but the piece wouldn’t be structurally possible without it.

Emma Hixson (Instagram handle: @emmahixson.art)

Fleeting Calm, oil on panel, 2023, $600

When I read the Robert Frost poem Nothing Gold Can Stay, I was reminded of the treasured bits of rest that we get in our busy lives. The little time we are able to completely relax in a comfortable space, mine being one filled with plants and sunshine. These moments never last long and life keeps moving around us but that makes them even more precious.

Tiana Nanayo Kuuleialoha Honda (Instagram handle: @tianyaah)

“hoʻomae”

Watercolor Screenprint and photolithography on Stonehenge Fawn Paper, 2023, $800

In Hawaiian, “hoʻomae” means “to fade,” especially when it pertains to greenery like flowers. The imagery presented forth is of the lei poʻo, or the head flower garland that was gifted to me recently by members of my family for a recent achievement. Being from Hawaiʻi and being Native Hawaiian, the custom of receiving a lei during moments of celebration is not just a traditional norm, but an action that is infused with great care and intention. It is more than just a beautiful adornment, it is something that holds great sentiment and meaning from both the lei maker and the people that gift it. Often when I receive any type of flowered lei, I keep it with me until the flowers and leaves start to dry out and the color begins to fade. And though it will crumble away with time, I still see it as something precious that existed at one point in life with me. It is something that symbolizes the love and affection that my family has for me, which will last beyond the impermanent nature of this lei poʻo.

Octavia Lawson (Instagram handle: @octavias.art)

Transiently Golden, oil on panel, 2022, $600

As I was painting this landscape I couldn’t help but recollect a poem I heard in my youth. The poem Nothing Gold can stay always resonated with me personally. I find it hard to be present at times because it feels like every precious experience reminds me of the moment when it will be just a memory. 

The first day I began this painting the trees were a bright golden mass but every day as the days got shorter and the darkness crept in closer. I could feel the dread of succumbing because I was afraid of change and letting go of my expectations. I found that once I accepted the grief of letting go of the past, I could experience the beauty of change and adaptation. Instead of fearing the leaves drifting away, I could be grateful for the showering of gold surrounding me. It’s hard to accept but the temperance is what makes the moments more precious. 

Hannah Lindo (Instagram handle: @hannahlindoart)

A Sliver of Gold Brought Home, oil on panel, 2023, $200

Stuck in the Mud, oil on panel, 2023, NFS

In my piece Stuck in the Mud, I focussed on the richness of mud. Spring had just begun as I made this painting, and vibrant muddy colors were everywhere I looked. I wanted to sink into the earth and become restored like the plants. Feeling "stuck" is not always a negative. It takes patience to bloom again. In A Sliver of Gold Brought Home, I reflected on home and the travel to get there. This painting began as a fuzzy memory of the drive across Kansas to see my family. This in-between time building up to see loved ones is always present but seems to change every time. The only constant is the buzzing energy anticipating getting home.

Tristan Lindo (Instagram handle: @trisroblind)

Unforgettable Embers, watercolor, gouache, and acrylic on paper, $900

My piece visualizes transformation in a sequence of three sections. Communicating from left to right, the piece starts in a barren setting where a fantastic sapling has started to bloom. Transitioning to the second section, we are greeted by a behemoth tree that has leaves like fire thriving around it before we get to the third section. The final section showcases a fence that has been made from the once luminous giant. So while my piece may be read as a sad ending to the tree’s life, I see the ending as a celebration similar to how Frost acknowledges the beauty of nature. Frost’s poem is extremely optimistic to me and reminds me that while life may not last forever, we have much to discover and appreciate around us while it is all still here.

Gen Louise (Instagram handle: Genlouise.art)

Vermillion Poet, oil on canvas, NFS

This painting captures a significant moment during my Grandma Lois' Celebration of Life—a truly extraordinary occasion that defied the somber expectations of a traditional funeral.

In response to Frost's poem, I explore how the loss of a loved one provides us with an opportunity to appreciate the joy they brought us, a reminder that life is precious and that we should always tell people we love them. 

Given my grandmother's remarkable talent as a poet, I felt compelled to pay homage to her through my own personal avenue of creative expression. This painting serves as a heartfelt tribute to her memory, while also inviting viewers to reflect on the transience and impermanence of life and to cherish the invaluable moments shared with their loved ones.

Kalie Love (Instagram handle: @k.love.creates)
The Golden Lie, watercolor and color pencil, $3000 each

Frost’s short poem echoes a warning that modern society values youth above all else; do everything in your power to avoid growing old... “Eden sank to grief” 

We are born into a world trying its best to convince us that our value decreases every year that we age when the true value of a life is found in all of your experiences, all that is hard-fought and won... and lost.

Which piece are we - as members of this society - compelled to consider, to adore, to value the most?

The self-portrait on the left is a girl at 10 years old. The self-portrait on the right is a look forward to 2079 when I will be 90 years old. A golden thread ties these ages together through 80 years.  

Taylor Miller (Instagram handle: @shewhoarts)

Fragility, gradually, and surrounding, oil on canvas, $20,000

Embrace the good; embrace the bad. Remember that all of it is fleeting.

Quinn Pagona (Instagram handle: @farce.ebo)

Return of Genamonium (Promise of New Gold), mixed media paper and canvas collage/assemblage, 2023, POR

I took the opportunity with Frost’s poem to gather my recent intuitive responses towards loss and change. While my figures primarily express a sense of processing some form of turmoil, the colors and marks that make up their world/bodies invite for me a more complex emotional environment. Recently when I think of loss, especially of loved ones, I won’t recede into a shell of pure anxiety and dread anymore. Instead, it is a pool of appreciation, anxiety, hope, and some dread, and also a slew of other emotions I’ll keep to myself. Any major reminder of change and uncertainty will inevitably bring me to a similar hyper-emotional place that teaches so much, especially in combination with the ability to create alongside said place. I don’t think I’ll any longer be forgetting the certainty of growth that will follow.

Nathan Pickerell (Instagram handle: @nathan_p.art)

Zip Bloom, oil on masonite, 2023, POR

I think everything has the potential to be gold depending on who someone is and why. The constant evolution of identity creates the ephemeral nature of what is gold, desired, and eventually, lost.

SK Reed (Instagram handle: @sk_paints)

Shell III (Fallen), 2022, acrylic on stoneware with neon bulbs, $225

In the snail shell lamps, I was thinking about different time scales, the macro versus micro. All the things we do not see and the life taking place under our feet. This shell, one of three created in this series broke in half while making it which felt right. As a thing discarded, a shell after the life within it had passed, or a scream in reaction to the changing planet. The flickering bulbs resemble a flame, further conveying the sense of destruction in the piece. This shell was inspired by both the White Snaggletooth and Trumpet Vallonia snails found in Kansas. In this piece and in my practice, I am tuning into all the animate beings around me in order to learn how to better exist in this shared world.