Meet fiber artist Jodi Colella whose work is on view in the Look This Way show. Jodi is fascinated by early photography and collects antique tintype portraits which she manipulates to create evocative artworks with dark humor and surrealist imagery. Her new series, Ghost Stories, is inspired by the uneasy postures and expressions evident in daguerreotype portraits, whose subjects were required to sit without moving for many minutes before their image could be captured. For Colella, these minutes also expose a sliver of the soul that she contemplates and then seeks to reveal and investigate.

Jodi will explain how she utilizes traditional needle arts paired with provocative materials to create both intimate and monumental sculptures that engage the viewer while eliciting the simultaneous reactions of whimsy and threat. She’ll bring samples of the materials she uses to create these enlarged tintypes and explain her innovative technique. This  new work on view was  inspired by the Museum’s current daguerreotype exhibition.

Jodi Colella works out of her studio in Somerville, MA, and exhibits and teaches internationally. She is a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery and a recipient of a 2019 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship Award for Sculpture.

Join us at the Museum to hear Jodi’s talk, then see the new exhibitions and stay to enjoy opening reception!