February 2000

Mary  Hark - Paper Quilts

Mary Anita Hark completed her undergraduate in 1978 at the College of Saint Benedict and went on to obtain a Master's Degree from the University of Iowa in 1987.  In 1989 she was a merit scholarship recipient and completed her Master of Fine Arts Degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her work has been included in several group exhibitions as well as in many solo and two-person shows.  The Minnesota Children's Museum of St. Paul, MN, the Kansas City Artist Coalition,  in Kansas City, MO, the Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, IL,  the Minnesota Center for Book Arts,  and Carlton College Art Department Gallery of Northfield, MN have all featured her work.

As a teacher, Ms. Hark currently serves as instructor of Fibers at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN.  She is also a faculty member of the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis.

Sharon Meyer Postance - Paper Vessels

Sharon Meyer Postance of Meadowlands, grew up amid the cornfields of Southwestern Minnesota.  She now lives on a farm surrounded by forests and swamps, reeds and willow and in  winter, endless expanses of snow punctuated with drifts of dried grass.  "I grew up with an embroidery needle in one hand and a crochet hook in the other."  She attended the University of Minnesota where, intimidated by the studio arts department, she majored in English literature and art history.

Over the course of the nearly thirty years since her formal schooling, she has read widely on color theory and design.  In 1997 she studied sculptural paper basketry with Mary Merkel-Hess.  "This opened up a whole new way of working for me in which I can combine the forms of clay vessels with the tactile qualities of fiber."  Sharon uses recycled paper, handmade paper, papers from Japan, Thailand, Nepal and India, silk from Japanese kimonos, embroidery thread,   sisal and jute twine, fleece, wire, pigment--whatever materials the vessels require.

Sharon's vessels have been exhibited throughout Northern Minnesota including a two-person show at Lizzard's Art Gallery in Duluth, MN in the fall of 1999.  Her works are included in many private collections as well as in the permanent collection of the Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, MN.