Exhibit in the Main Gallery
Stephanie Brohman, Trudi Starbeck-Miller, and Bethany Laranda Wood
Members of MFA Dept. of University of Iowa.
The three artists say while developing their work as graduate students, their time working together in the studio has helped to inspire artistic and life bonds that will continue to influence them. Their relationship is marked by a respect for the things that unite them as well as the things that make their individual practices so unique.
Stephanie Brohman is focusing on Jewelry and Metal Arts; she graduated with a minor in Sculpture and has received a certificate from the University of Iowa Center for the Book. She previously received a BFA from Savannah College of Art and Design. Stephanie will be pursuing her career teaching and making, in the Chicago area where she is originally from. While at the University, she not only pushed her metalsmithing skills to a new level, but gained knowledge in new materials such as plastics and silicone. Creatures of the sea and their defense mechanisms, particularly through their skin, inspire her latest body of work. She uses silicone and metal to create adornment that forms an extra layer of skin, thus forming an extra layer protection for the wearer.
Trudi Starbeck-Miller has been a photographer for over forty years and lives in Iowa City. A native of San Francisco, she moved to Iowa in 1994 after losing a home in the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Her eldest daughter wanted to attend the university of Iowa, and later two other children followed. In 2011 Starbeck-Miller decided to go back to school to teach. Once enrolled she became interested in the Metal Arts program and switched disciplines to the Three Dimensional Practice at the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History. After completing her BFA in Metal/Jewelry, she was accepted into the graduate program. She is currently beginning her second year in the Graduate Program and teaching in the Metal Arts Department at the University of Iowa. Starbeck-Miller’s work is concentrated on her maternal grandmother’s history, her journey to America in 1929 and her career as a Lace maker in Bohemia.
Bethany Laranda Wood is an MFA candidate at the University of Iowa. In 2014 she moved from Texas where she recieved a BFA in Jewelry Design and Metalsmithing from Texas Tech University. Her work focuses on how the individuality of human interactions with environments and materials can translate into the creation of intimate objects such as small sculpture and art jewelry. Through the combination of man-made and natural materials, the translations of line from descriptive sketch to object, and the potential for narrative and personal interactions within book forms and adornment, Wood seeks to explore how we remember, document and share these individual experiences.
