100 Days - Solo Exhibition

Here's the bio & description for the show:

Tia Salmela Keobounpheng has spent much of her life exploring the connections between art, craft, design and architecture. Growing-up with an architect father meant she developed an intuitive and critical approach to design and a keen attention to detail at a young age. An exchange year in Finland at the age of 18 forged a commitment to “everyday” design and a deep love of handwork and the process of weaving. After graduating with a BA degree in Architecture from the University of Minnesota, she co-founded Silvercocoon with her husband in 2001 as a means to work on creative projects across disciplines. In December 2007 she launched her laser-cut jewelry collection with a solo-trunk show in the Walker Art Center shop. Her collection has evolved over the years, expanding incrementally as she grows and learns new skills – most recently silver-smith skills.

Salmela Keobounpheng is a 2017 MN State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grantee. The grant has allowed her to equip her studio with a foundation of tools to incorporate her new metalsmith skills into her daily work. 100 Days is a day-by-day account of her metal explorations over the course of 100 days spanning August 7-November 14, 2017. At the end of each work day, she allowed herself an hour to explore creatively in metal. This candid window into her explorations illustrates both the linear and hap-hazard process of creative ideas; sometimes incremental steps of progress and other times big jumps back and forth between new ideas and refinement of earlier notions. Further, she shares how these ideas are cultivated and curated into a collection of finished work. The creative flow of working artists is often interrupted or impeded by practical tasks and the ongoing to-do list of entrepreneurship.  Salmela Keobounpheng’s commitment to a daily creative-flow practice reveals the impact of small actions accumulated over time – a viable practice for maintaining creativity amidst the realities of working as a professional artist.