5-7pm: Exhibition Opening Reception for all three galleries at the Duluth Art Institute.
7pm: Tia will give an Artist Talk following the reception at 7pm speaking on the topic of cultivating and practicing creativity in the context of her life and work.
100 DAYS Exhibition: Tia 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.
Tia Salmela Keobounpheng is a fiscal year 2017 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.