Groveland Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of  There, Then an exhibition by guest artist, Jody Williams. Williams is well known in the Twin Cities and around the country as a creator of artist’s books. For over 30 years, she has taught workshops and presented lectures at museums and colleges across the United States and in Europe. Her work is in the collections of and numerous museums, universities, and libraries including the Walker Art Center, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Minnesota Historical Society. She has received numerous honors including Jerome Foundation Fellowships, grants and awards from the Minnesota Craft Council, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. In 2008, Williams received the inaugural Minnesota Book Artist Award from the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, which she received again in 2019 for her artist’s book For Now.

Williams artist’s books, prints, and sculptural boxes address the relationship between information, communication and containers. Her fascination with natural specimens focuses on the beauty and wonder of not only the individual objects, but the collecting, organizing, and re-presenting of them. This exhibition, There, Then, will include a new series of assemblage boxes, prints and drawings. In this body of work, Williams addresses her memories of location and place, and includes landscape drawings, maps, and photographs, along with natural and artificial specimens.

Williams has written: “With all of my work, form and content are inseparable, and each element or word is carefully considered in relation to the whole.”  Using physical evidence, Williams conjures her own presence within the context of these collections and assemblages, while simultaneously reflecting her memories.

Williams work for this exhibition was supported by 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.