Image: Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg
A unique workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to collaborate with artist Jordan Ann Craig on a mural intended for display at the Museum. Craig will also give an artist talk on Sunday, October 4, from 3 to 4:30 p.m.
Craig, identified as Northern Cheyenne, creates large-scale geometric abstract paintings that reward close, sustained attention, bringing together expansive formats, geometric structures, and abstraction in works that ask viewers to look carefully over time. Her intricate designs draw inspiration from her chosen home, New Mexico’s Pojoaque Valley, alongside Northern Cheyenne and Cheyenne beadwork and quillwork, Pueblo pottery, and other traditional art forms.
Although the surfaces of Craig’s paintings are created with controlled precision, their edges remain intentionally unfinished, reflecting her exploration of the balance between structure and imperfection. The exhibition title, ‘it takes a long time to stay here,’ is drawn from the poem ‘spinning air’ by Northern Cheyenne poet m.s. RedCherries.
Within the workshop, participants will explore shape, color, and layered mark-making while also engaging with themes of shared identity, collective memory, and sense of place. As viewers move through the gallery, the exhibition asks them to notice how their interpretations shift through prolonged engagement, influenced by each painting’s title, composition, and relationship to the other paintings.
