ARTIST MENTOR FINAL REPORT
Fall 2009: Due December 11, 2009



Student: Salley Knight
Mentor: Heidi Whitman
Faculty Advisor: Julia Scher


Salley Knight finished the semester as a very promising student and artist. Salley continued to explore ideas and materials fearlessly, and found new artists to learn from and emulate. She wrote insightful papers and went to see exhibitions. She is just where she should be as a beginning grad student.

Salley is passionate about color and transparent materials - specifically her hand dyed silk. Salley did some work using Jessica Stockholder materials- plastics etc, but she then veered away from those materials. She is a colorist whose interests are rooted in nature and light. Salley’s most recent work has involved whorls of colored silk. She is working hard on how best to present and format these whorls.

One of Salley’s strongest works is a floor piece that involves circles, rectangles, transparent scrim boxes, and silk. She is deftly using grays as a foil for her reds, yellows, and oranges. She is using some element of chance and spontaneity in this work. Salley is trying to remain as experimental and open as possible.

Embroidery is another aspect of Salley’s work. She has done several embroidered drawings on dyed silk of children in school lines and of cows. They are quite wonderful especially when layered over each other. This work may or may not connect with the other “whorl” work.


Maya Lin’s systems and connection to nature are of interest to Salley. She admires Richard Tuttle’s arrangements and use of materials. Salley responds to Stockholder’s color. As Salley progresses through the AIB program I’m sure she will continue to learn from other artists. Continuing to write about concepts would be especially important for Salley. I hope that Salley can be increasingly specific and clear in her thinking and writing.

I’d like to see Salley continue on with the same degree of involvement she has had this fall. I do have one strong suggestion. I think that clearing out her studio further would be conducive to clarity in the work. I’d like her to put up a couple of homosote walls. Eventually I think Salley should get a studio in an artists’ building. I’d like her to connect with more students and artists to share ideas and give support and encouragement. I hope that the January sessions at AIB might be a way for Salley to meet more artists. I’d also recommend that Salley start making regular trips to New York to see work as well as continuing with her research on the web.

Salley has had a very strong and courageous first semester.