Drawn to the Passing Blue

On View: September 26 - December 15, 2024

Artist Talk: Thursday, September 26, at 6 p.m. in the Johnson Gallery, CC Building, Level 2. Reception in the gallery following the talk.

Virtual Viewing: Instagram @bethelgalleries

Drawn to the Passing Blue features two artist's distinct perspectives on drawing. Joyce Lyon's oil stick drawings on panel works come from two series - Cooper’s Pond and Passing Radiance - exploring and responding to places the artist knows well through the lens of memory, ecology and connection. Catherine Meier's pigment and graphite drawings on paper develop through time spent deep listening, giving attention to earth, sky, and horizon – of vast, open landscapes.

Front Detail Images: Catherine Meier (left) and Joyce Lyon (right)

About the Artists:

Joyce Lyon uses drawing and digital imagery/artists books to address issues of identity, ecology and aging from a personal and female perspective. In support of her work, she has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Jerome Foundation/Minnesota Center for Book Arts, Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad, and the residency program at the Millay Colony for the Arts. Her work is in many public and private collections, including the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Minnesota Historical Society, Georgetown University Law Library, and the Florida Holocaust Museum/Tampa.  Joyce was a founding member of the feminist arts collective, WARM: The Women’s Art Registry of Minnesota. She holds a BA from Barnard College, studied at Pratt Institute and received her MFA from the University of Minnesota.  She is Associate Professor of Art emerita at the University of Minnesota.  

Catherine Meier is a visual artist based in Finland, Minnesota near the north shore of Lake Superior. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and a BFA from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Recent support for her work includes a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board Creative Individuals grant and a commission through a University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment grant.  In 2021, Meier was awarded a Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, and in 2020 a McKnight Visual Artist fellowship. Meier’s project Standing Witness, site: Sage Creek was recognized through Creative Capitals’ “On our Radar”. She has held place-oriented residencies in Homer, Alaska, Cedar Point Biological Station, and Badlands National Park.  Her work has shown in museums, galleries, and film festivals, as well as in the very land that gives rise to her work.