Abel Contemporary Gallery presents an Artist Talk from Glynnis Lessing and Juan Friedan

Raised primarily in the Midwest, Glynnis Lessing was introduced to ceramics at the age of ten and has maintained a deep interest in the medium ever since. She continued her interest in clay throughout high school and gained early experience working for a potter at sixteen. After studying at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, she earned a BFA from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She has spent her career as an artist and educator. Juan Alejandro Fried Ortiz de Zarate is an architect and artist whose work reflects the diversity of his ancestry, his urban experiences, and home in the countryside. Born and raised in Venezuela, Juan studied art history and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Minnesota. As an architect and urban designer, he completed award-winning designs for public agencies and community groups. As an artist, he continues his study of form, space, and materials on a more intimate scale.

This show, Memento, refers to physical objects meant to remember a person, place, or past event. Originating from the Latin imperative for "remember," these items serve as tangible reminders or tokens of memory. Lessing says about the show, “By creating these pieces that commemorate significant moments of joy or transformation in my long life, I am sending my memories out into the world; to lose the stories they symbolize for me and to become meaningful in other ways to other people. By making something that can last 10,000 years, I am entrusting bits of my life to strangers, to the ages, until all meaning is lost. I embrace this process as part of the beauty of creating functional vessels.”