Alyssa Kail: April 2024
Alyssa Kail is a multidisciplinary visual artist currently based in Braddock, PA. Curiosity, color, and texture are the driving forces in her creative practice and in life in general. Growing up in the beautiful Allegheny National Forest, she is influenced by both the natural landscape and the built environment, more recently taking inspiration from walking around and exploring while traveling in new cities.
Alyssa works primarily with fiber arts techniques and materials, but is shifting into incorporating fused and stained glass. She earned a B.A from the University of Pittsburgh in Environmental Studies and an M.F.A. from Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) and Oregon College of Art & Craft (OCAC) in Portland, Oregon in Applied Craft + Design. Alyssa cofounded Camp Copeland Studio in 2015 with her husband Drew Kail. Together they are a small batch producer of handcrafted home goods and decor in wool and kilnformed glass.
My work investigates the dynamics of landscape and the built environment, its effects on us, and the limits of our knowing as thresholds. A misty illusion conjures the realms of our imagination and exercises our ability to look, as we do with cloud formations and cracks in the sidewalk. Felted Color Fields are grounded in the familiar form of stretched canvas hung on the wall, we understand the drawn landscape as imagined portals of the known and unknown, decorating our homes and offices. Employing fiber art techniques presents an element of comfort in the unfamiliar though tactile sensibility: the titles are derived from the things that I’m researching, reading, and listening to at the moment, inspired by the boundless curiosities of the world and the wonder we can find, if we seek it. The applied “drips” are a nod and a wink to the appeal of the drip in paintings that call back to the process and therefore the hand of the artist. I love looking closely at this aspect of painting and the fact that this action is frozen in time. I desire to bring forward a conversation about the perceived value of paintings in the Art world over other materials and processes such as wool for example.
