Carrie Pendergrass on her meticulous method
Chattanooga based artist Carrie Pendergrass cleverly combines innovation and discipline in her newest series of experimental painting/prints. These ecstatic explorations of color, line, rhythm, and form are created using a unique process developed by the artist, emerging from painting and printmaking traditions.
A lifelong artist, Pendergrass has always maintained a career in a creative field, spending years as an art teacher and gallery owner—she is currently the gallery director for H*Art Gallery, a non-profit that provides opportunities to homeless and disabled artists.
She made art throughout her childhood and education. “By the time I got later into high school,” she tells us, “I realized that art was something that I wanted to pursue. It was just something that I loved and wanted to learn more about.”
After receiving a BFA in studio art with a concentration in painting and drawing from UT Knoxville, she sought out creative work environments.
“When I moved back to Chattanooga from Knoxville in 1998, I started working at the Creative Discovery Museum, and taught art classes there for several years. I got some teaching opportunities from that, and went back to school to get a master’s in education and got certified to teach art K–12.”
She taught middle school for a year and then high school for five years. “It was great, I got to teach photography, which I also love—we did traditional dark room stuff, which was really fun.”
She was considering leaving full-time teaching and pursuing art when she heard about Project: PopUp, a downtown revitalization effort that was being funded by the River City Company. She was chosen as one of five recipients of a storefront on Chestnut Street, and decided to open a studio/gallery.
“I quit my job at the end of the school year, summer of 2012, and learned how to set up a business in a few months.” The store was called Sewn To The Sky, named after the Smog record and the local fabric art it exhibited.
“I wanted the store to be a studio, and market other people’s hand-made goods. I sold a lot of people’s art, handmade things like jewelry, did some art shows there where an artist could have a feature night, sold my own work and made stuff all the time, and met lots of cool people.”
Unfortunately, it was too early for that area to sustain small business—at that time, before the Westin was built, the area of Chestnut St. behind the Read House was off the beaten path. It is quite an achievement that Sewn To The Sky survived for two and a half years, more than a year longer than the other four businesses in the project.
She continued to make art, applied for a job at the H*Art Gallery, and has been there ever since. “I became the gallery director last year, and still teach art on the side through different grant-funded programs, Townsend Atelier, and Chattery.”
In college, Pendergrass’s work was mostly comprised of large figurative paintings. Over the years, her use of materials and processes has changed, but her work has retained a painterly quality—as she says, “I’m a printmaker with the heart of a painter.”
“I’ve always liked printmaking, and I’ve always done linoleum cuts. I used to make handmade cards for my store, and would use printmaking for that. The gel plate is a new material that I started experimenting with, and discovered that you can do more abstract work.”
Gel plate printing is a printmaking process that employs plates made of gelatin. This clear, rubbery material holds the medium differently than a Plexiglas plate, allowing one to achieve a more controlled monotype print.
One of the advantages of gel plates is that paint can be used instead of printer’s ink. “I really like the results; it has kind of a screenprint quality. You can get really bold lines and graphic imagery without having to carve a plate, and everything’s unique.
“I’m using paint, I’m doing it on paper, and I’m transferring shapes and colors and designs—building up layers the way you would a painting, but doing it through printmaking.”
The pieces are nearly impossible to replicate, unlike traditional prints which are easily reproduced. “I’ve always loved painting and printmaking, so it was combining those into a new thing—and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years. I keep discovering new ways to make the things I want to make, and I’m never bored with it.”
You can see more of her work on her website at sewntothesea.com