January 2025 - Featured Artist - Leah Hardy
Our featured artist for our January and February exhibit, '“You’re So Fly”, is Leah Hardy.
Leah Hardy completed a BFA in Art at the University of Kansas in 1987, including a year abroad at Howard Gardens Art School in Cardiff, Wales, UK (1986-87) and earned her MFA from the University of Indiana, Bloomington in 1990.
Exhibited nationally and internationally, Hardy’s intimately scaled mixed media sculpture explores and references our fascination with immortality and desire with the underlying yearning to connect, communicate and gain insight. Hardy’s work has garnered numerous awards and inclusions in books, periodicals, juried and invitational exhibitions.
Residencies have taken Hardy to Australia, New Zealand, China, and India. Hardy’s work is in public and private collections in the US, China, Czech Republic, New Zealand, Australia, Europe and India. Hardy retired as a Professor Emeritus in 2023 from the University of Wyoming where she established the Metalsmithing Program in 2009 in the Visual Arts Department.
She has conducted research in North India on traditional metalsmithing techniques and has co-taught a UW International Art course in India for five summers. In 2017 Hardy was an invited Visiting Artist at the University of South Australia, Adelaide, during which time she directed a collaborative project, In Camels’ Footsteps. The project began with a weeklong camel trek with artists in South Australia culminating in exhibitions in Adelaide and Sydney in 2018 highlighting artwork in response to the experience.
Hardy was one of five finalists for the 2024 Women to Watch International Exhibition at the National Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Hardy resides in Abiquiu, New Mexico with her artist spouse, Mark Ritchie.
This exhibit will run from January 7th - February 28th>
The opening reception for January will be on January 9th.
Live music with One Child Left Behind, and a cash bar from Raccas.
Our opening reception for February will be on February 6th with live music from E Street Prophets.
Our opening receptions are always free and open to the public.