SOHA Gallery: Friday, 19 August 2016

AUGUST 18 - SEPTEMBER 4

Erica Popp "Family Heirlooms" - Photography & Ceramics

Opening Night: Friday, August 19, 6pm - 10pm  

Join us for Erica Popp's MFA Exhibit titled, Family Heirlooms. This exhibit lovingly, captures the gentler side of life and history surrounding American family values. Erica has infused ceramics and photography into a storytelling capsule. Pointing focus onto her own ancestors and the life of an immigrant family. 

"The work is an exploration of my family tree and stories of my ancestors. I've been preserving family photographs by scanning and digital restoration. I'm using these to create both hand-printed reproductions of the photographs for precious hand-bound albums, and for the ceramic plates, my attempt to create the family heirloom pieces that my family never had to pass down. My great-grandparents came here from Germany and Norway to own land and make a better life for themselves and their children in America. They didn't come with much, and as immigrant farmers, they never accumulated the type of wealth that enabled some American families to purchase precious objects to pass down to future generations, such as jewelry or fine china. These objects are something I can pass down to any future children or to my nephew. They tell the story of one branch of our family coming to America and fulfilling the American dream."
"The other portion of the show is my rural landscapes. For this MFA thesis show they are hand-printed photographs in cyanotype and van dyke brown. Historic processes honor the history of American immigrant farmers like my family. I feel a deep nostalgia for farm life despite growing up in the suburbs. I think part of our family history stays with us no matter how different our contemporary lives are."

Exhibit Veiwing Hours: (during exhibitions): Fridays 1pm - 4pm, Saturdays 4pm - 7pm, Sundays 4pm - 7pm 

4915 Macklind AveSt. Louis, MO 63109(S. of Chippewa, at Neosho)