Another mesmerizing feature is their tendency to move in groups with a seeming collective consciousness. They respond to each other, and to waves of air, changing direction with no visible outward communication. They are at once individuals and part of a whole that seems to embody a gestalt philosophy. With this installation, I intend to call to mind the end of days from the ancient Mayan calendar – a time of rebirth and harmony, or perhaps an apocalyptic culmination. This group of birds hovers in a frozen, silent moment of stillness in an ever-changing flock.

Ann Coddington Rast is an Associate Professor at Eastern Illinois University Art Department teaching in Foundations and Graduate Studies. She received her MFA from the University of Illinois Sculpture Department in 1993, and her BFA from the Colorado State University Fibers Department in 1986.
Coddington Rast utilizes a variety of fiber techniques including twining and netting in her sculptural forms. She has exhibited her work at venues including: the Mobilia Gallery in Boston, the Snyderman Works Gallery in Philadelphia, the Hunterdon Museum in New Jersey, Illinois Wesleyan Merwin Gallery, the Sheldon Art Galleries and the Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis, the Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin, and the Chicago Cultural Center and Evanston Art Center in Chicago. Ann received an individual artist project grant from the Illinois Arts Council in 2012 in support of this project. She also received an individual grant in 2000, and a finalist grant in 2004 and 2008.
       She says of her work, “We live is a world of increasingly complex technologies that paradoxically, in their effort to connect us, instead separate and isolate us, removing us from authentic experience. As the world becomes more complex, I am driven to simplify. I tie two pieces of string together, bend some sticks, form plaster in my hands. I love the feel and smell of the materials. The slow building of one stitch upon stitch exists within an ancient time frame, virtually never experienced in the contemporary technological world.
       Coddington Rast’s most recent exhibitions include four solo shows - at the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, the Bingham Gallery at the University of Missouri in Columbia, the Beverly Arts Center in Chicago and the Weston Art Gallery in Cincinnati.


Associated Events

The Grand Center Bird Project
May 3-26, 2013
Opening reception: Friday, May 3, 6-9pm
Craft Alliance and Grand Center Arts Academy are pleased to announce The Grand Center Bird Project, a collaborative project featuring handcrafted birds by students from GCAA, the Saint Louis Art Museum Teen Arts Council, and CA’s Crafting-A-Future students.

IGNITE/ILLUMINATE Poetry Reading: Presented by the St. Louis Poetry Center, inspired by flock
Sunday, April 14, 1:30-3:30
in the Grand Center Gallery
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC


Exhibition Opening is part of First Fridays in Grand Center

FLIGHT Pop-Up Shop:
Friday, March 1, 5pm-9pm
In the Grand Center Gallery
FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Workshop:
Birdbrains Clay Tile and the Poetry Center with Will Rimel and Jane Ellen Ibur
Sunday, March 10, 12-5pm

The Academy of Science – St. Louis and Craft Alliance in Grand Center present the series:
Art & Science: Making Creative Connections
John James Audubon and the Art of Ornithology with Featured Speaker: Julie Dunn-Morton
Wednesday, March 13, 7-8:30 in the Grand Center Gallery
FREE and OPEN to ALL.  Seating is limited.  Registration required.  To RSVP, please register online or call (314) 533-8586