at Shift Gallery through April 29, 2017

by Stephanie Hargrave and Cynthia Hibbard

Like novelist Virginia Woolf’s admonition to “arrange whatever pieces come your way,” Jodi Waltier made art out of her life in new Shift Gallery show, Crutch and Wince.

After breaking a leg last year on an Olympic Peninsula hiking trip, Waltier—normally a high-octane person—found herself feeling impeded, fractured and in despair. “Weeks and weeks of immobility is the most stifling of circumstances for this dervish to find herself up against,” she said.

“Dervish” says it all. Waltier’s normal practice of working in a non-stop fever was simply adjusted as she gamely limped around her studio. Her multi-media show of collages, fabric sculpture and repurposed imagery is bold, eclectic and true to her natural, crazy-quilt aesthetic. And the works, in conversation with each other, vividly tell her story. Some pieces are fractured, some are not. Some works harken back to older themes such as her iconic crop circles and some are new—a nod to her reemergence as her indomitable self. “There you have it,” she said. “My pieces. Arranged or not. Splayed out for you to witness. Absorb.”

Jodi’s show was recently featured on Weekend Zone with Nancy Guppy, on KING5. You can watch that segment here.

Review of the show on The Way of the Woo blog.