ARTIST OF THE WEEK Tess Little working in her Fairborn studio.
Actually, Tess doesn’t have a Fairborn studio. She has two. One is a clay studio in a dairy barn that is over 150 years old. When I visited, two of her students were working there. Tess was working in her other studio, where she makes metal sculptures.
“This piece is called Healing Circle” she told me. “It was one of my earlier bronzes – done around 2005. We were moving it and two of the welds gave way so are repairing it today.”
Tess worked alongside her husband Jim. “Now that Jim is retired he helps me a lot. He does a lot of my set-up work. Jim was in the tool and die business, so that’s something he does really well.”
Tess’s home is filled with art, both hers and that of others. “There would be a lot more to show you, but so much is away right now. I have some large pieces rented in Chicago. Renting sculptures is becoming more popular. A location rents the piece for a year or two. Then you bring it home or take it to another site that wants to rent it. I also have a lot of work in two Dayton galleries, but you can see those pieces on Thursday at a progressive reception.”
The reception of “The Journey: Work by Bing Davis and Tess Little” starts today from 4:30 to 6 pm at the Burnell Roberts gallery at Sinclair and then continues from 6-8 pm at The Contemporary Dayton formerly Dayton Visual Arts Center (118 N Jefferson) . Both receptions are free and open to the public. The exhibitions are part of REACH across Dayton, which Tess Little and Bing Davis founded 27 years ago.
