Illustration by Ani Monteleone

BIO

Rebecca Scheer has exhibited artwork in venues such as Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Velvet da Vinci, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, and Center for the Visual Arts. Her work has been reviewed in ArtWeek, Metalsmith, and published in two books, Silversmithing and 1000 Rings. Her jewelry has been sold in museums and boutiques nationwide. She has taught jewelry and metalsmithing at The University of Oregon, Clackamas Community College, and Oregon College of Art & Craft. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

spoon art?

For the past 20+ years I have used common eating utensils as the formal basis of ongoing sculptural explorations. The forms of fork, knife and spoon are so familiar to us that we take them completely for granted. They are fixed extensions of our bodies, our minds, our culture. What if suddenly utensils resist or change the function for which they were designed? What are they then and what are we in relationship to them? Is a fork ruined when it cannot act as a fork does or is there potential for new use, new growth, and new awareness? What happens when what we expect does not happen? My work attempts to shift common assumptions and expectations, so that we are visible to ourselves in the objects that surround us.