[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”30b66964-c4f7-4bc7-a444-414804f22c1c” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_text header_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_font_size=”72px” header_font_size_tablet=”40px” header_font_size_phone=”24px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_line_height=”1.15em” header_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” global_colors_info=”{%22gcid-primary-color%22:%91%22link_text_color%22%93,%22gcid-heading-color%22:%91%22header_text_color%22,%22header_4_text_color%22,%22header_3_text_color%22,%22header_2_text_color%22,%22header_5_text_color%22,%22header_6_text_color%22,%22quote_text_color%22%93,%22gcid-body-color%22:%91%22text_text_color%22%93,%22gcid-secondary-color%22:%91%22quote_border_color%22%93}” link_text_color=”gcid-primary-color” custom_margin=”||||false|false” header_2_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_3_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_4_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_5_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_6_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” header_2_font_size=”50px” header_2_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_2_font_size_tablet=”28px” header_2_font_size_phone=”20px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” header_3_font_size=”32px” header_3_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_3_font_size_tablet=”22px” header_3_font_size_phone=”17px” header_3_line_height=”1.3em” header_4_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” header_3_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” header_2_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” header_4_font_size=”24px” header_4_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” header_4_font_size_phone=”15px” header_4_font_size_tablet=”18px” header_4_line_height=”1.4em” header_5_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” header_5_font_size=”18px” header_5_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_5_font_size_tablet=”15px” header_5_font_size_phone=”14px” header_5_line_height=”1.4em” header_6_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” header_6_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” header_6_font_size_tablet=”13px” header_6_font_size_phone=”13px” header_6_line_height=”1.5em” text_font=”–et_global_body_font|–et_global_body_font_weight|||||||” text_text_color=”gcid-body-color” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” text_font_size_tablet=”15px” text_font_size_phone=”14px” text_line_height=”1.75em” quote_border_color=”gcid-secondary-color” quote_font=”–et_global_heading_font|–et_global_heading_font_weight|||||||” quote_text_color=”gcid-heading-color” link_font=”|–et_global_body_font_weight|||||||” _builder_version=”4.27.5″ _module_preset=”49d392fb-975c-4b43-b48e-d0a1c41d9ee8″ theme_builder_area=”post_content”]<\/p>\n
Desire for More: Women, Art, and the Machen Collection<\/b><\/strong> by Dr. Sophia Kidd<\/p>\n The artworks in this exhibition\u2014by Michel Angela Petersen, Maria Wickwire, Karen Adams, Amy Stone, Katherine Sheers, and Carrie McIntyre\u2014have lived together for years, bound by the discerning taste of Bellingham-based collector Richard Machen. This is their first public gathering, an unveiling not only of the works themselves but of Machen\u2019s decades-long devotion to living women artists. His patronage has carried some through success, while others faltered under the combined weight of artmaking, domestic labor, and survival. Their struggles\u2014illness, poverty, resilience\u2014are etched into these works as maps of human existence.<\/p>\n Machen\u2019s collection is more than accumulation. It is care\u2014an adoption of artworks into a family where they acquire new purpose, shaped by their encounter with each other and with him.<\/p>\n British-born Michel Angela Petersen approaches ceramics as both artifact and inquiry, uniting intuitive form with scholarly rigor. Her monumental works\u2014Tattva Mimamsa: Pondering Dualism<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2011),\u00a0Skinny Dipping<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2021), and the\u00a0Icon<\/i><\/em>\u00a0series\u2014probe mysticism, femininity, and cultural memory. Figures emerge as hybrids, corporeal yet divine, grotesque yet serene. Surfaces of crackled glaze and ochre slip testify to endurance. Petersen resists closure: her clay becomes a site where belief, embodiment, and memory converge.<\/p>\n Katherine Sheers, formerly a lingerie designer, translates vulnerability and erotic autonomy into painting. Her trio\u00a0When You Held Me Safe, As I Am \/ As I Broke \/ As I Healed<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2019) stages intimacy, rupture, and restoration in restrained marks and pale grounds.\u00a0Your Body Moving Under Pleasure<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020) distills sensuality into luminous strokes, while\u00a0The Dirty Work of Blossoming<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2023) magnifies growth as both labor and beauty. Exhibited internationally and shortlisted for The Mother Art Prize<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020), Sheers asserts fragility and resilience as interwoven states of becoming.<\/p>\n Toronto-based Carrie McIntyre works in acrylic and mixed media, where color itself becomes architecture. Her\u00a0Why So Convoluted<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2022) pulses with elongated figures in coral, turquoise, and gold, woven from chromatic rhythm.\u00a0Serenity Now <\/i><\/em>(2018)\u00a0dissolves the figure, while\u00a0Tribal<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2018) grounds it in strength. Across her practice, McIntyre charts presence in flux\u2014emotional resonance flickering between kinship, intimacy, and abstraction. Her works resist narrative but radiate vitality.<\/p>\n Karen Adams of Atlanta channels the sea\u2019s erosive and generative force through clay, bronze, and mixed media. Works such as\u00a0The Shellmaker<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020) and\u00a0Pelagic Siren<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2019) oscillate between strength and fragility, textured with coral and sediment. Her figures emerge as vessels of memory and myth\u2014timeless yet contemporary, bodies as sites of transformation. Adams materializes resonance rather than story, inviting viewers to inhabit the sea\u2019s endless cycles of dissolution and renewal.<\/p>\n From Washington\u2019s Skagit Valley, Maria Wickwire creates figures that embody myth, memory, and resilience. Sculptures such as\u00a0Eilidh<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2021) and\u00a0Lakshmi<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020) bear antlers, birds, and botanical motifs, grounding them in archetype and local landscape alike. Her figures bend, cradle, and offer, inhabiting fragility and strength simultaneously. Wickwire resists static allegory: her work is presence in process, sculpture as ritual encounter.<\/p>\n Seattle-based Amy Stone paints at the edge of chaos and harmony.\u00a0Battle Ground<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020) layers washes into improvisatory conflict and renewal;\u00a0Double Whammy<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2020) dissolves the body into abstraction;\u00a0Everything Is Awesome<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2019) explodes with exuberance; and\u00a0My Beautiful Mess<\/i><\/em>\u00a0(2021) sprawls across horizontal expanse, a storm of pigment and atmosphere. Gesture, rhythm, and memory fuse into canvases that assert autonomy as living fields of energy.<\/p>\n She\u2019s So Collectible!<\/i><\/em>\u00a0reminds us that women\u2019s art taps into the spiritual realm through feeling before thought. The female figure\u2014slender or unruly, fit or frail\u2014overwhelms the rational mind, guiding us toward deeper realms of health, wealth, and well-being. Machen\u2019s devotion affirms the beauty of woman in all her forms, and his collection of over 700 works stands as testament. Each artwork, once freed from its maker, gains new life in his care\u2014like a child adopted into a family, shaped by its new surroundings. In this way, the Machen collection is not only an archive of women\u2019s creativity but a living constellation of artworks, alive with purpose, meaning, and desire for more.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_team_member name=”Sophia Kidd” image_url=”https:\/\/yanluartsandculture.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\u5eb7\u4e66\u96c5\u4e0e\u7f8e\u56fd\u827a\u672f\u5bb6\u4ea4\u6d41.jpg” position=”Curator” _builder_version=”4.18.0″ _module_preset=”default” theme_builder_area=”post_content” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ body_font=”Song Myung||||||||” position_font=”Song Myung||||||||” title_text=”Sophia exchanges with American artists.” border_radii_image=”on|10px|10px|10px|10px” text_orientation=”left” body_text_align=”left”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_team_member][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" She\u2019s So Collectible! reminds us that women\u2019s art taps into the spiritual realm through feeling before thought. The female figure\u2014slender or unruly, fit or frail\u2014overwhelms the rational mind, guiding us toward deeper realms of health, wealth, and well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"2880","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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