"6 Women – 6 Expressions" Show at The Arts Center
An exploration of "Form, Function, and Feminine Force"
Last December, mosaic artist Theresa Arico conceived the idea for an art show featuring a few of her favorite colleagues and pitched it to The Arts Center. That idea came to fruition last month and you can see this show through September 23. If you go this Friday evening (9/12), you will enjoy a reception there, a regular feature for Carrboro's 2nd Friday Art Walk.
These six artists, creative powerhouses individually, have made a beautiful experience together in The Arts Center's gallery.
Alina Cochran, Ceramic Sculptor
Artist's statement: Alina Cochran is a Romanian-born ceramic artist based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, who uses clay as a medium for healing, expression, and connection. Her sculptural series, The Ladies – The Perfectly Imperfect Women, celebrates feminine resilience and the beauty found in vulnerability. In this show, her voice is one of transformation—through hand-shaped forms and fire, she shares quiet stories of strength, imperfection, and renewal.
Irena Cepulyte, Ceramic Sculptor
"This [Haw River Lady] is my biggest piece for now and it is the first one from a series I would like to make– 'Spirits of this place'." I moved here 3 years ago and I'm in love with nature here - in my art vision - everything has spirit - so I'm envisioning sculptures that are personifications of those great Nature beauties and places."
Artist's statement: Originally from Lithuania, she lives and creates ceramic art by the quiet beauty of Jordan Lake and its surrounding forest, which inspires her daily. Her art is deeply rooted in her Baltic heritage, which has always honored the natural world. Through clay, she explores organic forms and emotional states of life primarily in female forms. Each piece is a quiet offering — a dialogue between her and life, land and spirit. Currently she is working on a series of sculptures that embodies spirit of this land, forest, and Jordan Lake, which reflect also loud internal lament for the environmental impact of aggressive development, deforestation and environmental contamination.
Theresa Arico, Mosaic Artist
Artist's statement: Theresa’ work explores the intersection of nature and spirit through large-scale mosaic sculptures and murals. Drawing inspiration from the natural world and spiritual iconography, her work is created to evoke joy and wonder. She handcrafts many of her own tiles and uses mirrored outlines to invite movement and light into each piece. Her mosaics shimmer, reflect and respond, becoming part of the space and moment, they are experienced. Through this interplay of material and meaning, she invites viewers into a shared sense of aliveness and reverence.
Barbara McFadyen, Jewelry and Enamel Artist
Artist's Statement: For over fifty years, Barbara McFadyen has been dedicated to creating heirloom-quality jewelry using traditional handwrought metalwork and enameling techniques. Working in gold, silver, gemstones, and vitreous enamel, they explore a range of methods—including Keum boo, Basse-taille, and Limoges enameling—driven by a deep interest in the cultural and sentimental language of jewelry. Inspired by daily walks in nature and a lifelong appreciation for Japanese aesthetics, particularly the subtle beauty and impermanence expressed in Ukiyo-e and Shibusa, the artist transforms natural forms and cycles into one-of-a kind and limited-edition pieces that reflect tranquility and craftsmanship.
LaNelle Davis, Mosaic Artist
Artist's statement: Using picassiette mosaic technique, LaNelle works with broken dishes, pottery and mirror to explore themes of the natural world, people and communities that surround her. Each fragment carries a story of family, labor, resilience and transformation as something once discarded and broken is transformed into something beautiful and whole again.
Susan Finer, Fiber/Mixed Media Artist
Artist's statement: A native of Long Island, New York, Susan Finer has always been inspired by the textures of sand and sea, forest floors and city streets. She translates her memories into abstract terrains of cloth with paint, thread, and scavenged scraps of fabric. Fascinated by the connections and disconnections between natural and human-built environments, Finer creates work where organic untidiness encounters orderly lines and grids. She has shown her work at galleries and museums across the country and is a member-artist at FRANK Gallery.
She commented that Playing Off the Grid 1, like some of her other pieces, plays with lines and organic shapes, exploring control and chaos, connection and disconnection, nature and built environment. Rather than in conflict, the parts play or bounce off each other, as in life.
