LORI K. GORDON

Lori K. Gordon was born in the Northern Plains, and spent her childhood on the prairies of eastern South Dakota. As a teen, she began moving west and then south, living for years in the Black Hills of South Dakota and the high desert of Arizona. Along the way, she picked up a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in religious studies, all the while pursuing her love of art. She has traveled extensively in the United States, painting and drawing her way from the west to east coasts, and from Canada to Mexico. In 1991 she made the Mississippi Gulf Coast her home. Largely self taught, Gordon works in many medias including graphite, fabric, acrylic, handmade paper and polymer clay. She is especially fond of collage and assemblage work, and introduced her first mixed media series in 2000. Three years later, one of her pieces was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for inclusion into their permanent collection. “Labat: A Creole Legacy” is an eight by ten foot fabric collage which tells the story, in images and text, of the life of a Bay St. Louis Creole woman who died in 2002 at the age of 104.
In 2003 Gordon began capturing the local landscapes of her beloved Mississippi Gulf Coast in acrylic, and continued that work until Hurricane Katrina upended her life on August 29, 2005. With her home, studio and all of her supplies washed away by the 43 foot storm surge and 150 mile per hour winds which obliterated her community, Gordon returned to work using the only materials which were available to her. Five weeks after the event, Gordon began collecting rubble and transforming it into works of art. “The Katrina Collection” has been featured by MSNBC, CBS, National Public Radio, Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press, Art Gulf Coast, South Mississippi Living, and in dozens of newspapers around the nation. The artist has been featured in several documentaries as well, including Art of the Storm, the award-winning Mississippi Son, and Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s Mississippi Roads and Southern Expressions. Collectors of her work include President and First Lady Barack and Michelle Obama, former President and First Lady Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, ESPN announcer Jon Miller, singer Faith Hill, Los Angeles producer Don Wilson, and Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts. In addition to the Smithsonian, public collections which have acquired her work include Mississippi Humanities Council, Katrina Research Center, University of Virginia, University of Southern Mississippi, William J Clinton Foundation and Thea Foundation’s Art Across Arkansas, Seattle’s Safeco Corporate Collection, Hancock Medical Center, Katrina Museum, and Alice Moseley Museum. Gordon has exhibited her work around the nation, and pieces of the series may be found in Europe and Asia as well as across the United States.
While Gordon continues creating in The Katrina Collection, she has begun work in several new series. The Reliquary Series, which debuted in Mississippi in January of 2008, is another collection of mixed media assemblages which focuses on images of the sacred. Most recently, the artist has been creating collages on canvas which combine photography, digital imagery, acrylics and handmade paper. These collages are gleaned from photos taken by the artist in Turkey, Cyprus and various locations in the United States. In January 2010, Gordon released a new collection of mixed media pieces which she calls “Found Object Mosaics.”
Gordon is currently represented by Work of Art in Gulfport, MS and in Madisonville, LA; Gallery 220 in Bay St Louis, MS; Sumner & Dene Gallery in Albuquerque, NM; and Brown’s Fine Art in Jackson, MS. Her work may be seen on her website at www.lorikgordon.org, and a complete bio may be found online at Wikipedia. Tours of her studio may be arranged and the artist may be reached at lorikgordon@gmail.com. To see more of Gordon's work, please click on the links located on the upper right section of this page. To watch a 20-minute film on Gordon and her work, scroll down.

Film on the Work of Lori K. Gordon

This is a twenty minute film on the work of Lori K. Gordon. It focuses on The Katrina Collection and the Labat Project.

Unless marked "SOLD", all pieces are available for purchase. Please email me for prices:
lorikgordon@gmail.com

This is a piece called "Tree of Life" which I created for Dr. Stanley Hartness and his wife Beth. Beth gave me a tub full of old medical instruments from her husband;s collection and asked me to create something with them. It was a bit of a daunting assignment but i was very leased with the result, as were they.

Chinese Landscape was created from an old frame, handmade paper, chopsticks,  Chinese coins, a Chinese newspaper, wallpaper and acrylic paint.

Guadalupe Pocket Icons.  I made a series of these little treasures, in different colors and shapes. They are created from paperclay forms I made of the Virgin of Guadalupe, wood forms, acrylic paint and nails. Although they are too large to fit in your pocket (and the nails would be a bit uncomfortable!), I wanted to indicate the small size -and the resulting small price. They are approximately 8-10 inches tall.

Guadalupe Icon 1 was created from bottlecaps, two milagros, two pieces of salvaged wood, a church form and paperclay.

Guadalupe Icon 2 was created from an old piece of wood, a salvaged picture frame, bottle caps, w ood form and paperclay.

Guadalupe Icon 3 was created from two salvaged frames and a clay Virgin of Guadalupe from Mexico.

Guadalupe Icon 4 was created from two pieces of wood, a salvaged frame, bottle caps, paperclay and a milagro.

Guadalupe Icon 5 was created from a Mexican clay Virgin of Guadalupe, two salvaged frames and acrylic paint.

Guadalupe Icon 6 was made from a wood frame, the lid to a box, two wood forms, bottle caps, and paperclay.

Guadalupe Icon 7 was fashioned from a salvaged frame, a wood box, a metal turtle that barely survived Katrina, bottle caps, a wood church form and paperclay.

Guadalupe Icon 8 was created from a salvaged frame, salvaged board, and four pieces of clay.

Art Dolls are made from carved wood, polymer clay, acrylic paint, beads, and other odds and ends. They are approximately 8" or 9" tall, and are $25 each.

The next few photographs are of wall art I call Spirit Dolls. The idea of spirit dolls can be found in cultures worldwide, and I come to my interest in them naturally via my background in the field of religious studies. They are made from paper clay, cloth, various trim, feathers, and sometimes small trinkets.The dolls are attached to cloth place mats that have been embellished with scraps of other fabrics. These single-doll pieces are approx. 12" x 17" and are $48-but be sure to scroll down to see the large spirit quilt.

Spirit Doll.

Detail, Spirit Doll.

Spirit Doll.

Spirit Quilt is 49" wide x 79" tall, and was created from a wonderfully warped quilt handmade by an artist in Texas. I added nine of my spirit dolls which were fastened to cloth place mats enhanced with assorted scraps of fabric, trims, and feathers. Four fabric birds, dressed up in their Sunday best, decorate the center area, and wood beads and glass amulets from Istanbul which are said to ward off the evil eye weigh down the bottom of the quilt. This is a wonderfully bold and vibrant piece, and needs a good size portion of wall to support it.

Anasazi  SOLD

"Found Object Mosaics" is a brand new series of work created in the waning days of 2009 and the first week of 2010. Influenced by the breathtaking mosaics of Turkey and Cyprus, I have found a new obsession in the creation of these pieces. Many contain bits of Katrina debris from my still-overflowing barn/studio. For availability and prices of the following pieces, please email me at lorikgordon@gmail.com.

Shaman II

New Orleans Saint  SOLD

Winged Creatures  SOLD

Ayasofya V

Grotto in Yavapai  SOLD

Blue Grotto

Tree of Life

Looking for Leon

Hand x 3

Retablo