CELEBRATION OF SCULPTURE - PANELISTS MAY 1ST

Kim Johnson is an art educator and multidisciplinary artist with over 27 years of experience inspiring creativity through hands-on exploration. She currently teaches at the Washington State School for the Blind, where she brings a deeply sensory and inclusive approach to art education.

Working in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms, Kim creates whimsical, immersive artwork using clay, glass, paint, and a wide range of tactile materials. Her artistic practice embraces texture, movement, and sound, inviting viewers to experience art beyond the visual.

Kim’s teaching philosophy centers on accessibility, exploration, and cultural connection. She encourages students to engage with art through touch, sound, and intuition while exploring a wide variety of artists and cultural perspectives. By introducing diverse artistic traditions and voices, she helps students build both creative skills and a broader understanding of the world.

Her classroom is a dynamic, supportive space where curiosity and play are essential, and where every student is empowered to discover their unique artistic voice. Kim believes art should be experienced with the whole body—and that creativity thrives when students feel seen, included, and inspired.

Kim Johnson continues to create her work in the classroom while inspiring generations of students to see, feel, and hear art in new ways.

Philip A. Robinson Jr. is an award-winning multimedia sculptor, conceptual artist, and

educator. He primarily works with wood, using it as a metaphor for temporality and natural

cycles to explore themes of identity within both popular and marginalized cultures.

A bi-coastal artist, Robinson has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions across the U.S.

and internationally. His solo shows include installations at the Portland International Airport and

Hollywood Theatre (PDX), Eminent Domaine Winery, High Line Nine, The Untitled Space

Gallery, Dutchess Community College, and more. His work has also been featured at prominent

art events and venues such as BITBASEL at the Sagamore Hotel, Prizm Art Fair during Miami

Art Basel, The Porsche Studios in Beaverton, The Tanya Weddemire Gallery, Rush Arts Gallery,

KL City Art Gallery in Malaysia, Lululemon at Hudson Yards, The National Academy Museum

and School, The Barrett Art Center, Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibition, and The

Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery.

Robinson holds a BFA in Studio Art from Skidmore College and an MFA in Sculpture from

Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.

I have been working with clay seriously since Fall of 1998 when my mom signed me up for private pottery lessons. I fell in love with clay and continued to focus on it in college at Southern Oregon University where I got my BFA. I personally love the transformational aspect of clay as a creative medium. It is the most Alchemical medium, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water all come together an provide necessary conditions to transform the mud, to rock, the rock to glass. I find it magical, and never gets boring. For the last five years I have been exploring mixed clay throwing. Creating both functional work and also Sculptural figures using thrown mix clay cylinders as a starting form. 

I'm really excited to share my passion with 7-12 graders at VSAA, where I have been teaching for 18 years. For the last 7 of those years I have slowly built a pottery program that allows for a 1 semester introductory class and a year long more advanced class for high schoolers. I love to see my young student artists get excited/ experiment/ fail/ and grow, and ultimately love what they do. They inspire me, I inspire them. It is magic, and I'm so thankful I get to be in a position to fan the flames of creativity with clay.

Born 1964 in Morristown, New Jersey.

Boyhood in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Adolescence in Ohio and Michigan.

Enrolled at the University of Washington 1982-1985. Transferred to The Evergreen State College, graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts. Formal studies included architecture, political science, art history, life drawing and creative writing. Currently, living in Portland, Oregon.

These artworks could be seen as playmate/explorers discovering the highs and lows of the world. They are like guides into the cosmology of a Universe at Play. For them the stakes are not do-or-die, because they know the dead are also at play. The rules of the game are unwritten and intuitive, but values like fairness, inclusiveness, health, joy, and a heightened awareness apply universally. “Take joy and Be aware”, they say.

Jennifer Corio is half of the artist duo known as Cobalt Designworks located here in Vancouver. For 16 years she and her husband have created large scale sculptures for public settings using a wide variety of metals, fabrication techniques, and finishes. They aim to lift spirits and brighten the world by taming metal into graceful, dynamic forms and finishing them with vibrant colors that add pop and levity to their surroundings. There is a playful sophistication to their art. Their portfolio consists of dozens of outdoor sculptures throughout the Pacific Northwest, many of which have become iconic pieces that evoke a sense of a place and have become distinctive landmarks for communities.

Shelly Durica-Laiche designs and builds decorative and functional metal sculpture in Portland, Oregon. She constructs these objects primarily using a MIG welder or cold connection techniques.

“By taking inspiration from the outside world and turning inwards, I synthesize my experiences into three dimensions. I then focus on the elegance of form, using a linear and bold graphic aesthetic, to say the most with the least amount of material.”

Salvaged steel is her preferred material for creating her diverse body of work. She also includes non-ferrous metal accents such as brass, stainless, aluminum and copper. She collects all her material from steelyards, the side of the road, by donation or through her travels.

“I’m inspired by the unique shapes of these found treasures. Scrap metal has an embedded history and character that folds into each design. Sometimes I know right away what I want to build while other times it takes years of contemplation. I’m driven by the design challenge of transforming these recognizable objects into assemblages with a new voice. I seek for the viewer to be surprised by how a material is used in an unconventional way, far removed from its past life. The process is magic to me.”