Caitie Sellers
Caitie Sellers
Caitie Sellers received her BFA in Craft/Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She has spent the last ten years moving between Virginia, Guatemala, Montana, North Carolina, and Texas learning technique and gathering inspiration for her artwork based on the urban landscape. Her work ranges from one of a kind small sculpture to limited production wearable jewelry and is exhibited internationally. Caitie was an Artist-in-Residence at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft in 2014 and a recent a co-director/resident artist at Clamp Light Artist Studios and Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. Recent exhibitions include “Placeholder,” a solo exhibition at the Ornamental Metals Museum in Memphis, TN and “Shared Concerns” a traveling exhibition most recently shown at the Radiant Pavilion Contemporary Jewelry Festival in Melbourne, Australia. She maintains her studio in The Elevator Collective, a multidisciplinary artist studio she opened in Richmond, VA.
I use traditional silversmithing techniques to create work that revolves around a unique combination of alloys and industrial materials. I fuse fine copper mesh from an industrial manufacturer with sterling silver as the base for most of my pieces, using techniques I developed during a nine-month residency at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft. Using these materials creates an effect that provides solid planes but transparency, allowing me to play with dimension and layers. I am fascinated with the hidden workings of cities -- beautiful, efficient design that is hidden beneath pavement and brick. Using transparent mesh allows me to show both the outer skin and the guts of a place.
For many of the pieces in this body of work, I have created multiples of small handmade bricks to mimic walls, walkways and cobblestones. I've soldered hundreds of these bricks together on an undulating surface to create topographies mimicking the natural erosion of built surfaces. These pieces show the basic building blocks of a city, something assembled by ancient and forgotten hands, juxtaposed with modern additions and renovations. I'm interested in showing the cycles of urban growth and decay.
I use many other techniques to recreate infrastructure in miniature. I weave thin gauge sterling silver wire to create chain link fence. I use filigree techniques to make tiny guard rails and brick walls. I use granulation techniques to build silt and gravel. I coil and fuse fine wire to create powerlines and cable. I use bending jigs to turn silver tubing into conduit. I combine these simple overlooked structures with 18 karat gold to show their real value in our lives.
