Carolina Artworks by Kim Keelor

The artistic exploration applied while creating Tawney, Bourgeois, O’Keeffe, and the Hats of the Master Potter are lifting my practice to a higher level in the way of complexity, materiality, and scale. My work had been centered on wall-hanging fiber art with sculptural and sometimes assemblage features. During the development of this piece, I began to feel emboldened while considering the legacies of three artists that regularly inform my art with their 20th century studio craft and bold style, together with a large bag of old, patinaed wool hats from a beloved master potter. The work communicates in the language of the artists and the potter, reflecting their legacies. They are Lanore Tawney, Louis Bourgeois, and Georgia O’Keeffe, with the assistance of the hats of the master potter, Doug Hubbs.

Lenore Tawney. (Learn more about Tawney here) Tawney’s name should be as well-known as other extraordinary, mid-century, American artists due to her leadership in her genre and the long-term impact of her innovations. Always working on the leading edge, she was the first person recognized with the description “fiber artist.” Tawney was a weaver, a sculptor, and an investigator. She was known to be highly spiritual and often included patterns of circles within squares in her designs, representing unity and inner wellness. Additionally, she used hundreds of flowing and floating yarns and fibers to provide movement in her work, symbolized within the hanging tunnels of this piece. The recurring circles within squares, the reclaimed weaving shuttles, the hand braided cording, and the woven “halos” around the wood circle “hats” are present to honor her legacy.

Loise Bourgeois. (See a 2025-26 Bourgeois exhibition at Hauser and Wirth here) Borgeois's language and legacy are seen primarily in the Tunnel Tower and the Ruptured Portal floor sculptures. The Tower was inspired by some of Bourgeois’ earlier works. Examples of those that influence me include the blue and white Figure, 1954, and Quarantania, 1941, which was firmly imprinted in my brain when one of my sons said, “it looked like our family," when seeing it in a museum. Ruptured Portal reflects some of Bourgeois’ life challenges (and my own) and the work she produced during or after those times that was propelled by her grit and resilience.

Georgia O’Keeffe. (The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum) A globally revered artist, O’Keeffe’s influences are seen in each of the installation’s units. The portals in the two tunnel pieces represent her process of taking photographs of the New Mexican desert and sky through the skull holes of sheep and cattle bones found on her rambles, and then painting them. The portals also nod to the storied photos of O’Keeffe taken in the portal of Ghost Ranch, as well as the chakra energy portals of the New Mexican desert thought to be generated from some mystical force. She was entranced by the sky, particularly the blue of the large desert sky where I also felt grounded by a creative energy when I painted in one of her haunts. O’Keeffe said, “the sky is the best part of anywhere.”

Doug Hubbs. Hubbs is a longtime master potter based at the Cowee Pottery School located in the Cowee Arts and Heritage Center in Franklin, North Carolina. He is known for his distinctive creations, mastery of the kiln, and as an intuitive and generous pottery instructor. That is his legacy. Additionally, Hubbs is known for the olive hued wool hats he wears daily. Each year he gets a new hat and puts the old one in the barn. At 85, that amounts to a lot of hats. He stopped in my studio and challenged me to repurpose them, resulting in this project. Hat parts are present in all five sculptures. The hanging wool “pots” are an homage to Hubbs.

Installation details
This small installation consists of five units to be displayed together; sizes noted below for each. It was originally created for exhibition at the the Bascom in Highlands, North Carolina, and is now available for future showings. It needs a minimum space of 8' x 8' to be properly installed:

Large tunnel with portals and pendulum, 52 x 26 x 26
Narrow tunnel with straps and flowing textiles, 33 x 15 x 15
Reclaimed shuttle sculpture with hanging wool pots, 44 x 10 x 6
Tunnel tower floor sculpture with wood base and vine, 45 x 18 x 18
Ruptured Portal floor sculpture, 7 x 18 x 14