KNOX COUNTY – Karen Snouffer, a retired art professor at Kenyon College, works out of a century-old restored hay barn near her house in rural Knox County.
“It’s oak and has really beautiful beams,” she said. “It belonged to the father of the woman we bought the property from. She teaches at the art department at Kenyon.”
Snouffer was recently awarded a $4,000 grant from the Ohio Arts Council for her work in the category of 2D visual arts. During this funding cycle, applications in crafts, design, interdisciplinary arts, media arts, photography, visual arts 2D and visual arts 3D were accepted.
She was one of 75 artists in the state to receive grants which are “peer recognition of a creative artist’s body of work that exemplifies their specific discipline and advances the larger artistic community,” the council said.
“The judges are from out of state and the work is totally anonymous,” Snouffer told the Mount Vernon News. “So they are just judging you on your work. They’re not judging you on your exhibition record or your education. It’s strictly looking at the work.”
She appreciates both the recognition and the cash. She was also awarded the grant two years ago and bought a new computer.
“This year, I have a lot of studio expenses,” she said. “I have paint to pay for and materials. It’s just endless. The money goes pretty quickly. I’m very happy to have it.”
At Kenyon, she taught painting, drawing and “installation art,” which are works installed to change the perception for a particular space.
“I’m a multi-media artist,” Snouffer said. “I’m fascinated by materials and feel like I have a visual language that reoccurs in many different forms. Whether three dimensional or two dimensional, the different forms I work in have a relationship to one another.”
One of her installations is called “Divine Connections.”
She describes it as an “immersive environment in which objects from nature are reconfigured to become metaphors for growth, outreach and making connections such as a writhing, expanding vine; enormous pods; and glitzy, bursting blossoms.”
For the Ohio Arts Council grants, the artists were able to virtually view the jurors' discussions of their works. One of the jurors questioned whether she submitted an entry in the proper categoy, saying, “I don’t know why she has this installation in there. This category is two dimensional.”
However, the other two juries replied that they could see how the installation related to the paintings and drawings Snouffer had entered in the category as well.
One judge said that looking at Snouffer’s installation was like being inside one of her drawings.
“I thought, ‘Yeah, she got it,'’' said Snouffer.
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