Katie Waters and Matthew Graham at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center

On display are Katie’s oil paintings paired with Indiana Poet Laureate, Matthew Graham’s poems. 

In describing their paired exhibit, Waters and Graham states, “Light and shadow, history and place and weather, the beginnings of a narrative or its ending arc, nostalgia for a past we did not live yet that still lives within us. Something lost. Something found. The transience of time and season. Sadness and beauty and memory and desire. 

To share an aesthetic sensibility with someone you recently met is unusual and surprising; to develop and expand that sensibility together throughout thirty-five years of work and love is extraordinary.” 

“Although we only collaborated consciously on a very few pieces, it is apparent how unconsciously we have pursued similar affinities in our works, and how those affinities have been burnished and melded and illuminated during our years together. To see these artworks and poems exhibited jointly is to see ourselves anew, both as artists and as a couple,” states Waters and Graham. 

Katie Waters is a recently retired Professor of Art at the University of Southern Indiana after 38 years. Additionally, she served as Art Department Chair, College of Liberal Arts Interim Associate Dean, Director of USI’s McCutchan Art Center/ Pace Galleries, and was a USI visiting professor at Harlaxton College in Grantham, England. 

Waters earned a master of fine arts degree in painting from Ohio University and a bachelor’s degree in art education from the University of Wisconsin- Madison. 

Matthew Graham, professor of English emeritus, taught creative writing at the University of Southern Indiana for 35 years. He also served as the Creative Writing Program director, Ropewalk Writers Conference co- director, Southern Indiana Review founding co-editor, Southern Indiana Visiting Writers Series founder, and was a USI visiting professor at Harlaxton College, Grantham, England, and the University of Osnabruck, Osnabruck Germany. 

Graham earned a master of fine arts degree in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, a master of arts degree in poetry from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in English Literature from SUNY-Binghamton. 

The Waters and Graham exhibition will be on display from May 5 th through June 26 th , 2022. First Thursday Reception and Gallery Talk from both artists will take place on Thursday, May 5 th from 5:00-7:00 pm. Food will be catered by Sander Catering and a cash bar from Gaslight. The event is free and open to the public. 

The galleries at the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center, located at 100 3rd Avenue, Suite A, Jasper, IN 47546, are open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and Sunday from noon to 3:00 pm. School groups, clubs, and students are welcome. Admission is free. Donations appreciated. For more information, please call 812-482-3070. Jasper Community Arts is a department of the City of Jasper. JCA is supported in part by Friends of the Arts, Inc., the Indiana Arts Commission, The Arts Council of Southwestern Indiana, and the National Endowment for the Arts.