Sherri Cornett
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  • PROJECTS
    • TRANSFORMATIONS at Kirks for Kirks
    • UNITAS youth art and leadership
    • WHAT IS IT ABOUT MY MEMORY Community Engaged Installation >
      • MEMORY CARDS What Is It About My Memory
      • SOMAS What Is It About My Memory
      • EXHIBITIONS What Is It About My Memory
    • FOOD and CULTURE HUB East Helena
    • THE 2020 AWAKENING BILLINGS For Freedoms 2020 >
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Robert Hall on Blood Quantum
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Indigenous Voices Films and Filmmakers Panel
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS MMIP Community Gathering
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS REDRess Exhibit
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Seeing Patterns Exhibition
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Related Events
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Partners and Presenters
    • FOR FREEDOMS Billings >
      • FOR FREEDOMS Billings 2018 Partners and Presenters
    • COMMUNITY GROVE
    • CONVERSATIONS AMONG WOMEN
    • FLOW Interactive Exhibition and Community Project >
      • EXHIBITION Flow
      • VOICES OF THE RIVER SYMPOSIUM Flow
      • MIXING OIL and WATER Film Night and Discussion Flow
      • WORDS ON WATER: POETRY AND JAZZ IN CONCERT Flow
      • LIVING IN HARMONY ON THE YELLOWSTONE Flow
      • YOUTH OUTREACH Flow
      • READING AREAS MSUBillings Library Flow
      • YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS Flow
    • POINTS OF MANY CONNECTIONS
    • QUEST Guest Art Facilitator
    • ALTITUDE 3123 >
      • EVENTS Altitude 3123
  • CURATORIAL
    • CHINA Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang 2014 >
      • ART & ARTISTS/CHINA Half the Sky
      • ART & ARTISTS/US Half the Sky
      • CULTURAL and COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS
      • DELEGATES
      • ESSAYS & ESSAYISTS
      • BLOG Half the Sky
    • UNDOCUMENTED Difference in America Today
    • GUTFREUND CORNETT ART
    • SOUTH KOREA Woman Body Seoul and Gwangju 2012
    • MATRIXXMODULATION Jon Lodge
    • PLANNED PARENTHOOD A Celebration of Expression: An Evening of Wine, Women and Art
    • WOMEN DO IT! Traveling Postcard Exhibition >
      • WOMEN DO IT Gallery
  • WRITING
    • ESSAYS
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    • BLOG Memories and Musings
    • OTHER WRITING
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Grottoes


I created these Grottoes and their videos to provide an aesthetic backdrop to conversations about water rights, conservation and access and the many ways water is essential to our lives and livelihoods, as reminders of water as common ground, common necessity. 

Cascades Grotto

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Picture
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Interior detail with video screen
38 x 22 x 15 inches
2012
steel, fabric, wire, video screen, paper mache', recycled glass chips, paint, moss


This video contains clips from the Clark's Fork Canyon and Firehole Falls/Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, Basin Creek and Crazy Creek Falls in Montana.

Falling Water Grotto

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61 x 22 x 15 inches
​2015
welded steel, rope, ribbon, fabric, brown paper, plastic tape, raffia, video screen

​This video contains clips from Basin Falls, Stillwater Canyon, Vernal Falls, Holland Falls.
 ​
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Flowing Streams

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Picture
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Interior detail with video screen
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Installed in private collection
55 x 27 x 15 inches
2010
steel, fabric, wire, electrical cord, video screen, ribbon
​In Private Collection

In Private Collection/Billings, Montana
​Awarded Best of Show, WCA San Diego Transformation Exhibition, March 1-April 30, 2011


Statement for the Transformation Exhibition:
In my sculptural Chrysalis series, based on Jungian Marian Woodman's concept of building symbolic spaces to protect oneself during vulnerable times of personal growth, I have explored cocoon, cradle, canoe & nest structures.  This wall piece, "Flowing Streams Chrysalis"  transitions from my Chrysalis series into my new Grottoes series. Each Grottoes piece is/will be a hollowed welded steel/mixed media wall sculpture including a video collage of my observations  and meditations on nature, in this case flowing streams. t water rights & conservations efforts. The chrysalis form is, of course, transformational; this piece is my personal way of transforming my work into more cave like wall forms; and water is certainly symbolic of rebirth.

This video contains clips of the 
Clark's Fork (WY), Boiling River Hot  Lake Fork Creek/Beartooth Mountains (MT),  Red Lodge Creek/Beartooth Mountains (MT), Rock Creek/Beartooth Mountains (MT), West Fork/Beartooth Mountains (MT).

Geothermal Grotto

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Picture
Picture
2015
28 x 39 x 8 inches
welded steel, wood, photograph, video screen,wire, fabric, painted canvas, trimmings, plastic string, raffia

In University Collection/Billings, MT


This video contains clips from the geothermal areas of Yellowstone National Park.

Iridescence Grotto

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Picture
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Inside detail with video screen
2012
37 x 28 x 18 inches
Steel, copper wire, aluminum foil, aluminum sheeting shards, fabric, video screen, paint

This piece was accepted into the Women of All Colors show at the Chicago Urban Art Retreat Center, February-March 2013. 


The video in the interior of this grotto includes footage from Bahia de La Luna in Mexico,  the Rhein River in Germany, the Big Horn Canyon, Silver Run Creek, Stillwater Creek and the Yellowstone River in Montana.

Refractions Grotto

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Picture
Picture
33 x 40 x 9 inches
2015
welded steel, wood, glass, fabric, wire, video screen

In University Collection/Billings, MT

Rushing Grotto

Picture
Picture
Picture
Interior detail with video screen
​34 x 38 x 22 inches
2011
steel, video screen, copper wire, rope, vinyl


This video contains footage from the Clark's Fork in Wyoming, the Boulder River at Camp Miminagish, the Boulder River at Natural Bridge, Rock Creek, the Yellowstone River near south of the bridge at Tower-Roosevelt. ​

Shades of Turquoise

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Picture
Picture
Interior detail with video screen
42 x 29 x 16 inches
2011
steel, rope, video screen, wire, fabric, suede, silicone

The video in the interior of this grotto contains footage from Stillwater Canyon, Yellowstone Park, Yellowstone River, Clark's Fork. ​

Winter Grotto

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Picture
Picture
32 x 30 x 8 inches
2015
welded steel, video screen, bark, photographs, suede, fabric, wire, trimmings

This video contains clips from the Yellowstone River and West Fork of Rock Creek.

Yellowstone River Grotto

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Picture
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Interior detail with video screen
35 x 24 x 15 inches
2012
recycled steel rod, video screen, steel wire, recycled steel mesh, recycled bicycle tires, recycled nylon rope, recycled guitar strings, balloons, nylon  hose, trash bags, transparent tape, electrical tape, recycled shower curtain, recycled nylon yarn, recycled VHS tape, wax paper, plastic wrap, organza ribbon, nylon undergarments



This sculpture was juried into Water: A Universal Right at Robert Morris State Street Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, February 13 - March 2014.

The Montana Constitution guarantees a pollution-free, healthful environment, yet three oil refineries sit on the banks of the Yellowstone River, a symbol of this treasured environment. On July 1, 2011, an Exxon Mobil pipeline broke under the river, releasing 750-1000 barrels of oil, one-half of which would have been made into petroleum products such as those in this piece.

This video includes footage of the Yellowstone River near its source in Yellowstone Park, as it goes through Gardiner, Montana at the northeast entrance to the park, in Yankee Jim Canyon, at Pray, Montana, south of Livingston, Montana and in Billings, Montana. 
​

ABOUT GROTTOES SERIES:

"Flowing, rushing, rippling, cascading, effervescent.... The seductive attributes of water - the beauty in its many moods – invite me to stop, to spend time in wonder, to contemplate its path from the mountains, to pause and be grateful for its relative abundance in our region of the world.

These thirteen concave, welded steel and mixed media wall sculptures
were inspired by the intensely azure water and reflected light in the Blue Grotto of Capri, the grottoes associated with the Greek oracles, grottoes as garden follies, grottoes as religious shrines, grottoes formed by rock and brush from which water springs forth." 

The Grottoes were highlighted in ​Flow, a socially-engaged project, centered at MSUBillings' Northcutt Steele Gallery and directed by Sherri, January 28 - March 18, 2016, where the exhibition, including additional juried works, sets the framework and jumping off point for community conversations around water issues, rights and usage. 

Grotto themes include: Shades of Turquoise, Cascades, Winter, Falling Water, Flowing Streams, Geothermal, Iridescence, Reflections, Refractions, Ripples, Rushing, Yellowstone River. 

© 2011 Sherri Cornett
  • HOME
  • WORKS
    • TRANSFORMATIONS
    • FREEDOM SERIES
    • PUBLIC ART
    • GROTTOES
    • CHRYSALIS
    • COLLABORATIONS
    • LENS BASED ART
    • ANCESTRESSES & WISE WOMEN
    • SEAFORMS
    • SHELTERS
  • PROJECTS
    • TRANSFORMATIONS at Kirks for Kirks
    • UNITAS youth art and leadership
    • WHAT IS IT ABOUT MY MEMORY Community Engaged Installation >
      • MEMORY CARDS What Is It About My Memory
      • SOMAS What Is It About My Memory
      • EXHIBITIONS What Is It About My Memory
    • FOOD and CULTURE HUB East Helena
    • THE 2020 AWAKENING BILLINGS For Freedoms 2020 >
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Robert Hall on Blood Quantum
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Indigenous Voices Films and Filmmakers Panel
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS MMIP Community Gathering
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS REDRess Exhibit
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Seeing Patterns Exhibition
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Related Events
      • THE2020AWAKENING BILLINGS Partners and Presenters
    • FOR FREEDOMS Billings >
      • FOR FREEDOMS Billings 2018 Partners and Presenters
    • COMMUNITY GROVE
    • CONVERSATIONS AMONG WOMEN
    • FLOW Interactive Exhibition and Community Project >
      • EXHIBITION Flow
      • VOICES OF THE RIVER SYMPOSIUM Flow
      • MIXING OIL and WATER Film Night and Discussion Flow
      • WORDS ON WATER: POETRY AND JAZZ IN CONCERT Flow
      • LIVING IN HARMONY ON THE YELLOWSTONE Flow
      • YOUTH OUTREACH Flow
      • READING AREAS MSUBillings Library Flow
      • YELLOWSTONE RIVER CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS Flow
    • POINTS OF MANY CONNECTIONS
    • QUEST Guest Art Facilitator
    • ALTITUDE 3123 >
      • EVENTS Altitude 3123
  • CURATORIAL
    • CHINA Half the Sky: Intersections in Social Practice Art, Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, Shenyang 2014 >
      • ART & ARTISTS/CHINA Half the Sky
      • ART & ARTISTS/US Half the Sky
      • CULTURAL and COMMUNITY INTERACTIONS
      • DELEGATES
      • ESSAYS & ESSAYISTS
      • BLOG Half the Sky
    • UNDOCUMENTED Difference in America Today
    • GUTFREUND CORNETT ART
    • SOUTH KOREA Woman Body Seoul and Gwangju 2012
    • MATRIXXMODULATION Jon Lodge
    • PLANNED PARENTHOOD A Celebration of Expression: An Evening of Wine, Women and Art
    • WOMEN DO IT! Traveling Postcard Exhibition >
      • WOMEN DO IT Gallery
  • WRITING
    • ESSAYS
    • JOURNALISM
    • BLOG Memories and Musings
    • OTHER WRITING
  • ABOUT
    • EXHIBITIONS and EVENTS
    • BIO/CV
    • CONTACT/NEWSLETTER