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Artist Lori
Gordon
The tiny hamlet of Clermont
Harbor, on the beach just to the west of Bay St.
Louis and Waveland, is home to an artist whose
work may be found in countries around the world.
Lori K. Gordon first appeared in
the national spotlight when one of her pieces
was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution. The
Katrina Collection, her series of mixed media
assemblages which incorporates debris from
Hurricane Katrina, has also found a wide
audience, both nationwide and in Europe.
Gordon, a South Dakota native,
made the Mississippi Gulf Coast her home some
twenty years ago. In 2000, she befriended
Celestine Labat of Bay St. Louis. Gordon
realized immediately that the 102 year old
Creole woman was a national treasure,and began
to record Ms. Labat’s stories. The result of
their meetings was the 8’x10’ art quilt “Labat:
A Creole Legacy”, now housed in the
Smithsonian’s permanent collection. |
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 By
2005 Gordon was concentrating on painting, capturing on
canvas the bayous and marshes of her beloved home. Her
life was upended when Hurricane Katrina struck on August
29. With her home, studio, a large body of work and all
of her supplies washed away by the 43 foot storm surge
and 150 mile per hour winds which obliterated her
community, Gordon returned to work using the only
materials available to her. Within weeks, she was
creating art from the rubble. Pieces from The Katrina
Collection have been acquired by the Mississippi
Humanities Council, the Safeco Corporate Collection, and
the Thea Foundation and William J. Clinton Foundation’s
Art Across Arkansas. She has been commissioned by the
national organization ADPSR and by the State of
Mississippi, and her work may be found in private
collections nationwide, in six Western European nations,
and in the Far East. Her work has been featured on
MSNBC, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered,
the Associated Press, and Mississippi Public
Broadcasting. Print articles on her work have appeared
in Art Gulf Coast, Going Coastal, South Mississippi
Living, and Mississippi Magazine.
 As
the artist continues to create new works in The Katrina
Collection, she is also exploring new avenues of
expression. “Reliquary: Images of the Sacred” is a
series of altars, shrines and reliquaries which explore
our ideas of the sacred in our lives. It is a natural
extension of The Katrina Collection, which was conceived
as a metaphor for rebirth. Gordon is also working on the
second stage of The Labat Project. Designed with a
national audience in mind, this
endeavor will incorporate Ms. Labat’s oral history and
family photographs in the form of a traveling
exhibition. The work of Lori K. Gordon may be found in
several locations on the coast, as well as on the
worldwide web. She has studios in Clermont Harbor and in
Henley field, MS, another small community located an
hour northwest of Bay St. Louis and an hour north of New
Orleans. Visitors are welcome at both locations. She is
a member of a group of artists in Bay St. Louis who
rallied immediately after Katrina, formed a co-op and
opened their door just five weeks after the storm.
Gordon’s husband is David “Cairo” Wheeler, a woodworker
and fellow member of the co-op, whose work may be found
in the Clermont Harbor and Bay St. Louis locations.
Gordon also writes on the arts, and
teaches workshops in collage d’art. A short documentary
on Gordon’s work has recently been produced, and is
available through the artist and may be viewed online.
GORDON EMAIL:
lorikgordon@gmail.com
VIDEO ON THE WORK OF LORI K. GORDON:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=
2196437802153719097&pr=goog-sl
GORDON BLOGS:
http://thekatrinacollectionbylorikgordon.
www.blogspot.com
http://lorikgordon.blogspot.com
http://gordonmixedmedia.blogspot.com
ON THE WEB:
http://www.theartofthestorm.com
http://www.mississippison.com
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