Mixed Media Sculptures
Each self-portrait sculpture is inspired by a draft of a poem that "failed" in revision.
The artist re-imagines ideas from the poem into a 3-D work,
shredding and burying all copies of the discarded text inside the sculpture.
Tanned Hide
Pieced
Mammy 2.0
Charting My Map
As Intended
Sunday Go To Meeting
Eve's Revival
A Little Birdie Told Me
Stone Cold, Hot Stone
Visual Poems
Found object, assemblage shadow boxes.
(10-3/4" x 5-1/2" x 6-1/2" h)
Field of Dreams
All The Me's
Bloomings
When Flight Isn't Enough
Untitled
Untitled
Large-Scale Collaborative Works
Untitled: A Collective Identity
The nearly 5ft sculpture was exhibited at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts. "Untitled" was the result of Stephanie's one month Artist in Residence at Maplewood High School in Nashville, TN. The artist worked with over 90 students to create the large-scale, found object sculptural work. It was inspired by a series of introspective creative writing exercises the students created with Stephanie.
Embodiment: Poetry Through the Five Senses
A collaborative 10,000 sq ft sensory poem installation. 600+ guests were able to touch, taste, smell, see, hear, and walk through the poem, "Close Reading" as curated by Stephanie Pruitt with 25+ artists at Oz Arts Nashville. The experience featured original poem-inspired works by an architect, aromatherapist, chef, musicians, and visual artists.
Hear The Voices - Quilted Poem Installed @ the Downtown Library
Using only the text found on thousands of post it note feedback cards from civil rights workshops held at the public library over the past two years, Pruitt-Gaines crafted a poem, mapping the process on a 200 square foot glass wall.
A Ball Of Course - poem installation @ Nashville Sounds Stadium
A poem commissioned for installation on the walkway of a baseball stadium based on site-specific history. The poem moved visitors strategically through a recreational space, stoking place-based curiosity and learning.
Artist Bio & Statement
Stephanie Pruitt-Gaines Bio
Stephanie Pruitt-Gaines never learned that art and business can’t mix. She is equally comfortable in her studio and at boardroom tables, but never settles for business as usual at either.
Pruitt-Gaines is an award-winning, published poet and visual maker who has taught arts education and creative writing at Vanderbilt University, Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference, and as a visiting artist in over a hundred academic and community settings.
In addition to books and literary journals, the artist has published poems on sidewalks, building walls, in vending machines, and as a 10,000 square foot interactive poem visitors could touch, taste, smell, see, and hear.
Over the past 20 years, while maintaining her creative practice, she has run an event planning company, art gallery, publishing firm, social science research center, and directed the marketing and communications for a national arts foundation. Pruitt is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and, Essence Magazine named her one of their 40 Favorite Poets.
These days, the native Nashvillian has opted out of the 9 to 5 model and lets her creativity lead her. She is combining her backgrounds in marketing, entrepreneurship, and fine art in order to help other explorers and dreamers do the same.
The ARTrepreneur and TEDx speaker curates Poems & Pancakes as well as The Nia Collection. Stephanie leads Mind Your Creative Business workshops and coaching sessions for organizations, municipalities, artists, and thought leaders incorporating creativity as a professional strategy.
Stephanie has been an active part of her local community as a former Commissioner for the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, as well as serving on the board of directors for the Arts & Business Council of Greater Nashville. She is a Leadership Nashville Alumni, class of 2018.
When at home, the mother of Nia and wife of Al can often be found with a brown brewed beverage in hand, and 60lb bulldog named Zora in her lap.
Stephanie Pruitt Artist Statement
I am a literary and social practice artist following my curiosity. I'm interested in the relationship between form & function as it relates to text, image, and object.
I love words. Their texture. The sounds. The ideas they can conjure and connect. I want to read and write poems that break and build me, poems that make me want to lick the page. Moreover, I explore the many ways poems manifest and exist in the world. While an end "product" matters to me, I am most invested in the process.
My visual and experience-based works are extensions of my literary work. In the most direct sense, publishing means to make something available to the public. While I employ traditional literary craft tools in my writing, the way those writings are published often take physical, visual, and experiential form.
