ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Jennifer A. Reis, currently Assistant Professor and Gallery Director at Morehead State University, is both an arts professional as well as a practicing artist with a B.F.A. from the Columbus College of Art, an M.A. in Museum Studies from Syracuse University, and an M.A. in Studio Art with an Art Education emphasis from Morehead State University. As an actively exhibiting and award winning artist, her work has been shown at the WomanMade Gallery in Chicago (IL), Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Turchin Center for the Arts in Boone (NC), American Quilter’s Society Museum in Paducah (KY), the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens (OH), HCCA Gallery in Miami (FL), Miami University of Ohio Galleries, Southern Ohio Museum, among others. In 2007, she received the prestigious Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council, an award designed to honor high artistic achievement. Promotions regarding her work have been featured in Art in America, ArtForum, FiberArts and Arts Across Kentucky magazines, and she was a featured artist in Creative Quilting with Beads, a Lark Books publication. As a teaching artist and scholar, she conducts workshops and lectures on embellished textiles, art history and appreciation, and professional practice for artists at universities, art centers, and non-profit organizations including the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh (PA), Craft Alliance in St. Louis (MO), and Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville. She has served on several boards and committees to advance the arts, including Americans for the Arts and the Kentucky Guild of Artists and Craftsmen, and has lobbied in the United State Senate for national arts funding. Founded in her belief in the power of the education and the arts to positively affect individual lives independent of age or environment, she aims to create through higher education and arts administration, instruction, and creation, meaningful and transforming art experiences.