Kenneth & Diana Ferguson
Sauk City, WI

For artists, there’s not much that’s more evocative of “Wings & Water” than time spent on our lakes and rivers, surrounded by the gentle sound of lapping waves, the rustle of leaves, the scent of pine trees and the call of shorebirds. There’s something elemental about the solitude, the tranquil setting, the pure connection with nature. This mixed media work combines gouache paintings with off-loom beadwork. The paintings by Kenneth Ferguson are gouache on panel, archivally varnished. The Japanese Kanji symbols, designed and stitched by Diana Ferguson using glass cylinder beads and monofilament thread, represent nature and solitude.

Bead and Brush is an interdisciplinary mixed media collaboration by painter Kenneth Ferguson and bead artist Diana Ferguson. It is the culmination of the couple’s desire to mesh their individual art practices in a singular creative expression. Inspired by the mystery and beauty of the natural world, Diana and Ken’s Bead and Brush pieces most frequently come about sequentially, with one artist starting the piece and the other building upon it. “We enjoy combining our very different materials, techniques and approaches to express our shared interest in and ideas about, the flora and fauna that surround us. There’s a creative energy about the shared process that has turned out to be very gratifying.