Springfield artist featured in regional collage exhibit at Maude Kerns

Springfield got a local name in the spotlight Friday when Sheary Clough Suiter was featured in Piecing It Together: A Regional Collage Exhibit at Maude Kerns Art Center in Eugene. The show opened with a free public reception from 5 to 7 p.m. and runs through July 17, bringing a Springfield-based artist into a regional exhibit that includes work from 69 artists across four states.

Clough Suiter has deep Oregon roots. Born and raised in Eugene, she returned to Springfield in 2023 after living in Alaska for 35 years and then Colorado Springs for 11 years. Her career as a visual artist spans three decades, and her primary medium has long been encaustic painted onto cradled wood panel, a labor-intensive process that fuses layers of wax to build texture and depth.

Her work in the exhibit centers on gender, identity and non-binary ways of being. She used deconstructed figurative elements from an earlier installation, I Never Played With Dolls, and her more recent pieces also incorporate stitching and reclaimed textiles as part of a more sustainable practice. That mix of materials gives the work a handmade, layered quality that fits the collage show’s broader focus on images, perspective and reuse.

Maude Kerns describes Piecing It Together as a celebration of collage as a versatile medium that can juxtapose and layer images while opening up multiple viewpoints. A call-for-artists notice for the juried exhibition said collage has also been used to process significant world and personal events, a framing that matches the emotional range of Clough Suiter’s own piece.

For Lane County viewers, the exhibit offers a direct Springfield connection inside one of Eugene’s more established art spaces. Clough Suiter’s path runs from Eugene childhood to decades away in Alaska and Colorado Springs, then back to Springfield with her artist partner, Nard Claar. Her return adds a homegrown dimension to the show, giving neighbors a chance to see a longtime Oregon artist in a regional setting that is only a short trip from home.

Her biography also reaches back another generation. Her paternal grandfather was a wood carver whose work is held in public collections at the University of Oregon and the Oregon State Capitol, extending the family’s artistic presence across the state. At Maude Kerns, that lineage now meets a contemporary collage exhibit built around a wide regional field, making the Springfield connection easy to recognize and worth the outing.