Kim Bissett once had her own art table in the classroom where her mother taught art to high schoolers in the 1950s. That鈥檚 where she created her first sculptural project at age 4.
Desperate for art materials at home in her youth, she cut rectangular pieces out of the window shades in her bedroom to use as drawing paper. She said she carefully rolled the shades back up so no one would know.
鈥淚 got really sick as a kid, and I can remember being in my bed and counting down from 10 as my mother pulled down the shades to shield me from the light 鈥� and there were these big holes,鈥� Bissett said with a laugh.
Bissett went on to devote her life and artistic practice to sculpture. She taught her passion to generations of aspiring artists as a longtime instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Art. But she turned to a different medium for her latest work, a documentation of her own family's history through photography.
Since retiring, she鈥檚 split her time between Cleveland and Rimersburg, Pennsylvania, where she鈥檚 spent the last eight years building an art studio on land inherited from her father.
She shares her visual archive of photos capturing that process as well as personal images and documents in 鈥淢y Father鈥檚 Smile,鈥� on view through March 28 at , a home dedicated to art making and sharing in Cleveland鈥檚 Brooklyn Centre neighborhood.
鈥淢aking the decision to put up the studio, getting closer to the craft community there, working at this building project, it鈥檚 literally been a threshold,鈥� Bissett said. 鈥淚 feel that I鈥檝e gotten to know my father and my Pennsylvania lineage more strongly since my father's passing. I've gotten to know myself.鈥�
Through the changing seasons, her photographs illustrate the building of a structure, from the excavation of land to laying the foundation and raising the walls. Silhouettes of the Amish craftsmen who鈥檝e helped bring her vision to life are framed by wooden beams and blue sky.
From the rigid geometry of the building鈥檚 architecture, she鈥檚 also captured the delicate forms of nature around the land: snowfall, vegetation, earth and stone.
For Bissett, the project is a continuation of her family鈥檚 legacy 鈥� and her own.
鈥淚 felt an obligation to build this and carry forward what had been their intention in their life,鈥� Bissett said. 鈥淭he value of a space where you can walk in and feel that there's possibility, there's aspiration. You're unjudged.鈥�
Remembering her father
Bissett鈥檚 parents separated when she was an infant, and her mother remarried several years later.
鈥淚 still remember discovering that my birth father lived in Cleveland Heights. And when I was 17, I rode a bike to his house and knocked on the door,鈥� Bissett said. 鈥淲e weren't immediately close, but there was this sense that there was a missing piece I was discovering.鈥�
In the following years until his death in 1999, she learned more about her father, Leo Bissett, and how his upbringing helped shape her own identity.
鈥淢y father was the second youngest of 13 on a farm at the southwestern-most corner of Pennsylvania and literally grew up on the Mason-Dixon line,鈥� Bissett said. 鈥淎nd my father was brilliant 鈥� he was artistic. He was the one child out of the 13 that got off the farm.鈥�
Leo Bissett served in the U.S. Army Air Corps after high school and later attended the Cleveland Institute of Art. He got a job as an illustrator at American Greetings, the beginning of a 30-year career where he worked his way up to the creative director position.
Art stays in the family
Kim Bissett followed a similar creative path, studying art at the Rhode Island School of Design. Before she was an instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, she was a student studying sculpture there in the 鈥�70s.
After her father died at 75, he left her a historic stone home he had been working to restore on nine acres in Rimersburg. Next to the home now stands her Orange Dog Studio where she welcomes the community to create and experience art.
Several health events over the years have led to changes in Bissett鈥檚 artistic practice. In 2018, she was in a car accident that impaired the way her brain interprets what she鈥檚 seeing. She started taking photographs to help her document and understand daily life in a different way.
鈥淚'm discovering that these last eight years, rather than my art life being something that I felt that I had lost, that I've been living it," Bissett said. 鈥淚t's been right in front of me, and I just hadn't allowed myself to walk into the new arena, if you will.鈥�
Over the years, Bissett has uncovered family photographs and artifacts along with her father鈥檚 belongings 鈥� drawings, illustrations, military papers, report cards 鈥� all of which have helped her develop an even deeper connection with him that she shares in her latest exhibition.
鈥淚f you were to find a line of poetry or a small drawing that someone very close to you had done and it was all new and it gave a fresh insight into a dimension of their heart and mind, that's what this has been for me,鈥� she said.
Bissett joins curator Gabrielle Banzhaf at SHED Projects March 19 at 6 p.m. to unbox and discuss physical artifacts from her personal archive. Through family photographs, documents and her father鈥檚 drawings, she鈥檒l share a deeper connection between the exhibition and the recently opened Orange Dog Studio in Rimersburg.
