Artists, Harry Anderson and Smokie Kittner generally work in two entirely different genres. Anderson's sculptures, ten years after first picking up an old plowshare from a barn floor are composed mostly of the artifacts of work. The tools of our endeavors be they from the family farm or the factory are recycled to create works of art. These elements often function in a structural manner, serving as the joints that hold a work together or a base that supports it where in the past their use was mostly visual. Anderson finds his materials in the industrial salvage yards created by the dismantling of U. S. industry, in auctions of out moded farm implements and at flee markets where consumer goods no longer wanted for their original purpose may be found. When seeing something designed purely for function, the inherent beauty of the successfully engineered object speaks to and inspires Anderson. The integrity of these objects and their ability to evoke past purpose makes their reuse as elements in his artwork all the more rich. Though Anderson continues to visit the past for resource materials, his evolving vision keeps the work fresh.
Kittner on the other hand works primarily as a painter, creating works that are conceptually based. Working in both pastel and oil, the works have a structural simplicity that is deceptive. There is a certain mystery inherent in these paintings as if there is something going on that one is not quite sure of. When viewing Kittner’s work, one is suddenly in a place or witnessing an event that can not be understood or explained. The visual elements used serve as symbols. Light as well as dark is used to limit what can be seen. Architectonic elements are also used to obscure or limit what is visible. Many of her art works seem to allude to both an internal and external landscape.