Today we’d like to introduce you to TENacious. They and their team shared their story with us below:
TENacious is an artist collaborative derived from participants in a group show which required several in-person meetings in 2022-2023. Discovering that we worked well as a team, these artists from Houston and outlying areas formed a collective to support each other and other artists through modern-day artistic challenges and chaotic environments via resilience, cooperation, and camaraderie. The individual members each have their own voice and mediums, ranging through fiber art, painting, multisensory, and mixed media. The name T.E.N. reflects the founding 10 members as well as representing the acronym arTist crEative conNection. Our members have had the pleasure of exhibiting with various establishments, including local businesses, art centers, museums, and art galleries, and have artworks owned by corporations, private collectors, and museums. Some notable partners include West Elm, Pottery Barn, The Arbors, The Encaustic Museum of Arts, and the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. I personally began my professional art career five years ago after a journey as a perpetual art practitioner and art student since age 9. With a degree in philosophy and experience as an R.N. in the ER, my background in understanding and treating the human psyche has provided insight enhanced through studio art study at The Pratt Institute and the New York Studio School.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The life and choices of an artist are always a bit of a challenge. The difficulties in making compromises to support yourself while trying to pursue your passion take many artists into the commercial art or functional art arena who may have made the choice of fine art given the necessary financial resources. Several members of the TENacious group have made sacrifices to work at their art full-time. Some of us are raising children, working a second job and some are still working on their art education in addition to creating and exhibiting. Personally, I worked toward and waited until I became financially and logistically able to get quality studio art education and then devote 40-60 hours a week to the process of creating and finding avenues for exhibiting my work.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The Tenacious Artist Group has artists with a wide variety of mediums: Laura Bennett is a traditional oil painter; Tori Christensen is a fiber artist who specializes in tactile experiences for the visually impaired; Nicole Durham paints with caulk for a ‘scultpure on canvas’ experience, Brittany Ellis specializes in celestial texture where art meets science, Nancy Ofori utilizes textiles and mixed media to create textural wall hangings and sculpture, Teresa Staley is a decorative and fine art mural and smaller works painter, Pootja Taneja works with mixed media and oil paint on a variety of surfaces, I (M E Klesse) am a multi-sensorial artist utilizing painting and sculpture with auditory, gustatory and olfactory stimulus to engage all five senses of the observer for an immersive experience of the emotions attached. The group as a whole specializes in multi-sensorial installations with a group-driven unifying theme. Our last installation show was a five-sense multi-sensorial show aimed towards those with any impairment of sensory input to gain an understanding of the artwork through the use of their available senses. Our upcoming show at Artifex Gallery, Heights Church, in June is titled: “Elements of Contrast” and will be a multi-sensorial show of all-black and white polyptychs with contrasting colorful hand-dyed fabric draping and accompanying auditory prompts.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
As an artist, you have to be willing to take risks, or you are going nowhere in a big hurry. Our group only works because, individually, we are willing to take risks. We lost a couple of our original members because of their inability or unwillingness to obey the “3 big C’s” of any group function: “Communicate, Cooperate, and Compromise.” Just understanding and agreeing to those basic premises is difficult for any artist because, as a stereotype, we are very individualistic. The group took a risk in moving away from the curator who brought us together because it was in the best interests of the individual artists to pursue our own path, but it was at the expense of friendships and loyalties, and it wasn’t without drama and hurt. But this made our group strong in their desire to do the best for our group and for other artists. By personality, I am not a risk taker, I don’t like contention, fear or failure; but early in life I learned that to achieve what I wanted I was going to have to step way out of my comfort zone to try things for which I had little confidence. I have gotten used to all of the setbacks that one must endure to move forward. Although this is still sometimes difficult for me, it has served me well. Along the way, I learned that the best way for me to surmount the difficult obstacles is to know what my goal is but to just focus on and keep just taking the next step. I have had instructors who wrote letters of recommendation for me who thought that I was out of my mind for reaching for prestigious, fully subsidized artist residencies, and I have gotten plenty of rejection notices, but I also have made it to 3rd and 4th round eliminations and been accepted to 2 partially subsidized ones. So, I will persevere.
Five years ago, I had an instructor who thought that I was ridiculously audacious for applying to a locally prestigious show to which she was also applying (neither of us got in). But I kept on working and growing and applying and this year I got first place in that same show.
Pricing:
- Brittany Ellis originals- $100-$6000
- Laura Bennett and M E Klesse originals ~ $1.75/sq inch
- Nicole Durham originals ~ $2.00/sq in.
- Tori Christensen originals- $35- $2000
Contact Info:
- Website: ten10acious.wixsite.com/ten-art and https://meklesse-designs.weebly.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tenaciousartists/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MEKLESSEDesigns/
Image Credits
Tori Christensen
Nicole Durham
Brittany Ellis
M E Klesse
Laura Bennett
