MaPo Kinnord explained

MaPo Kinnord
Birth Date:	30 September 1960
Birth Place:	Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Nationality:	American
Known For:	Ceramic, Sculpture
Training:	Massachusetts College of Art, Ohio State University

MaPo Kinnord (born 1960 in Cleveland, OH) is an artist and educator based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Early life and education

Kinnord grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. She completed her BFA at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and received her MFA from Ohio State University in Columbus. In 1995 she moved to New Orleans, LA where she met one of her mentors, John T. Scott.^[1]

Work

Using ceramic sculptural forms resembling mud huts of Ghana, Kinnord's work is about ancestral memory.^[2] She has spent time in Northern Ghana creating a research video on pottery and ceramic architecture.^[3] Much of her work is inspired by architecture and explores both exteriors and interiors through clay and surface treatment. She has also compared the way she works with clay to jazz, improvisational but with structure.

Part of Kinnord's work as an educator includes art therapy manipulating clay with meditation.^[4] She was an instructor at Penland School of Crafts, in North Carolina, Haystack Mountain School of Craft in Maine.^[5] Kinnord taught in MassArt in Massachusetts and Berkeley California before moving to New Orleans in 1995 where she became Associate Professor of Art at Xavier University of Louisiana.^[6]

Kinnord's work has been exhibited Internationally including at Arthur Roger Gallery, Tulane University, Baltimore Clayworks, Stella Jones Gallery, Swarthmore College, Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and Imago Mundi.

In 2017 her work was included in an exhibition called Congregation at Antenna Gallery.^[7] In 2018 Kinnord's work was included in The Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art alongside works by Lynda Benglis, Dusti Bongé, Clyde Connell, Dorothy Hood, Marie Hull, Lin Emery, Margaret Evangeline, Cynthia Brants, Jacqueline Humphries, Valerie Jaudon and Ida Kohlmeyer.^{[8] [9]}

Notes and References

1. News: Celebration in Clay. MARQUIS. PAMELA. Winter 2017. New Orleans Homes & Lifestyles. 2018-09-17. en.
2. Web site: Donohoe. Victoria. Her sculptures are shrines to memory MaPo Kinnord-Payton's use of small effigies, photos and symbolic objects achieves a sense of presence.. Philadelphia Inquirer. 21 February 2015. 1.
3. Web site: Contemporary Arts Center. MaPo Kinnord-Payton. NOLANow. CAC. 21 February 2015. 4. https://web.archive.org/web/20160305003347/http://nolanow.cacno.org/user/560. 5 March 2016. dead.
4. Web site: Press Street. The Contemplative Clay Project: MaPo Kinnord. Press Street. Press Street. 21 February 2015. 3.
5. http://www.haystack-mtn.org/documents/Fall2013Gateway.pdf Haystack Gateway, Fall 2013
6. Web site: 10 Years Later – a Black Perspective. Black Art in America. BLACK ART IN AMERICA. LLC. 21 November 2015. 5.
7. News: Steven Forster's Party Central: 'Cultural Grid' at Art Center'; 'Congregation' at Antenna Gallery. The Advocate. 2018-09-17. en.
8. Web site: The Whole Drum Will Sound: Women in Southern Abstraction at Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, USA Terremoto. terremoto.mx. en-US. 2018-09-17.
9. News: 10 Art Exhibitions in the U.S. Worth Traveling for This Spring. AFAR Media. 2018-09-17.