Material
Mediations.
Three practices in direct conversation — wood, iron, layered media. Andy McConnell, Maria Cristalli, and Jill Kyong each bring a material intelligence shaped by their medium’s own logic. The work on these walls holds evidence of resistance, collaboration, and the specific decisions that happen when maker meets material.
What materials know.
Wood holds the memory of growth rings — the years of compression and expansion visible in the grain, legible to anyone willing to look. Iron holds memory of heat — the moment of malleability before it becomes permanent, the decision embedded in the form. Layered media holds the logic of accumulation — what goes down first conditions what comes after.
These are not metaphors. They are material facts that three artists have built practices around. Andy McConnell carves and constructs wood and mixed media into objects that carry their making visibly — the tool marks, the joints, the decisions not hidden but displayed. Maria Cristalli works iron at the forge, where the blacksmith’s work is entirely about timing: the metal tells you when it’s ready and when it’s not. Jill Kyong builds surfaces through accumulation, each layer altering what’s possible in the next.
Placed together at JG Art Gallery for May’s First Friday Art Walk, their work shares a single proposition: that material intelligence is a form of knowledge, and that knowledge is visible in the finished work to anyone who looks at it closely enough.
Carved, joined, and painted. The grain directs the tool; the artist responds. McConnell’s process is a conversation between intention and resistance.
Forged at temperature. Blacksmithing is the oldest conversation between maker and material — the metal sets the terms, and the smith works within them.
Mixed media built through accumulation. Each decision is permanent; the surface holds the sequence of all of them.
First Friday Art Walk — May 2, 2026 — 5 to 8 PM. The gallery is open. Light refreshments. The artists will be present for conversation.
Andy McConnell
McConnell’s practice spans wood carving, painted wood panel, ceramic, and mixed media constructions that combine all three. He has been described as a woodworker but the description misses something: his work is about what happens at the joint, the seam, the place where one material meets another and both are changed by the meeting.
His Portal series — small-scale mixed media works on wood panel — builds architectural forms from material decisions. His larger pieces, including Reflections on the Sun and Filter Correction, hold the accumulated evidence of a long, disciplined practice at the workbench. He has been with JG Art Gallery since the early program and has 30 works currently in the collection.
Maria Cristalli
Cristalli works at the forge — the oldest studio in material terms, where the process is entirely about reading the metal and responding to what it tells you. Blacksmithing is a practice of thresholds: the moment when iron becomes workable, the moment when it closes back, the moment when the hammer blow confirms the form or demands reconsideration.
Her work for Material Mediations brings forged iron pieces into conversation with McConnell’s carved wood and Kyong’s layered media — three practices sharing a preoccupation with process-visible surfaces, each carrying the evidence of how it was made.
Jill Kyong
Kyong builds surfaces through accumulation — layer by layer, each application both covering and revealing. The result is work where the history of making is visible in the finished surface: you can read the sequence of decisions, the corrections, the moments when the previous layer had to be partially obscured to open new possibilities.
This approach to mixed media shares structural logic with both McConnell’s carved wood (where the tool marks remain) and Cristalli’s forged iron (where the hammer marks remain). Material Mediations positions these three practices as three versions of the same argument: that making is a form of intelligence, and that intelligence is visible in the work.
Three materials. Three kinds of knowledge.
Hardwood resists the tool differently at different angles to the grain. A skilled carver reads this resistance and works with it — the material’s history of growth becomes part of the finished work’s structure. McConnell’s pieces hold this dialogue visibly.
Iron at working temperature is momentarily compliant, then locks into whatever form the hammer gave it. The blacksmith’s skill is in reading the color of the metal, understanding the window of possibility, and acting within it. The finished form carries the evidence of every blow.
Layered media work is fundamentally about what goes first. Each layer conditions the next — what it can hold, what it can reveal, what it must cover. The accumulated surface is a record of every decision in order, including the decisions to change direction.
The First Friday Art Walk at Bainbridge Island runs from 5 to 8 PM the first Friday of each month. The gallery is open, the artists will be present, and light refreshments are served. No reservation required — RSVP is optional and helps with planning. 176 Winslow Way E, a 20-minute walk from the ferry terminal.