NIC Art Faculty
Art Faculty at the 2022 Faculty Exhibition, from left: Jen Erickson, Michael Horswill, and Otis Bardwell.
Otis Bardwell
In 2013, Otis Bardwell and his
wife moved their family to Coeur d’Alene where Otis runs the NIC Ceramics
program. Otis is a graduate of Cal State University, Los Angeles. His history
as an art instructor includes courses at Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Los Angeles,
Lycée Français de Los Angeles, and Barnsdall Arts in Hollywood.
Otis’s work emerges from a labor-intensive approach that exists in the gray area between the rational and visceral. These endeavors impart a quasi-primitive mystique in the finished state of the work. The empty vessel is a symbol for nostalgia: the desire for something that is only accessible through the shifting and sorting of individual and communal memory.
“All the genuine, deep delight of life is in showing people the mud-pies you have made; and life is at its best when we confidingly recommend our mud-pies to each other's sympathetic consideration.” –J.M. Thorburn, 1925
Jen Erickson
Jen Erickson’s meticulously detailed graphite drawings feature
forms created from an accumulation of handmade marks. Each mark is either drawn
or carved into the surface in a response to the previous one. These marks come together and disperse, engaging in a constant continuum of growth and decay.
She finds inspiration from the idea of loss and the act of decomposition as
well as the visualization of data and biological systems.
Erickson received her BFA in painting and drawing from the University of Montana and her MFA from Central Washington University. She has been involved with several artist-run galleries and served on the Board of Directors for the Saranac Art Projects in Spokane for several years. She frequently shows her work at the PUNCH Gallery in Seattle, as well as the Brink Gallery in Missoula, Montana, in addition to participating in group shows around the country.
She has taught classes at Central Washington University, Gonzaga, and Eastern Washington University. At NIC she currently teaches Oil Painting, Printmaking, Watercolor, Drawing II, and Life Drawing.
Michael Horswill
Michael Horswill is a life-long student of art, continually exploring and uniting processes and materials in intricate sculptures for gallery and academic exhibitions and larger public artworks in the Inland Northwest. His work as an illustrator, then painter, and now sculptor is balanced by teaching design, drawing, art history, and sculpture at North Idaho College, where he also coordinates the Boswell Corner Gallery.
His sculptures are abstract visual environments that juxtapose natural materials such as wood, rawhide, beeswax, and bamboo with mechanical materials such as steel, copper, wire and glass. His influences include a fascination with mechanical systems combined with immersion in nature, including bee-keeping and watching the occasional moose while welding. He grew up in the Northwest and attended art schools and universities in Montana, Japan, Washington, and Idaho, achieving an A.A., a B.A., and an MFA. See more on his web site: http://MichaelHorswill.com
Jeremiah Schiek
I am a Master of Fine Arts graduate who works in comic book art and illustration. My work has appeared in numerous anthologies such as The Death of the Horror Anthology from A Wave Blue World. I am also a regular contributor and the popular webcomics site, Hyper Epics. For the past year, I've been working with author Armond Boudreaux to produce an exciting new series, Saint Raguel. graduated from California State University, Fullerton, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Entertainment Art/Animation. My animations received many accolades from the Art Department, culminating in the opportunity to present my work for critique at the DreamWorks Studio in Glendale, California. I was also afforded the opportunity to visit the Disney Animation Studio in Burbank, CA for Disney’s Inspire Days. Ion 2017, I returned to CSUF to attain a Master of Fine Arts degree, and graduated with that degree in January, 2021. I currently work freelance, producing numerous comic stories a. In my nonexistent “free time,” I collect fountain pens and spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out with my son, Emrys. My web site is https://jschiek.com/about