"Mostly the Good Parts" by Nate Ditzler and Laura Konecne

This two-person exhibition centers on the search for meaning within the seemingly trivial and overlooked moments of everyday life. Through a combination of handmade and slip-cast ceramic forms alongside fabricated mixed-media elements, the artists give visual presence to fleeting experiences—small anxieties, quiet joys, banal routines, and subtle absurdities that quietly shape our identities.

Blending familiar imagery with surreal interventions, the work gently shifts the logic of the everyday. Recognizable forms become slightly estranged, inviting viewers to enter through their own subjective realities and reconsider how meaning is constructed. Humor and play function as points of access: a lighthearted surface opens into deeper reflections on the paradoxes embedded in ordinary life.

Drawing from the pared-down clarity and playfulness of children’s book illustrations and single-panel comics, the artists employ a minimalist visual language that balances simplicity with conceptual depth. Amorphous blob- and worm-like forms frequently appear as surrogates for the self—figures that are fluid, unresolved, and perpetually in process. These forms navigate everyday scenarios, embodying the philosophical notion of the individual as continually evolving and shaped by lived experience.

Together, the works foreground the tension between the mundane and the profound. By elevating overlooked moments and pairing them with subtle surrealism, the exhibition reflects on identity as something perpetually unfolding—at once humorous, anxious, tender, and complex. In doing so, it offers a contemplative space where viewers can recognize their own shifting selves within the quiet strangeness of the everyday.

About the Artists:

Nate Ditzler grew up on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. He holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology and a BFA in Ceramics from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and earned his MFA from West Virginia University in 2016. Ditzler has exhibited nationally and internationally. His work explores nuances of the human condition while constantly expanding on material investigations and means of fabrication. He has participated in year-long artist residencies at the Armory Art Center, the Lawrence Arts Center, and Midwestern State University. Ditzler has taught at Marshall University and Clarke University, and currently teaches at Del Mar College.

My work seeks meaning in the seemingly trivial and overlooked moments of everyday life. I use a combination of handmade and slip-cast ceramic forms and fabricated mixed-media elements to give a visual presence to these experiences. I am interested in how combining familiar and surreal imagery can shift an artwork’s meaning, and how viewers enter the work through their own subjective realities. Through these strategies, I aim to raise questions about the complexities and paradoxes embedded in the everyday.

My visual language draws from the simplicity and playfulness of children’s book illustrations and single-panel comics. I pair this minimalist aesthetic with subtle humor to introduce lightheartedness into representations of everyday foibles, anxieties, banalities, and joy. I often use an amorphous blob or worm-like form in my sculptures as a surrogate for the self, as a means to explore the underlying significance of daily events. I choose these forms to express the philosophical idea of the individual as perpetually unresolved—fluid, evolving, and continually shaped by experiences.

Laura Konecne is a studio artist and art educator, primarily working in traditional craft materials such as wood and metal. She grew up between Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and Pyeongtaek, South Korea, and currently resides in Corpus Christi, Texas. Her BFA in Sculpture is from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Growing up in small apartments in South Korea and Hawaiʻi, I learned that space was a valuable commodity. All possessions had to be justified in terms of how much room they consumed, or be edited out entirely. My sculptural work is comprised of undulating, organic “cage forms” typically carved from wood or constructed from metal, which adhere to this same principle of spatial economy. Created through labor-intensive craft processes, these works, in a sense, earn the space they occupy. The wooden forms begin as solid blocks that are reductively hollowed out from within until very little mass remains. The metal cage forms are made of thin-gauge wire, which is soldered piece by piece, allowing me to build additively to develop the forms.

I view these sculptures as specimens from an imaginary terrain. Recently, I have started painting small abstract landscapes as a way to further explore the possible environments from which these specimens may have been collected.  The painted landscapes resemble our own world, but are a softer and more idealized version, or at least a version with colors I like.