The Spruill Gallery is excited to announce our inaugural +Shop Residency: “Me and the Idea of You” with interdisciplinary artist Jay Reddish.
Reddish will create work and engage with gallery visitors January 15 & 16 from 3-7 PM and on January 17 from 11 AM – 2 PM. We will celebrate their realized work on January 23 from 6-9 PM in tandem with the opening of our next exhibition, Two Searchlights, which features work by MaDora Frey and Ben Steele.
About their intention, Reddish states, “I will work with blocks of preloved textiles and materials that bring with them a history of homemaking, love, touch, and use. I will mend what is frayed and let the repairs become the architecture of the piece, forming a textured wall hanging suspended from recycled metal hooks that I sand, shape, and polish in the gallery.”
For Reddish, this piece is “a meditation on devotion: to another person, to craft, to the everyday acts of care that sustain us. It is also an act of stewardship of materials, memory, and the environment that inspires them to create a quiet, tactile space where handwork becomes a physical form of hope and shelter.”
Their artistic process mirrors the slow transformations found in the natural world: gathering, reworking, layering, and honoring what persists. Reddish claims, “these textiles—soft, worn, and imperfect—embody both fragility and resilience.” Elaborating about this work, Reddish comments, “As I sew, mend, and quilt within the space, the work becomes a sheltering form, something made to hold us as we move into an uncertain era filled with possibility and peril.”
Jay Reddish
Jay Reddish is an Atlanta-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice bridges sculpture, textiles, metalwork, and environmental research. Drawing from recycled and upcycled materials, Reddish creates objects and installations that explore themes of care, queer domesticity, ecological stewardship, and the quiet transformative nature of everyday materials. Their work often merges traditional craft techniques, such as hand-stitching, quilting, and metal casting,
with contemporary technologies, including 3D scanning and digital fabrication.
Reddish’s recent projects include Touchpoint, a permanent installation at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd College of Art and the Thomas Street Art Complex, as well as exhibitions at NYC Jewelry Week (2022, 2025), the Atlanta Contemporary, and the Metal Museum. Their work is informed by years spent in arts-based environment education and community arts settings.
Reddish also leads educational programs for the Spruill Center for the Arts, the Metal Arts Guild of Georgia, and more.
