Cicelia Ross-Gotta: Feel Just Like Home

Feel Just Like Home
January 6 – February 12, 2021

Works by Cicelia Ross-Gotta, Curated by Michelle Lassaline

Is someone who lives in temporary housing still homeless? Cicelia Ross-Gotta explores this question with hand-embroidered internet reviews of the motel where a family member lived August 2016 – September 2019. Hung on cheap towel racks, these reviews are embroidered on used linens and bordered by used towels with unfinished raw edges. While the domestic associations with hand embroidery and quilting gesture toward home-making, the unfinished presentation stops short of achieving that goal — because while her family member is housed, she explains, they are not home.

While this work has personal origins, it has grown much beyond her family member’s story. As Ross-Gotta sorted through the reviews, she became fascinated by what she learned about the community at this motel: from dirty linens and noise complaints to reviews written by homeless people and reviews that complain about the homeless people who live there.

Ross-Gotta originally is from Kansas. She earned her BFA in Sculpture from Colorado State University in 2015 and her MFA in 3D4M (sculpture) from the University of Washington in 2017. That year she also became a mother. Her work has been exhibited throughout Seattle including, The Henry Gallery, Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park, Gallery 4Culture, and Bainbridge Gallery of Art and Crafts. Her work has also been featured in Surface Design Journal’s 2017 International Exhibition in Print. She has been awarded grants from Artist Trust, 4Culture, and the Surface Design Association.

Michelle Lassaline is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Pacific Northwest. Lassaline received her BFA in painting and performance art from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2014. As a member of the Holland Project Gallery Committee from 2013-2016, she co-curated the exhibition, “Resound,” and “Fizzog”, as well as working with UNR on the exhibition “Dada: Local.” She has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, Artist Trust, the City of Seattle, 4Culture, the Nevada Arts Council, and Sierra Arts Foundation. Lassaline has been performing as “The Taeuber Troupe” regularly since 2014, and has made it her full-time job since 2018, performing at events including the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards, the Tacoma Art Museum, the Holland Project, Nevada Museum of Art, Artown, and more. She is currently pursuing her MFA at the Maine College of Art, while working on an upcoming solo exhibition for the Oats Park Art Center in Fallon, NV in August 2021.

Photo Album | Related Exhibition: River Raft Quilts Series 1: Jubilee | WATCH: Coulter Fussell + Cicelia Ross-Gotta in Conversation w/ Guest Curators | Wrap Up by Otis Heimer