Artwork copyright Kiff Slemmons. Photo courtesy of Washington State Arts Commission, 2017.

Measuring Up: To the World, 1991

Kiff Slemmons
American (born 1944)

Location: Department of Enterprise Services, Olympia

About the Artwork

Artist Kiff Slemmons describes her work as dedicated to "the power of small." She explores identity and community in her mixed-media sculpture Measuring Up: To the World. This artwork is part of a series of sculptures created in shape of a hand. Each one incorporates rulers and small found objects as symbols for growing up and being evaluated.

This artwork is part of a series created by Kiff Slemmons for the collection "Who We Are: Autobiographies in Art." The series was commissioned by the Washington State Arts Commission in partnership with the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1990.

This artwork was acquired for the State Art Collection in partnership with Department of Enterprise Services.

About the Artist

Slemmons studied French language and art at the University of Iowa. She later attended the Sorbonne in Paris and studied metalsmithing in Japan. In 2000, she began to collaborate with a handmade paper workshop in Oaxaca, Mexico. Together with these craftspeople, she designs and creates paper jewelry and sculptures made from local plants and natural dyes. Slemmons was a longtime resident of Seattle and has lived in Chicago, Illinois since 2002. The Palo Alto Art Center in California organized a retrospective exhibition "The Thought of Things: Jewelry by Kiff Slemmons" in 2000. Her artworks are in many collections including Tacoma Art Museum; Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Victoria and Albert Museum in England.