2025 IN REVIEW

 

 2025 brought a rekindled engagement with ceramics, as I began expanding the Reef Pods series, developing and broadening my “pod” inventory through variations on a theme. While my Gathering series of small, unglazed vessels—plates and bowls—focuses on calligraphic-like marks on the clay surface and exposes the clay’s natural body color, Reef Pods led me to delve more deeply into color and glazes, introducing new variations of marks, textures, and shapes.

 Whereas the Gathering series speaks to ancient worlds, archaeological sites, and nostalgia for the childhood days of my early life in Slavonija, the eastern continental region of Croatia, the Reef Pods series connects me to long summer days on the Adriatic coast and to hours spent swimming and exploring the richness and curiosities of the undersea world. I feel invigorated by this fresh avenue in my work. There is a deep conceptual connection between my paintings and my ceramic work, though it is not intentional or preconceived, but rather one that is evolving naturally and organically.

 I often recall advice from my sculpture professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, the art school from which I graduated—the late Stjepan Gračan. He emphasized the benefits of switching to a different medium every so often as a form of exercise, pushing oneself out of the routine of repetition and the comfort of familiarity in order to keep ideas fresh. Coincidentally, Gračan was a student of my great-uncle, Valerije Michieli, who was also a prominent sculptor and professor at the same Academy many years earlier.

 On a more personal note, 2025 was marked by yet another summer trip to Croatia and Slovenia with my family. We visited several major national parks and many beautiful towns along the Adriatic coast, finishing the trip at my favorite location in the Slovenian Alps. We were fortunate to spend time with both my mother and my mother-in-law in Croatia. Looking back, this trip will always carry a bittersweet memory, as baka (grandma) Milica—my husband’s mother—sadly passed away in October, just a couple of months after our visit. I am deeply grateful that she and the children were able to share those moments together.

 

 

 

Visits to my first homeland are always both beautiful and difficult. Like flipping through an old family album, every scene and every location sparks a vivid memory—at once a bright sensory kaleidoscope of childhood and youth, and a stark reminder of time passed.

All in all, 2025 was another year of creating and exhibiting. I presented my work in two solo exhibitions: Origin: Wondrous Worlds at the Robert F. DeCaprio Art Gallery, Moraine Valley Community College, Palos Hills, IL, and Dream Garden at the Geneva Public Library, Geneva, IL. I also showed new work from my Origin Aqueous series in Perfectly Lost at Walker Fine Art in Denver.

 

I gave presentations about my work and process at both solo exhibitions and led a student workshop on watercolor and mark-making at Moraine Valley Community College.

 

I was surprised and deeply touched to discover a critical review of Origin: Wondrous Worlds, published in Newcity Art and written by Vera Scekic. I don’t tend to consciously overanalyze the reasons behind my creations, though I never hide the initial sparks that often come from life experiences—childhood memories, a yearning for a sense of home, a need for grounding, and a general feeling of being suspended between two places, never quite settled. Vera’s review came to me as a revelation of my own deep roots, and I was moved by her discerning sensibility and her ability to connect so beautifully and intimately with the inner life of my work. I felt truly seen by another human being.