My Creative Philosophy

 I believe the visual arts should move us in the same instinctual, non-verbal ways that music moves us. My coiled and sculptural vessels are experimental explorations of the interactions of color and the melodies and counterpoint of different design elements.  Like music, each piece is intended to move and engage at a deep internal place below/beyond language.  

I believe that grace and beauty have great value.  The goal of my work is to create objects that emphasize, that express grace and beauty, and bring a measure of contemplative stillness into our cultural plain to provide a small measure of calm and restfulness.  Each of my pieces is created with this belief in mind. The French dramatist, Jean Anouilh once said, “The object of art is to give life a shape.”   The question then becomes, “what shape do we want life to take?”  

I believe that life’s shape should be quiet, peaceful, graceful, and beautiful, grounded in a place away from and beyond the fray allowing us room to rest and strengthen ourselves for our interactions with the larger world.  As I design my pieces and quietly create them in my studio, I seek balance within each piece and for myself within the world.  I hope as I complete each piece that the quiet stillness I seek permeates the work and takes those emotions, that centering spirit into the world with it to touch and, hopefully, enrich the lives of others.

Each of my designs begins with some inspiration, usually a color, mood or a musical phrase. Working with pastels and colored pencils, I allow the harmonies between colors, the tonal qualities of particular combinations, the melodies and counterpoint of different design elements to interact on the page with as little critical or analytical input as possible.  Once I have an intuitive sense of the piece, I begin to think what form the piece should take and the placement of the major design elements within its form.

None of my pieces are fully mapped out; I create several loose sketches which serve as working ‘scores’ for the piece as it evolves and changes during the coiling or weaving process.  

Working three-dimensionally provides the added challenge of creating a cohesive design that works well when viewed on a curved surface. Open Bowls require the constant interplay of forms in the design with the curving, spiraling nature of the coiled surface.

While the challenge with shaped vessels is creating a design that is cohesive when approximately one third of the design is visible at any given moment while 18also maintaining the flow of the design around the whole vessel. 

Exhibitions

2023     Member Exhibit El Paso Art Association Crossland Gallery El Paso TX

2019-2020 Local Color: Landscapes and Architecture Mesilla Valley Weavers Members Exhibition New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces, NM

2018     39th Annual Contemporary Crafts Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Mesa, AZ

2015     All Things Considered VIII Grand Hand Gallery, St. Paul, MN and Fruitlands Museum,  Harvard, MA

2015     Arts International Crossland Gallery, El Paso, TX

2015     Fall Fusion El Paso Art Association Members Exhibition Crossland Gallery, El Paso, TX          

2015     “Sojourn” Fiber Art Now, 4, no. 4 (Summer 2015), 56

2014     Arts International Crossland Gallery, El Paso, TX (catalogue) Catherine Kistenmacher Award for Flora Folklorico

2014     Renaissance of Fiber Mesilla Valley Weavers Member Exhibition Branigan Cultural Center, Las Cruces, NM

2014     Basketry as Art Tombaugh Gallery, Las Cruces, NM

2013     Interwoven Unsettled Gallery, Las Cruces, NM

2012     Threads Through Time Mesilla Valley Weavers Member Exhibition New Mexico Farm and  Ranch Heritage Museum, Las Cruces, NM

Teaching

2023     “The Magic & Mystery of Coiled Basketry” and “Color Journaling as a Design Tool” Art Sparks sessions during Spinning & Weaving Week hosted by Handweavers Guild of America (HGA)

2023     Two-day online workshop Vibrant Vessels: Coiling Basics through Española Valley Fiber Arts Center (EVFAC)

2022 – 2023 Vibrant Vessels Creative Coiled Basketry individual mentoring on Zoom and Thinkific

2021 – 2023 Contemporary Tapestry Weaving: Painting with Threads independent class on Zoom and Thinkific

2019 – 2021 Tapestry Weaving: Painting with Threads OLLI at UTEP program in-person and Zoom

2019     “Reading and Writing Weaving Drafts” mini-workshop Mesilla Valley Weavers guild

2018     “The Magic & Mystery of Coiled Basketry” presentation to Mesilla Valley Weavers guild

2017     “Puebloan Weaving in the 19th Century” lecture and workshop Centennial Museum University of Texas at El Paso

2016     Loom weaving mini workshop during Spark Saturday El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, TX

2015     “Images and Icons: the evolving relationship between art and culture” lecture series OLLI at UTEP

2015     Fiber Art Fridays weekly fiber art classes, Art Junction, El Paso, TX

2015     Painting with Threads Summer Art Camp El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso TX

2015     “Loom Weaving in the Past and the Present” Lecture and workshop El Paso Archaeology Museum, El Paso TX

Writing

2025 – present  The Spiral & the Grid; writing about the relationship between creativity and spirituality on Substack

2016 – present Studio Journal about work as an artist and teacher on this website

Sep 2022 – Mar 2024   Southwest Weaving News [SWWN] a monthly newsletter with fiber news from the Greater Southwest & Beyond

2021     “Treasures in the Desert: The exploration of textiles in the American Southwest”, a review of Prehistoric Textiles of the Southwest by Kate Peck Kent, 1983. Contribution to Archaeological Textiles Study Group, Complex Weavers PDF available on request

2020     “What is tapestry for?”, Tapestry Topics: The Fine Art of Tapestry, American Tapestry Alliance, Summer 2020 issue

2019     “Tularosa Diamond Twill Fragment: a window to the past”, Contribution to Archaeological Textiles Study Group, Complex Weavers PDF available on request

2016     “The Interconnectedness of Objects and Imagination”, a review of Objects and Imagination: Perspectives on Materialization and Meaning, Fuglerud, Øivind and Leon Wainwright, eds. 2015, Anthropology News, February 2016 PDF available on request

2011     “Circulations of Knowledge and Culture: Teaching the Concepts of Diffusion and Adaptation as Students Experience Them”, Anthropology News, February 2011 PDF available on request

Bibliography

Cook, Mike “Lin Bentley Keeling: Weaving ‘as a form of visual music’” Las Cruces Bulletin 10 April 2020: 22-23

Artist Profile: “Vibrant Vessels: A Musical Muse Inspires Colorful Baskets” HAND/EYE online magazine 4 January 2018 http://handeyemagazine.com/content/vibrant-vessels

Edlund, Carolyn “Artist Profile: Lin Bentley Keeling” Arts Business Institute March 2017 http://www.artsbusinessinstitute.org/artists/artist-profile-lin-bentley/

Sloane, Adrienne “Lin Bentley Keeling: Stillness and Beauty” NBO Quarterly Review Spring 2017 National Basketry Organization

Zanetell, Myrna “Fiber artist appeals to sense of touch, sight” El Paso Scene July 2015: 31

Formal Education

2008     MA, Anthropology New Mexico State University Concentration: Cultural Anthropology Internship: Kent Hall Museum, NMSU Fieldwork: Women’s weaving/economic development collective, southern New Mexico Research interests: art and identity; role of art in contemporary society; basketry collections; Native arts particularly basketry and weaving

2002     BA, cum laude Anthropology, Art History minor, University of Texas at El Paso Certificate of Merit Distinguished Anthropology Student Research interests: art and cultural identity; Non-Western art

Higher Education Teaching experience

2015, 2017       EPCC Intro to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology; Cultural Geography

2009 Fall- Spring 2011 Spring EPCC Cultural Geography, Cultural Anthropology

2009     Feb certification to teach online using Blackboard and SoftChalk