Artist Conversation: Laurel Grey and Renee Mies

Join us for the 6th Annual Dick Scuglik Memorial Fellowship presentation with visual artist Laurel Grey and writer Renee Mies. Renee is the recipient of this year's fellowship, given to a writer working in ekphrasis. She was paired with Door County visual artist Laurel Grey. The two exchanged work in advance of the fellowship week and created new pieces in response to the other's art. They will share the work they created and discuss their process during this informal presenation. The program is open to all. Light refreshments will be served. 

Laurel Grey grew up in a U.S. Air Force family, spending her childhood in Japan, Germany, and Texas—an early exposure to varied landscapes and cultures that continues to influence her work. Although she explored many creative mediums throughout her life, she committed fully to a professional art practice in her fifties, turning to kiln-formed glass with focus and urgency. Over the past fifteen years, Grey has become known for her cascading glass leaf strands, now carried by galleries and gift shops nationwide. Most recently, she has developed a distinctive body of work grounded in what she calls Sabi-Fusion—a sculptural approach that blends contemporary glasswork with driftwood, vintage architectural elements, and other reclaimed materials. Her practice draws on decades of hands-on making, from renovating homes on tight budgets to studying advanced glass-painting techniques with internationally respected instructors. Based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, Grey maintains a working studio in Door County and exhibits at Edgewood Orchard Galleries, as well as select juried art shows where she has earned numerous awards, including Best in Show honors.

Renee Dionne Mies is a poet and memoirist whose work explores place, lineage, and the act of looking as a form of inheritance, often through ekphrastic practice. Her writing has appeared in and is forthcoming from Still Point Arts Quarterly, The Atlantic Review, Fjords Review, Beyond Words Magazine, Prosetrics Literary Magazine, and other journals. Her poems “Growing Up in Traverse City” and “The Bone Orchard at the Edge of the Sky” were finalists in the 2025 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. Rooted in Northern Michigan and based in the Chicago area, she is currently completing a book-length manuscript that weaves poetry, memory, and material history.