ITERATIONS: Tyrrell, Lessman-Moss, and Johnson at Peg’s

The exhibition ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason, featuring works by Brinsley Tyrrell, Janice Lessman Moss, and Peter Christian Johnson, might aptly and alternatively titled Work ethic: What can happen when an artist commits to their studio practice and just keeps pushing. All three of these artists have deep ties to the School of Art at Kent State University: Brinsley Tyrrell (sculpture) and Janice Lessman-Moss (textiles) both are now retired, while Peter Christian Johnson is the current head of the Ceramics program. These three artists personify what it means to keep their artistic practices alive and active. In the case of Brinsley Tyrrell, he has made more work in the 25 years or so since he retired from teaching than many artists have made in their lifetimes. His output is truly mind boggling.

If you know these artists (and, full disclosure: they have all been my colleagues and friends, and Janice Lessman-Moss was once my advisor in Grad-School), it’s a joyful thing to be able to walk around and see their work in the gorgeous, newly constructed Pegs Gallery in the center of Hudson, Ohio. The 3,000-square-foot space is an initiative of the Pegs Foundation whose mission is to improve the lives of people with serious mental illness. Further, the foundations three pillars of giving are mental health, arts, and education and they view the arts as a portal for which heavier conversations about mental health can take place.

In October 2024 Pegs foundation hired Courtney Cable to be their Lead of Arts & Communication. Cable, formerly of Curated Storefront in Akron, as well as plethora of other artist and arts administration jobs, brings her wealth of experience to this exciting new space, “I really required all the jobs that I’ve had in the past in order to do this job. It’s been such a wonderful experience to be able to pull all of that prior knowledge together.” This is the third exhibit Cable has been able to put on in the new space, and she has worked to “think bigger”, about the gallery and “what it can do and be in the community. She also hopes to be able to have at least one educational outreach activity a month for each show.

With ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason, Cable has been able to realize those early goals as they just hosted a public lecture by Janice Lessman-Moss. However, what is most exciting about the Peg’s is that it is a newly built gallery, a strikingly beautiful space that provides not just a gorgeous exhibit space for Hudson, but also all of northeast Ohio to look to and want to visit or participate with. This is especially important during an economic time when the overall bricks and mortar gallery experience is struggling to a keep a foothold.

Janice Lessman-Moss is one of the better-known textile artists in the world. Her weavings highlight her mastery of materials through their deep understanding of weave structure, color and pattern. It is important to understand that when you are looking at a weaving as complex as hers, that in order to share their desired colors with the viewer the artist has to understand the color of each strand of yarn, thread or metal along with what each layer of the material is doing. You are not looking at one layer of material, you are looking at a dense pack of several, a fact that makes the work of Janice Lessman-Moss all the more impressive as intense investigations in form and color.

#514, Diamonds in the Sky, is a silk, wool, aluminum wire, digital jacquard piece that was hand woven on a TC2 loom in September of 2025. This large weaving features multiple diamond shapes throughout the composition with a central focal point of more than a dozen diamonds almost completely in metal. Contrasting these geometric shapes are several oval and undulating “marks” that cover the rest of the weaving. The metallic elements are contrasted and offset with blue, black and teal colors. This is an extremely complex work and is one of several such pieces like this of Lessman-Moss’s on display in the exhibit.

In Arrangement # 2 (from the “Line Drawings” series), a 2024 porcelain table-top assemblage by Peter Christian Johnson we can see what makes this artist so unique. Christian Johnson relies heavily on extruded pieces of porcelain to help him hand-build structures that often relate to the still life tradition while also “Making reference to urban landscapes, mathematical models, digital renderings, and scientific collections. They are a study of line and material meant to exemplify the beauty found in both,” states Christian Johnson. Part of makes this work so exciting and interesting to look at is the sense of whimsy and chance the artist embraces. Often Christian Johnson intentionally allows the firing process to change or warp the structures he makes and this addition of “chance” in the sculptures brings organic shapes and forms to a what would otherwise be more rigid compositions.

Walking in Morgan’s Woods, carved stone and wood by the artist Brinsley Tyrrell is quintessentially Tyrrell. In 1976, he and his wife bought an old, dilapidated farmhouse in Freedom Township. “Although we only purchased four acres, we received permission to walk in the surrounding woods,” Tyrrell says. “This work is the result.” Featuring several tall (over 8 ft) thin and heavily carved sticks or branches sticking out of holes drilled in a variety of different sized stones, these are a wonderful representation of Tyrrell as an artist, and they demonstrate his commitment to his practice. Also on view by Tyrrell are a series of ceramic pieces made in response to the COVID Virus, using a wood kiln he and other area artists built on his property to fire the work produced. The investigations take on the look of a virus or even a mutation in some cases with glaze covering their surface areas.

ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason, on view through January 31, 2026, is a wonderful reason to visit one of northeast Ohio’s loveliest and newest galleries. It’s rare to get to see the start of something so meaningful like the recently built Peg’s Gallery and then get to experience that space filled with the work of three of the hardest-working and most prolific artists you will find anywhere. This is definitely an experience not to be missed.

ITERATIONS: Rhythm & Reason
October 10, 2025 — January 31, 2026
Peg’s Gallery
53 First St.
Hudson, OH 44236

Anderson Turner is the Director of Exhibitions & Collection for the School of Art at Kent State University.