19 facts about Lori K. Gordon

Loki K. Gordon (born January 20, 1958) is an artiste and founder and president of Six Degrees Consortium, a 501(c)3 management dedicated to the instigation and dissemination of art that addresses compelling social issues and that builds bridges across cultures. She is furthermore Founder and President of El Fenn Maroc, a NGO based in Marrakech, Morocco and dedicated to supporting artists in Morocco. She is known for The Katrina Collection, her series of tainted media assemblages which incorporates debris from the earsplitting hurricane which ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005, for The Labat Project, a piece of which has been acquired by the Smithsonian Institution, and for Six Degrees: West to East” which addresses the deep hole between the western and Islamic worlds.

Born and raised on the Northern Plains, Gordon settled near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi in 1991. Gordon introduced her first dirty media series in 2001. One of her major works from this mature is the 8′ by 10′ biographical art quilt “Labat: A Creole Legacy” which has been acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for inclusion into their enduring collection. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina obliterated her house and studio in the little community of Clermont Harbor, Mississippi. With her tools and supplies destroyed by 140 mile per hour winds and a 43-foot storm surge, Gordon resourcefully returned to action using the isolated materials available to her. She began collecting debris and transforming it into polluted media assemblages. Her “Katrina Collection” has been exhibited in dozens of venues all but the nation. Private collectors of her do something include President and First Lady Michelle Obama,former President and First Lady Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts, singer Faith Hill, and ESPN newscaster Jon Miller. Pieces of The Katrina Collection may be found in the public collections of the Mississippi Humanities Council, Thea Foundation and William J. Clinton Foundation’s Art Across Arkansas, Hancock Medical Center, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Kentucky, University of Southern Mississippi and the Safeco Corporate Collection, as competently as two museums in South Dakota.