"Animal, Vegetable, Spiritual" on view at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center.

While the family of four -- husband and wife Don and Jane and their two daughters, Cleo and Kit -- is made up of serious artists, they have never exhibited their work together as a group until now. "Animal, Vegetable, Spiritual: A Family View" will be shown at the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center from Oct. 31 to Nov. 29, with work by all four family members.

"We looked at the work we had, and we saw in everybody's work animals and nature themes," Jane said.

Initially, she thought "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" had a nice ring to it for an exhibit title, but it didn't really fit. "Spiritual," however, is a word Cleo uses often to describe her own work and that of the rest of the family, and Jane and Kit agreed.

"I'm mostly vegetable," Don said, regarding his photos of roses, lily pads and morning glories.

Now living in Fort Collins, Colo., Kit described her piece "The Truth About Armadillos" as a magical, spiritual work. While in Texas, she longed to see an armadillo, but all she noticed were dead ones, "horrible pink and gray." She decided "the truth about armadillos is that they're actually rainbow when they're alive," so she created a clay armadillo covered in rainbow fabric and beading.

"In a lot of the work I do there's some underlying story to the piece," she said.

Another piece, done in paper clay and featured in the exhibit, shows Rapunzel, who has actually become the tower itself through her unwanted retraction from the rest of the world.

"To interpret what's not seen, that's what spiritual to me," Kit said.

Cleo, based in Ijamsville, works her own myths through metalworking, glass, fiber and jewelry.

"I don't make jewelry for other people. I make it because I need it," she said. "For me, the spiritual thing is pretty important."

Her eagle woman necklace, for example, conveys what she considers an overabundance of fire in her personality. Making the necklace was "a means of channeling that fire. ... I wear it all the time to remind me it's OK to let go of all the extra fire."

Another necklace shows a bear with a fish inside its stomach. Cleo said the bear is one of her totem animals, and because of that, its prey becomes a totem, too (she said this is often the case).

"Imagine the fish as your anxiety," she explained. "When the bear consumes the fish, not only is he relieving you of your anxiety, but he becomes more powerful -- sort of the opposite of 'you are what you eat.' They're able to transform what they eat into something positive."

Jane said she uses animals in her artwork because "with animals, you are freer to reflect on life and humanity without being judged. A rabbit sitting on a fox's back (in her piece "Free Ride II") tells a relationship. With an animal, you immediately identify the tension. You see the situation."

In another piece, she used a pig in a political statement about her protest of an incinerator being built in Frederick County.

"With an animal, you can express so much," she said.

In Don's work, he tends to show what is often overlooked, Kit and Cleo said. He can show a much larger world in a dew drop, for instance. His pieces range from sweeping cloudscapes to magnified details resulting in borderline abstraction.

"All Don's work is spiritual ... holy," Cleo said.

"And he gives them titles like 'Orange,'" Jane joked.

Don, who exhibited his photography at Frederick 's Unitarian Universalist Church in December 2008, is quiet and humble about his work.

In "Animal, Vegetable, Spiritual," he will show flowers, clouds and animal photographs. He also made a quilt, from paper, of marigolds, and Cleo made a quilt based on one of his photos.

Is the work spiritual or is the process of creating the artwork spiritual? Jane wondered.

Everyone agreed it's a bit of both.

Kit said, "The piece becomes the container for me that sort of holds the concept or emotion."

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Don: www.fred.net/hummer

Jane:

home.comcast.net/~giclier

Cleo: www.gramatortoise.com

Kit: kitdunsmore.wordpress.com