HUNTSVILLE — Their work is diverse and far reaching, ranging from embroidery to large mass media installations to photo manipulation. They live throughout the United States and embrace a number of artistic missions and concepts. They have one thing in common: the impression their work leaves.

They are the five female artists that make up “Delicate Impressions,” the first show of the fall semester opening this week at Sam Houston State University’s Gaddis Geeslin Gallery.

The SHSU Art Department holds an open call for artist submissions each year, then organizes shows based on both the quality of the work submitted and what the artists have in common. According to Gaddis Geeslin Gallery Director and art professor Annie Strader, this show is built around the delicacy evoked by each artist’s work, either through the craftsmanship involved in creating the art or the feeling the art evokes in a viewer.

“Each artist's work visually conveys a specific type of delicacy either in the actual material or in the process of making it,” Strader said.  “The emphasis on pattern/ornament and how it acts both as a visual motif and also as a conceptual idea was a current that runs through all five artists’ works and was considered in generating a title appropriate for the exhibit.”

Janice Jakielski, a graduate of the University of Colorado in Boulder, has focused her most recent work on communication and relationships through the use of 3D fabrications for the body including elaborate headgear and goggles.

“I use recognizable forms and particular craftsmanship in order to lend the pieces authority as functional objects,” Jakielski said. “The forms that I choose are drawn from personal but familiar sources: my grandmother’s circa 1930s hat collection, Amish bonnets from my childhood trips to the farmer’s market, the colors of a Brahmin town visited in India. Through the use of humor, meticulous detail and ambiguous function I coax my audience to investigate closer, closing the physical gap between viewer and object. In this way I want the details of my workmanship to act as a whisper, flirtatiously seductive in its discretion.”

Io Palmer of Pullman, Wash. produces mixed media installations that explore social culture. Her installation for “Delicate Impressions” is entitled “Artstars; Janitorial Supplies #6,” and features synthetic hair, mop heads, a wooden mop handle and other materials.

“The physical labor needed to produce my work parallels the energy needed to critique mass cultural forcers in order to carve out one’s individual identity,” Palmer said. “My work points to the symbiotic relationship between public society and private identity.”

Jeana Eve Klein, who lives and works in North Carolina, will present works from her French Knots series, which feature exact and delicately executed French knot stitches, often requiring hundreds of hours to complete. Also featured are Amy Reidel – whose work features acrylic and gouache images reminiscent of weather radar on top of photos of her mother, herself, Karen Carpenter and the “Designing Women” character Julia Sugarbaker – and Lauren Scanlon – who uses papercuts and painting to investigate the relationship between romance novels and bedsheet patterns.

Though the techniques of each artist in “Delicate Impressions” vary widely, they are united through their unique applications of certain kinds of traditional craft to convey something new about individual expression and identity.

“They’re taking ‘women’s work’ and changing it. One of my favorite things is the needlepoint. I don’t really care for the girly stuff, but to me it’s not really girly at all,” said Debbie Davenport Harper, Visual Resource Librarian for the art department. “It’s really abstract art; it’s just done in a traditional way.”

“Delicate Impressions” will be on display in the Gaddis Geeslin Gallery through Sept. 22. Gallery hours are 12 to 5 p.m. Monday thru Friday. The exhibit will be celebrated with a public artist talk by Jakielski at 5 p.m. today in the auditorium of Art Building E, followed by a public reception from 6 to 7 p.m. in the gallery.