When visitors come into the Artists in Residence exhibition at Craft Alliance Center of Art + Design on Delmar, they sense they are entering a different world. Here, small plants become huge and primeval; objects become emotions and memory; history becomes a fabrication; and clay becomes skin.

For me, the two most visually arresting bodies of work belong to papermaker Megan Singleton and metalsmith Emilie Mulcahey.

Singleton’s work combines papermaking and sculpture. She describes herself as an artist whose work “transforms invasive plant fibers into works of art.” 

She constructed her beautiful piece “Nelumbonaceae” from steel, concrete and handmade paper of abaca and American lotus. The family “Nelumbonaceae” is made up of flowering plants which includes American lotus, a non-native species invading American wetlands.

Six large purple and greenish brown flowerlike forms, each two or more feet across, seem to float at the tips of their thin steel “stems”. The undulating forms have a paper-like texture, mottled and rough. Their stems vary in length from two feet to seven feet tall, and their arrangement creates a mini forest-like feeling. The size and shapes envelop viewers, calling attention to the amount of damage invasive species can do. These plants are beautiful but destructive for the non-native environments in which they spread.

Emilie Mulcahey’s work is as striking as Singleton’s and generates a wonderfully visceral response. Mulcahey fashions small red anatomical hearts which represent emotions. In some pieces, the hearts are attached to each other; in other pieces, they’re fastened to the walls with nails. She explains, “Each piece uses a different set of tools and connections to resolve conflict.”

Mulcahey sums up one kind of conflict in the piece “Communication”, made with pig intestine, watercolor pigment and mixed media. The artist attached the bases of two large tin cans to a long red cord, much like the telephone apparatus that children make to talk to each other over a distance. The cans hang on the wall with the open sides down. From the open ends spill two masses of egg-sized red hearts. Sheer emotion tumbles from both ends, evoking open and honest communication without modern technology getting in the way. If you have a problem, Mulcahey seems to say, you should talk about it.

She sets up a very different problem with “Target Practice”, also made with pig intestine, watercolor pigment and mixed media. The tail of a silver arrow sticks out of a small heart, appearing to pin it to the wall. Red glitter represents fresh blood at the point of the arrow’s entry. Long strings of red sequins, like streaming blood, nearly reach the floor. The title implies that someone abused another’s feelings for sport and gave them no more thought than a can set up to be shot down during target practice.

With regard to her use of tools in conjunction with the hearts, Mulcahey adds, “If only the hardware store carried a toolkit to repair hurt feelings!” 

The Artists in Residence exhibition is on view through July 3. Craft Alliance is located at 6640 Delmar Blvd. in the Loop. Gallery hours are 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on Sunday; and closed Mondays. For more information, call 314-725-1177 or visit www. http://craftalliance.org/.