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Generations in Bloom is a collection of artwork created and curated by three artists whose lives have become connected through art, mentorship, friendship, and family.

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Years ago, Bailey Fry-Schnormeier, an art teacher at Creston Community High School, taught May Ling Chuong-Wignall during her formative high school years. Bailey encouraged May Ling to cultivate her passion for art and helped her begin imagining a future in which creativity could remain an important part of her life. That mentorship continued beyond high school as May Ling followed a similar path and pursued art at Coe College.

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Over the years, the relationship grew beyond that of teacher and student. May Ling remained close with Bailey and her family, including Bailey's daughter, Leona Fry-Schnormeier, who has grown up knowing May Ling not simply as her mother's former student, but as a friend, fellow maker, and artist to look up to.

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Now, the three come together not as teacher, student, and daughter, but as three artists with distinct voices of their own.

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Throughout Generations in Bloom, flowers and the natural world become a common language. Bailey's sculptural ceramics explore organic forms through richly layered surfaces, carved imagery, flowers, leaves, insects, and other elements drawn from nature. May Ling's paintings interpret botanical subjects through expressive color, gesture, and observation. Leona's fiber work transforms familiar floral forms through crochet, texture, pattern, and the intimacy of handwork.

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Their materials are different, but their work continually finds its way back to the same place: growth.

Flowers bloom, change, fade, return, and grow alongside one another. Creative lives develop in much the same way. We learn from the people who came before us, find our own voices, and eventually become part of someone else's inspiration.

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Generations in Bloom celebrates that cycle—the influence of a teacher, the growth of a student into a fellow artist, and the emergence of another young artist finding her own path.

It is a celebration of mentorship becoming friendship, friendship becoming family, and creativity continuing to bloom from one generation to the next.

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May Ling Chuong-Wignall

May Ling Chuong-Wignall is a multimedia artist from Creston, Iowa. She is currently based in Clive, Iowa. As an Asian American artist, MayLing enjoys working with both Eastern and Western art forms, materials, and ideas. Some mediums she works with include Chinese watercolor, origami, screenprint, and more.

 

May Ling’s art represents a lifelong journey of connecting with heritage and cultural identity. Working with Eastern and Western concepts, techniques, tools, and media, May Ling constantly blends cultures, breaks traditions, and creates new concepts. This means not fitting in perfectly with one side or the other, but finding a balance between the two.

 

Bailey Fry-Schnormeier

Bailey Fry-Schnormeier is an Iowa-based ceramic artist whose work spans functional vessels and sculptural forms. She combines wheel throwing with handbuilding, exploring low-relief carving and layered surfaces that reveal the trace of the hand. Earthy textures and glazes create quiet, shifting landscapes across each piece. Her imagery draws from the flora and fauna of her mother’s and grandmothers’ gardens, as well as the broader rhythms of the Midwest. These references honor family, place, and lineage—acknowledging the people and landscapes that shape her life and work.                                                                                                            

For Bailey, clay is a space for reflection. Some pieces emerge from grief and trauma, where repetition, carving, and form become ways to process and transform experience. Others celebrate the understated beauty of Iowa—its seasons, resilience, and stillness.

 

Whether functional or sculptural, her ceramics balance structure with vulnerability. Vessels invite daily interaction, while sculptural forms encourage contemplation. Across her work, Bailey creates a dialogue between land, family, and lived experience, showing how art can hold memory, carry emotion, and honor the life that shapes it.

 

Leona Fry-Schnormeier

Leona Fry-Schnormeier is an emerging fiber artist based in Southwest Iowa. Growing up in a family deeply connected to the arts and community projects in Creston, Leona developed an early appreciation for creativity, making, and storytelling through materials.

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Working primarily in crochet, Leona translates photographs into pixelated patterns that are carefully stitched into large-scale textile images. Her work blends traditional fiber techniques with a contemporary, digital-inspired approach, transforming yarn into portraits that feel both intimate and graphic. Through this process, she explores the relationship between craft, technology, and memory.

Leona’s work often centers on animals, flowers and personal subjects that hold emotional meaning. Her crocheted tapestries emphasize patience, texture, and the quiet presence of her subjects, inviting viewers to look closely at the intersection of handmade labor and image-making.