A national juried exhibition has opened at the Bristol Art Museum, and one of Cranston’s very own is showing her work alongside that of artists from across the country.

Milisa Galazzi has entered several pieces from her series “Earth Skins” in the exhibit titled “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” The exhibit celebrates the transformative abilities of materials and artistic processes that bring out strength, fragility and creativity.

With works made of materials such as wax and charcoal on paper, one of the key elements of her series is the physical connection performed in the process: Each piece was made with only her hands as tools.

“The Earth Skins is about the way humans connect to the earth and leave our mark, but also my hands, connecting it to the materials,” Galazzi said.

Galazzi first heard about the exhibit from a fellow artist, Wendyll Brown, who suggested Galazzi apply. Brown, a Rhode Island resident, also has works in the show. Galazzi went with it and applied without much expectation, sending in photos of her work in with a wing and a prayer.

After getting in, she figured out how to display and mount the pieces for the show.

Galazzi grew up on Cape Cod, where her mother started a summer day camp and early-childhood school. She said she always knew she was going to be an artist.

“People would say when I was like 4, ‘What are you going to be when you grow up?’ Galazzi said. “And I'd be like, ‘Why do I have to wait? I'm an artist.’ I'm not waiting to grow up to be something. I'm an artist.”’

After going through public school ‘til 10th grade, she got into Phillips Academy, which had an incredible art department, she says. Then came the decision of whether to go to art school and get a Bachelor of Fine Arts or get a liberal arts degree.

Despite her acceptance into Cornell’s School of Art and Architecture, Galazzi went to Brown University on a full scholarship and got her liberal arts degree. She said she knew she didn’t want to go to art school and become a full-time artist.

After Brown, Galazzi spent time teaching art at St. Paul’s School, a boarding school in Concord New Hampshire, before moving to Chicago and working as the director of education for an inner-city arts program. She went on to get her master’s in art education and administration from RISD.

Galazzi now owns her mother’s early-childhood school and day camp, having inherited the company. And from Tuesday through Friday, she works at the school in Brewster on Cape Cod, while her studio days are Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

“What's crazy is my undergraduate degree I use all in here [in her studio],” Galazzi said. “My graduate degree at art school I use in my administration of this early-childhood school and day camp.”

As Galazzi tries to balance between her two lives, feeling pulled in two directions, one thing remains true: she really loves this.

“I'm an artist,” Galazzi said. “The way I see the world, the way I interpret the world, the way I put work out into the world, whether it's writing or visual art or education, administration, supporting people, talking to people. I'm an artist because of who I am, not because of what I do. I'm an artist because of how I show up in the world, not because I put work into the world.”

Galazzi has explored many different facets of art through her career. Her popular “String Theory” series, which she has been working on for almost 15 years, analyzes connection through generations of women and the passing down of lessons on how to sew and thread while also looking at quantum physics and string theory.

In other works, like her Mitosis series and Ghost Lace series, Galazzi tends to center themes of human-nature connection, history, science and physicality.

The overarching theme that remains constant in all her work is connections.

Looking ahead, Galazzi has big plans. With the upcoming launch of her first book, “Full Palette Human,” to sharing her hope of putting on a solo exhibit, Galazzi is nowhere close to being done with her journey as an artist.

“I'm 60 and I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up,” Galazzi said. “Literally. I don't know how this all fits together. I mean, your career is everything you've done behind you. All you have to do is pull one thread forward and go there. I just have to be confident. And all I have to do is go.”

To see Galazzi’s artwork and that of other artists in the show, you can visit the Bristol Art Museum, at 10 Wardwell St. The exhibit will be on view through Friday, April 4. The museum is open Thursday through Sunday, 1 to 4 p.m.