Monthly archives: May, 2025

Art Assembled

We have had a busy May. We presented Field Notes: an art survey in person at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT and online.  We have partnered with the Silvermine Art Galleries on three exhibitions that run through June 19, 2025 (IFiber 2025; Masters of the Medium: CT; Mastery and Materiality: International), and loaned several works to the thoughtfully curated exhibition WEFAN in West Cornwall, CT (through June 28, 2025). And, we highlighted a new work online in New this Week each Monday for your review.

Cat's Eyes wall hanging by Keiji Nio
Keiji Nio, 33kn Cat’s Eyes, polyester, aramid fiber, 48” x 47” x 1”, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

In recapping those intriguing offerings, we begin with Keiji Nio’s captivating Cat’s EyesNio is captivated by these enigmatic animals. “When I suddenly feel a gaze and turn my eyes, I sometimes find a cat staring intently at me,” he says. “Especially quiet cats, who do not meow much, whooften keep their expression unchanged, gazing without blinking, as if trying to convey something unknowable. When I return the gaze, there are moments when we slowly exchange blinks.” Nio sought to confront his memories and emotional response to cats through images he silk-screened onto aramid fabric, with which he created a wall work edged in sand.

Polly Barton No Strings Attached tapestry
Polly Barton, 16pb No Strings Attached, silk, double ikat with pictorial weft ikat. Natural dyes, walnut ink, rubbed pigment. 31” x 62″ x 2.5”, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

Polly Barton finds solace in following the thread, which she calls “a kind of wayfinding.” She creates a surface to rub color in a variety of forms; dye, pigment, pastel, ink. “Working at the loom where my threads are in order and my fingers work with what feels real, chaos is temporarily kept at bay,” she says. No Strings Attached began as a small watercolor sketch — a memory of petroglyphs — field notes from the past carved into basalt stones found while hiking paths in canyons. “My sketch,” she says,”like a voice from the past, beckoned to be woven as a fluid path forward into our spinning world. In my studio, Sheryl Crow sings: ‘Everyday is a winding road.I get a little bit closer … to what is really real.’

Christine Joy Peak in the Clouds rock and willow basket
Christine Joy, 52cj Peak in the Clouds, willow, rock, 7″ x 9″ x 6″, 2024. Photo by Tom Grotta

Peak in the Cloudsis the first of a short series of “landforms,” that Christine Joy started in 2022 when she was on Washington Island, Wisconsin at a willow-gathering retreat. (You can read more about Joy’s willow-gatherine process in an earlier arttextstyle post.) She picked up the rock on the shores of Lake Superior noting that it was very different rock there than in Montana where she lives. “It was so black, sparkly, and geometric with a sharp point,” she says. “It occurred to me that rocks are just small landscapes. I started weaving around the rock during the retreat. Then, I let it sit for over a year; I just didn’t have the right color willow to work on it.” Eventually, she added more yellow. “I really like the color, like sunset in the clouds. The yellow changes colors slowly as it dries, losing some of its vibrancy, but blending better with the brown willow.” 

Caroline Bartlett wall hanging
Caroline Bartlett, 26cb Juncture, Linen, cotton thread, perspex battening, 61″ x 26.5″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

Caroline Bartlett explores the historical, social, and cultural associations of textiles, their significance in relation to touch and their ability to trigger memory, in her work. She Imprints, stitches, erases, and reworks cloth, folding and unfolding, and often integrating textiles with other media such as porcelain. Her new work, Juncture, she says, “suggests ‘a point of time, especially one made critical or important by a concurrence of circumstances’ while disjuncture suggests ‘a disconnection between two things. The language of textiles speaks of entanglements and connectivity, of continuity and severance, and pink might be considered as a field for nurture. Blocks of intersecting color are revealed through a manipulated surface and hold firm with concepts of control. Simultaneously, they become squeezed and threads displaced as notions of old certainties and understandings fall away. The whole becomes a metaphor for the personal or for the wider social, ecological, and political sphere.”

Thanks again to all the artists we work with who continually send us such marvelous work. Keep watching; we’re committed to showing and sharing more art online and in person.


More Notetaking: Four Ways to view Field Notes Online

Field Notes online
Details of works by: Misako Nakahira, Yong Joo Kim, Eduardo Portillo and Mária Dávila

Our in-person exhibitions at browngrotta arts last only 10 days each, twice a year. There’s a method to that, but, the small window means not everyone gets to see our exhibitions on site. We’ve tried various ways to share images and information about them after the in-person exhibit ends. This year, for Field Notes: an art surveywe have created three ways to share the experience with those who could not attend.

First, we created a video view of Field Notes. You can see it in sections — each devoted to a gallery space (Gallery 1: Front Hall; Gallery 2: Dining Room; Gallery 3: Living Room; Gallery 4: Den/Old Kitchen; Gallery 5: New Kitchen; Gallery 6: Back Room. They’ll appear on Instagram each Friday on art live, one each for 6 weeks. The first, Gallery 1, was posted on our Instagram on Friday. If you don’t watch them piecemeal, you can see the full video of all six galleries is on our YouTube Channel (see below).

Second, we’ve created a Viewing Room on our website that contains all the works in Field Notes, again, divided into six galleries. You can match works that interest you from the videos to the Viewing Room Galleries where you will see more images of each. We’ll have the Field Notes Viewing Rooms up on our website until June 20, 2025.

art on the rocks
Detail of work by Shoko Fukuda 

Third, we’ll be hosting a program on Zoom, Art on the Rocks: an exhibition talkthrough with spirits — Field Notes edition on June 10th at 7 pm EST. We’ll talk about fiber art’s new found popularity and share insights about the survey we took in order explore where fiber art is at this point. We’ll also feature a curated cocktail from our mixologist, Max Fanwick.

Check in on one, two or all three of these, to learn more!


Through a Rose-Colored Lens – Art in the Pink

Peach Fuzz was the Pantone Color of the Year for 2024, but artists at browngrotta arts don’t seem to be finished with color and adjacent tones just yet. Our Spring exhibition, FIeld Notes: an art surveyfeatured several works including pink, rose, and related shades.

As the mix between red’s passion and white’s purity, traditionally, pink symbolizes love, nurture and compassion. It also evokes feelings of comfort, warmth and hope. And these are the themes that many of our artists were channeling in these unsettling times. 

Caroline Bartlett
26cb Juncture, Caroline Bartlett, linen, cotton thread, perspex battening, 61″ x 26.5″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

“The language of textiles speaks of entanglements and connectivity ” explains Caroline Bartlett, “of continuity and severance, and pink might be considered as a field for nurture.” For Bartlett, her work Juncture, suggests “a point of time, especially one made critical or important by a concurrence of circumstances.”

Stéphanie Jacques
24sj Retournement en cours IV, Stéphanie Jacques, electric cable, 12″ x 19″ x 4.125″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

Stéphanie Jacques works with a dark pink wire cable in works like Retournement en cours IV to create figures that illustrate transformation. “The cable consists of two twisted copper wires sheathed in plastic film; one white, the other dark pink,” she says. “The varnish that covers them gives a beautiful finish. Sometimes the white is twisted with a red or orange thread, but it’s the dark pink that I prefer.”

Polly Barton Pivot
17pb Pivot, Polly Barton, silk double ikat with painted warp, 12.5” x 12.5” x 2”, 2008. Photo by Tom Grotta

Polly Barton’s Pivot is imbued with pink and other colors. Barton finds solace in “[C]reating a surface to rub color in a variety of forms; dye, pigment, pastel, ink. I weave the liminal space between a painted surface and the woven structure.”

20wc Totems, Wlodzimierz Cygan, linen, sisal, fiber optic, 37″ x 37″ x 7″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Totems, by Wlodimierz Cygan, is a study in color — pink is only one of the shades it reveals through fiber optic lighting. “The introduction of the motif of changing light into this system,” he observes, “turned this small weaving form into a magical, magnetizing object, encouraging meditation.”

Neha Puri Dhir
Detail: 9npd Shifting Horizons, Neha Puri Dhir, Hand painting and stitch-resist dyeing on handwoven silk
26.5″ x 26.5″ x 2.5″, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

Neha Puri Dhir writes eloquently about the color in her work Shifting Horizons. This intimate textile artwork, inspired by Akbar Padamsee’s Metascapes, transforms handwoven silk into a whisper of unseen change. “I have painted the silk with earthy colors,” she says, “gentle teals for my quiet unease, warm yellows for a flicker of hope, and soft pinks for the tender ache in my heart — capturing a shift I feel but cannot see, like a storm brewing beyond the horizon.”

10sy Emotional Summer, Young-ok Shin, Hand-wound mosikuri, ramie, linen thread, 24″ x 18.5″ x 1.6″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

In her work, Emotional Summerwhich includes pink and other pastels, Young-ok Shin has a message to convey. “I want to express the power passed down from tradition as work full of vitality that is given meaning, rather than innovation.”

Shed on Ice and Dark Shed, Laura Foster Nicholson
27lfn Shed on Ice and Dark Shed, Laura Foster Nicholson, wool, cotton, 55” x 30.5” x 2.625”, 2024.. Photo by Tom Grotta

Also expressing a message are Shed on Ice and Dark Shed. “Since moving to a rural community in southern Indiana nearly 20 years ago,” Laura Foster Nicholson reports, “I continue to be fascinated by the simple forms and light of the landscapes.” The mood in Shed on Icewith its early-morning, rose-colored sky reflects Nicholson’s concern about climate change. “The farms, which seem so evocatively beautiful,” she says, “are contributing radically to climate change.”

You can see more on our website: browngrotta.com.


Field Notes Continues at browngrotta arts through Sunday — Artists in the House

We have been delighted to host a good group of artists from the US and abroad at the gallery during our Spring exhibition, FIeld Notes: an art survey.

Kari Lønning, Shoko Fukuda, Christine Joy, Wendy Wahl
Kari Lønning, Shoko Fukuda, Christine Joy, Wendy Wahl at the opening of Field Notes: an art survey

The exhibition continues through Sunday May 11, at 6 p.m. Blair Tate, Kari Lønning, Christine Joy, Norma Minkowitz, Shoko Fukuda, Wendy Wahl, and Włodzimierz Cygan were all here for the Artists Reception and Opening on Saturday, May 3rd. 

Shoko Fukuda
Shoko Fukuda talking about her work Constructed Contours VII

Clients were excited to meet the artists in person and learn more about about their work. We at browngrotta arts enjoyed learning about their influences and exhibitions in which they have participated. Shoko Fukuda, for example, has exhibits annually with a group of talented basketmakers and sculptors in Japan. The group was first organized by Hisako Sekijima, who Fukuda admires. The group has since developed a life of its own. When we asked Sekijima to suggest artists we should be watching, she named Fukuda, so their admiration is mutual. Fukuda cites Sekijima’s books as an influence. Sekijima’s book Basketry’s Formula, from the 1970s, has just been republished in Japan

Christine Joy came from Montana, US and stayed in New York City. The contrast in population, noise levels, concrete versus sky is quite stark, but she enjoyed speaking with colleagues and collectors. She’s showing new work in FIeld Notes — baskets that surround rocks. She thinks of them as landform sketches with a rock as the center point. “New Moon is a totemic object for me.” she says. “Noting the phases of the moon and being able to see the moon and where it is in the sky is a daily lifetime habit. 

Christine Joy's Rock Baskets
Christine Joy’s 52cj Peak in the Clouds and 54cj New Moon

The rock is unusual because of its pockmarked surface and round shape it made me think of the moon.” She was a bit hesitant to send it off to us. “I like the feel of it,” she wrote. “It is a piece I like to just sit and hold in two hands and close my eyes. I find it very soothing. It was hard to part with but soon I will start on Full Moon and that makes it easier.”

Norma Minkowitz Running
Norma Minkowitz in competition. Photo from artist.

Competing in the Senior Olympics is in Norma Minkowitz’s future. She’ll head to Iowa in July to compete in several running events. She holds several records, including a world record won in the 2023 USATF Masters Indoor Championship. Minkowitz is a limits pusher. “… I fight for what I want in my running,” she told an interviewer. “I don’t know where this came from with my sedentary background, but I’ve always pushed myself to the limits. It wasn’t enough to have my work in a craft magazine, I wanted it in a museum.” She achieved that handily — her work is in 35 museum collections and has been the subject of 20 solo exhibitions.

Mixed Signals by Blair Tate
Three views of Mixed Signals by Blair Tate

Blair Tate is on her way to the UK and Italy, where she finds inspiration. Tom Grotta recently found hardware from abroad that is effective at setting Tate’s works like Mixed Signals, off the wall and he’s hoping she can find it while she is on the road. In Italy, Tate finds artistic inspiration.  “Since my first visits to Italy,” Tate told us previously,  “I have been interested in the visual layering that occurs when frescoes are interrupted by superimposed paintings or incised niches. Throughout Bologna, there are buildings with palimpsests of older fenestration patterns and newer window additions that are perpetually in marvelous conflict.” In some of her works, she plays with these concepts, rearranging and reconnecting separately woven strips off the loom. The whole can be intentionally splintered, fragmented, unsettled — “a reflection of our times, and perhaps all times,” she says.

Wendy Wahl Detail
Detail of Wendy Wahl’s Morse Code

On her way to the garden, with cuttings she had brought back a trip to Washington, DC, Kari Lønning made a short stop at the opening. She and Christine Joy enjoyed meeting after many years in parallel basketmaking circles. Wendy Wahl drove to Connecticut from Rhode Island and faced serious rain on her trip back. Wahl provided insight on her work Morse Code to viewers at the opening. It’s a piece where the different scrolls of map, index, and top text paper are laid in the pattern of her mantra, W… T.. F…,” through Morse code disguising the message. The overall effect of the surface is a textural blending of colors into an abstract landscape. A warm gold edge on the ivory scrolls makes it sparkle in the right light. Between the domestic political and economic situation and the fires in Palisades, California, where Wahl is originally from, the mantra has continued resonance.

Włodzimierz Cygan
Włodzimierz Cygan working on Organic 3

Włodzimierz Cygan joined us from Poland. He has an exciting work made with optical fiber in Field Notes. He’d also sent us Organic 3, a work that was featured in Beyond: Tapestry Expanded an American Tapestry Alliance-sponsored exhibition in 2024. The work has also been honored at the Textile Triennial in Szombathely, Hungary and featured on the cover of Arte Morbida. In creating Organic 3, Cygan worked with a warp whose strands were not parallel and flat but convergent, curved or three dimensional. The strands converge from a single point, enabling the weaving of circles or arcs, a means the artist uses to evoke a variety of associations. The work is fluid in nature and can be arranged differently each time it is installed. While visiting us in Connecticut, Cygan adjusted it to establish yet another way to install the work — this time to hang it on the wall. 

There are four more days to visit Field Notes: an art survey at browngrotta artsYou can learn more at our Zoom presentation, Art on the Rocks: an art talkthough with spirits, on June 10, 7 pm EST.