Monthly archives: June, 2025

In Print — Field Notes: an art survey

Field Notes Catalog Cover
Field Notes: catalog

If you weren’t able to visit browngrotta arts in person in May, there are four other ways to experience our Spring exhibition, Field Notes: an art survey, three online and one in print We’ve created a Video; Viewing Rooms; and a Zoom talkthrough, Art on the Rocks-Field Notes Edition. You can also see more images and learn more about Field Notes in the Catalog of the same name — our 60th — on our website.

Gudrun Pagter
Gudrun Pagter catalog spread

In the catalog, you’ll find more than 140 images of each of the works we “observed” in our state-of-the-art survey of the fiber medium in 2025. You’ll find detail shots and abbreviated cv information for each of the 52 artists included. 

Sun Rim Park Catalog spread
Sun Rim Park Catalog spread

You’ll also find artists’ insights on their work and comments on working in challenging times.  Polly Barton talks about her work, No Strings Attached,  which 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, like a voice from the past, beckoned to be woven as a fluid path forward into our spinning world.”  Norma Minkowitz writes about Golden Moon,  a continuation of a series of vessel forms she began in the 1990s. “These vessels represent containers of different thoughts: some dark, some optimistic and ethereal,” she writes. “Golden Moon, has a large, intricate orb rising up from the center. It is a symbol of illumination, insight, and mystery. The moon is a metaphor for beauty in this world and a source of light in the darkness” And Sung Rim Park speaks about the knots she creates of paper for her paper structures: “I determine the shape and size of each knot based on the knot based on the meanings and symbolism it holds,” she writes. “Fiber begins as a line—the most

Sophie Rowley Catalog spread
Sophie Rowley Catalog spread

basic element in art—and knots, as extensions or intersections, become points or dots. While knots and fibers may appear delicate, they have the power to shape space. The works that result may be light in physical terms, but you cannot ignore their heavy aura, or the diverse stories about mankind that they contain.”

s Bassler-Field Notes
James Bassler-Field Notes. Photo Katie Bassler

There are also a few in-process shots to round out this special exploration volume. Get your copy at browngrotta.com


10 Artists to Watch if You Like Ruth Asawa

This year has seen the opening of a magical retrospective of Ruth Asawa’s ethereal work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, through September 2, 2025. Asawa(1926 -2013) has newly captivated art audiences since 2020, when the US Postal Service created a Forever Stamp in her honor. The stamps were elegant and popular and led to considerable attention for the artist. A National Medal of Arts and numerous solo exhibitions followed, including Ruth Asawa Through Line at the Whitney Museum of American Art followed. In 2022, her biomorphic wire forms were showcased in The Milk of Dreams at the 59th Venice Biennial.

Acknowledging Asawa’s attraction, Artsy recently complied 6 Artists to Follow If You Like Ruth Asawa (Artsy, Tara Anne Dalbow, Apr 2, 2025). The list includes Chiaru Shiota, Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, Gertrud Hals, Marci Chevali, Nnenna Okore, and Mari Andrews. Like Asawa’s, these artists’ work reflect natural forms like snail shells, insect wings, and spider webs, and is “characterized by a sense of levity that defies common perceptions of weight and gravity.”

Not surprisingly. browngrotta arts has its own list — four more artists to follow if you admire Asawa:

Kay Sekimachi monofilament
79k Ogawa II, Kay Sekimachi, monofilament, 76″(h) x 11″ x 11″, 1969. Photos by Tom Grotta

First, Asawa’s contemporary, Kay Sekimachi (b. 1926). Kay Sekimachi is best known for her ethereal monofilament sculptures. The series began in 1963 as an experiment to weave a wall hanging in multiple, translucent layers. After weaving a linen sample, Sekimachi realized she could produce three-dimensional forms using Dupont’s recently introduced nylon monofilament material. Sekimachi wove her monofilament sculptures as flat, interlocking layers that when suspended, folded-out into organic forms that she named after natural phenomena. Ogawa II, on display here, translates from Japanese to “little river” or “stream.”

Shoko Fukuda
9sf Connected Contours VII, Shoko Fukuda, ramie thread, synthetic resin, 10.25” x 10” x 15.75”, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

Similarly evocative, though differently executed, are Shoko Fukuda’s undulating sculptures of white ramie. Shoko Fukuda is a basketmaker and Japanese artist who has exhibited her work internationally for the past 10 years. Fukuda currently works as an instructor at Kobe Design University in the Fashion Design department. Fukuda is interested in “distortion” as a characteristic of basket weaving. “As I coil the thread around the core and shape it while holding the layers together, I look for the cause of distortion in the nature of the material, the direction of work and the angle of layers to effectively incorporate these elements into my work. The elasticity and shape of the core significantly affect the weaving process, as the thread constantly holds back the force of the core trying to bounce back outward.” By selecting materials and methods for weaving with the natural distortion in mind, Fukuda saw the possibility of developing twists and turns. “I find it interesting to see my intentions and the laws of nature influencing each other to create forms.”  Connected Contours VII evokes forms from nature. Fukuda imagined a structure resembling a bird spreading its wings and constructed the form based on this concept. By connecting parts of the contours, she says, “the individual shapes retain their inherent twisted forms and natural movement, while the overall structure is designed to achieve harmony.”

Kyoko Kumai
Kyoko Kumai, Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers exhibition installation at the Japan Society. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Working in metal, like Asawa, is Kyoko Kumai. She weaves thin metal wires together to make a textile which she uses as a means of expression to explore various aspects of wind, air, and light. The walls, or carpets, or rooms of shimmery filaments she creates are revelatory. Kumai has had 67 solo exhibitions since 1983, including exhibiting Air at the Museum of Modern Art’s Project Space in 1991. Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times that the stainless steel Kumai used in Air “is eminently industrial” … “Yet the same qualities that make Miss Kumai’s work seem contemporary and Western are also quintessentially Japanese: foremost is its obvious faith in the power of beautiful materials handled simply but creatively and in unexpected ways.” Smith concluded that Kumai’s work was one of the strongest works of Japanese art to be shown in New York in some time.”  (Roberta Smith, “Review/Art; A Weaving of Stainless-Steel Thread,” The New York Times, May 10, 1991.)


Detail: 1ypb Cosmic Series, Yvonne
Detail: 1ypb Cosmic Series, Yvonne Pacanovsky Bobrowicz, knotted monofilament, gold leaf, 25″ x 20″ x 7″ Photo by Tom Grotta

Working in monofilament, like Kay Sekimachi, but with differing results, was Yvonne Pacanovsky Bobrowicz (1928 – 2022).  An awarding-winning artist, Bobrowicz was known for her cascading, light-transmitting sculptures made of synthetic monofilament. Bobrowicz was concerned with interconnections — interconnectedness and continuum. The artist told the Senior Artists Initiative in Philadelphia in 2003, “My work has been combining natural materials with synthetics, relating opposites, randomness and order — dark, light, reflective, opaque, and light absorbent, incorporating gold leaf, reflecting sculptures of monofilament, reflective and alchemically symbolic — unifying them in a variety of densities, scale, and configurations.” Bobrowicz studied with Marianne Strengell at the Cranbook Academy of Art and with Anni Albers at the Philadelphia Museum and School of Industrial Art, now University of the Arts. In the 1980s, she collaborated with renowned architect Louis Kahn. Like Sekimachi, Bobrowicz’s mesmerizing work captivated audiences with its light-transmitting qualities. Images of several of her works can be found online at the Sapir Contemporary Gallery website.


Dispatches: Connecticut

Cornwell Bridge
Covered bridge in Sharon/WestCornwall, CT. Photo by Tom Grotta

We have been following our own advice and trekking to the fiber events we’ve been promoting around the Connecticut.

Right in our neighborhood, we found Julia Bland ’s installation at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield. 

Julia Bland, Woven in the Reeds. Photo by Tom Grotta

Julia Bland: Woven in the Reeds is the artist’s first solo museum presentation, debuting a monumental tapestry composed of canvas, ropes, linen nets, and fabrics that are dyed, woven, braided, tied, and sewn by hand. Bland grew up in Palo Alto, California, the Museum explains, in the shadow of the counterculture movement of the 1960s–70s, and in the nascent stages of technological utopianism. “Raised by parents with different religious backgrounds—her mother is Jewish, and her father is a Presbyterian minister—Bland’s upbringing was marked by a blend of spiritual influences. In 2008, she was awarded a fellowship to work in Morocco, where she lived on and off for several years. During this time, she studied Sufism and immersed herself in the country’s rich customs, materials, and craftsmanship. Informed by these personal experiences, Bland’s textiles reflect a synthesis of visual cultures across time and place. Her work blends the tie-dyed, kaleidoscopic imagery of psychedelia with sacred Islamic geometry and Judeo-Christian symbols.” While we were there, we took advantage of the Aldrich’s recently expanded and redesigned sculpture garden–beautifully laid out and interesting to walk through.

Sculpture from A Garden of Promise and Dissent
Sculpture from A Garden of Promise and Dissent inaugurates. Photo by Tom Grotta

Ridgefield Road, on which the Aldrich is located, hosts several beautifully maintained Victorian homes and a quaint downtown also worth exploring. 

WFAN opening, Judy Mulford
WEFAN visitors examining at a work by Judy Mulford. Photo by Tom Grotta

Julia Bland’s work is also included in WEFAN in West Cornwall, Connecticut through June 28, 2025. West Cornwall is in a picturesque part of Connecticut — even more so this time of year when the woods are green and the river is running high. 

Dorothy Gill Barnes
Dorothy Gill Barnes works at WEFAN. Photo by Tom Grotta

WEFAN is in a jewel-box space, which served as a library beginning in 1940. The collection of work in WEFAN (a term drawn from Old English, meaning “to weave,”) is thoughtfully curated and meticulously installed by Dina Shaulov-Wright. Many artists that work with browngrotta arts are included: Ed Rossbach, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Sue Lawty, Norma Minkowitz, Judy Mulford, Dominic DiMare, Marion Hildebrandt, and Masako Yoshida. We were at the opening, which was well attended. Rhonda particularly enjoyed speaking to artist Maris Van Vlack about her work, Breakout/Breakdown. Van Vleck uses a variety of fibers, from thin threads to commericial rope, to create hand-woven work by architectural ruins, the New England landscape, and old family photographs, exploring how architectural structures retain the memory of events that occurred within a particular space.

Nichael Warren Gallery

We also enjoyed visiting the Michael Warren Gallery  nearby and had an exceptional meal at The Pink House. All well worth a trip. Photos by Tom Grotta 

The Pink House Postcard

Earlier in May, we visited the exhibitions at the Silvermine Art Galleries in New Canaan, CT. Fiber 2025 features more than 30 artists. In addition, 19 artists from browngrotta arts have works in display. Fiber 2025, Masters of the Medium: CT and Mastery and Materiality: International are up through June 19th.  Tom and Rhonda will be speaking about the exhibitions there on June 7, 2025 at 2:30.

Silvermine is a historic landmark on a five-acre campus in New Canaan. It encompasses an award-winning School of Art with over 4,000 annual enrollments; a nationally renowned Guild of over 300 professional artists; and a complex of five galleries, with free admission, presenting exhibitions by emerging and established contemporary artists. 

Hope you can see them all!

Rosana Escobar
Rosana Escobar, Colombia. Silvermine Art Galleries in New Canaan, CT. Grand Prize Awardee Fiber 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta