HAYSTACK RIVER BASKET detail, photo ©2011 Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts
At SOFA NY 2012, browngrotta arts will exhibit Dorothy Gill Barnes‘ Haystack River Basket. The sculpture is created of “river teeth,” teeth-shaped knots from old growth trees that are sculpted by the elements that Barnes discovered on the ground around the spruce trees in Maine while teaching at Haystack Mountain School of Craft.
HAYSTACK RIVER BASKET by Dorothy Gill Barnes, photo ©Tom Grotta, courtesy of browngrotta arts
The basket is made of younger river teeth, though some can be 200 years older than the remainder of the tree and up to 12 to 15 inches long. Barnes’ work was recently the subject of an exhibition, Collection Focus, at the Racine Art Museum. Her work is also in the permanent collections of the Museum of Arts & Design, the Erie Art Museum, Arizona State University Art Museum, Nelson Fine Arts Center, Tempe and the Arkansas Decorative Arts Museum.
Haystack River Basket