In Cloud Cuckoo Land, Wendy Wahl writes, “Anthony Doer takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic ride that is expansive and intimate. His characters include those from the past, present, future, and multi-species beings bound together on a journey about the love of books in general and one in particular. I was drawn in from the beginning by the thought of young girls tied to needle and thread embroidering liturgical garments. Each of the storylines brought up unexpected emotions. I will return to this novel again and again. Learn more about this amazing tale from this NPR review: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/28/1041004908/anthony-doerr-cloud-cuckoo-land-review. 

Both Gjertrud Hals and Jane Balsgaard are fans of Swedish writer Kerstin Ekman. Hals says Ekman is her favorite autjor. She just read Löpa Varg, (only in Swedish, for now) and her big book about the woods Herrarna i slogan, from 2007. The Free Online Library says of Herrarna i slogan, “Appropriately, the title is ambiguous. Ekman is writing about the forest (skogen); more precisely, about the vast Swedish acreage of forested land, a forest paradigm as good as any. The first word in the title (herrarna) means either “the men/ gentlemen” or “the masters/lords.” These are the men, real or fictional, who have lived with the forest and known it and turned it into what it is today, be they masterful industrial foresters or crouching botanists, lumberjacks or poets, Sir Olof in a sad medieval folksong or Dr. Astrov in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanja.”  Balsgaard read Blackwater (in English) a thriller by Ekman that gave her“the feeling of the soul from old Sweden.” 

A few of the recommendations are more philosophical. Things I Don’t Want to Know, by Deborah Levy is recommended by Stéphanie Jacques, who read it in French, and also the other two volumes in her Cost of Living series. “Great books,” says Jacques. “I loved her voice, her writing, the way she looks at life. She talks about creation and how to continue but not only that.” Jacques also recommends Power of Gentleness; Meditations on the Risk of Living by Anne Dufourmantelle. “Also a great author, and a book that helps us through life.” Yeonsoon Chang is rereading the Asian classic, Book of Changes (The I Ching). “This book inspires me,” she says.

Nancy Moore Bess has been pursuing an interest in Shinrin Yoku, or Forest Breathing. “It was formulated by a Japanese government agency in the early 1980s,” she writes, “but I feel there’s a strong connection to Shintoism and its respect for and connection with nature. Practicing Shinrin Yoku is a form of meditation that draws calmness from being in nature. I have often experienced this sense of peace and calm when alone in a bamboo grove. I guess this is a good time in my life to remember those moments. Wish I could capture them again.” Want to know more? Amazon lists Forest Breathing: How Trees Can Bring You Health and Happiness as having 4.5 stars from 777 reviewers. 

At browngrotta arts we also have a group of recommendations — all of which are found on our website. First, our most recent book, Gyöngy Laky: Screwing with Order — assorted art, actions and creative practice with text by Mija Reidel, David M. Roth, and design by Tom Grotta. At 328 pages, it is the first comprehensive monograph on the work of this exceptional artist. It looks at her life from three perspectives: “Laky’s personal story of immigration and education is narrated by arts and culture writer, Mija Reidel. An assessment of the evolution and impetus for Laky’s work is given by David M. Roth, editor and publisher of Squarecylinder, a San Francisco Bay Area online visual art magazine. Finally, images of forms, vessels, and wall works provide insight into Laky’s studio practice, activism, and philosophy of sustainable art and design, original thinking, and the value of the unexpected.” (“Celebrating Gyöngy Laky,” Selvedge Magazine, July 17, 2022).

An expansive catalog was also created in conjunction with the retrospective of Ferne Jacob’s work at the Craft in Americagallery in Los Angeles. You can obtain a copy of Ferne Jacobs: Building the Essentials on our website. Jacobs has been at the forefront of the revolution in fiber art since the 1960s, She has pioneered ways to create a new category of sculpture. Transforming materials and pushing boundaries, she builds solid structures with coiled, twined, and knotted thread. This exhibition was the first to survey more than 50 years of Jacobs’ pivotal and timeless work through the present. Jacobs’ intimate drawings and collage diaries, which had never been publicly displayed, were included providing an additional lens into her vision, inspiration, and philosophical perspective. 

Two of our 2023 exhibition catalogs are available from our store. Crowdsourcing the Collective. a survey of textile and multimedia art (148 pages) features 42 international artists whose work illustrates the vitality of art textiles, ceramics and mixed media. The artists come from four continents and work in a wide varity of materials and techniques: tapestries of silk and agave, sculptures of seaweed, seagrass and willow, wall works made of sandpaper, hemp and horsehair, and ceramics of Shigaraki clay. Our most recent catalog, published in October is Allies for Art: work from NATO-related countries (148 pages). It showcases work by nearly 50 artists from 21 countries made from the 1960s through the present. The diverse fiber works and sculpture in the exhibition were created by artists who fled repressive regimes, who have worked under and around government restrictions and who have been influenced by current political instability in Europe. The catlog includes 132 photos and an essay by Kate Bonansinga, Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Good gifting and good reading!!

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The nearly 50 artists in Allies for Art are from 21 different countries — 18 NATO members and 3 NATO applicants. Their work reflects diverse perspectives and experiences. The exhibition includes art created under occupation, in the ‘60s through the 80s, art by those who left repressive governments in Hungary, Romania and Spain, and art by other artists who left Russia in later years. Allies for Art also includes current works created by European artists including Gudrun Pagter of Denmark, Åse Ljones of Norway, Włodmierz Cygan of Poland, Ceca Georgieva of Bulgaria and, artists new to browngrotta arts, including Esmé Hofman of the Netherlands, Aby Mackie of Spain and Baiba Osite of Latvia.

You can also learn more about the exhibition in the Allies for Art full-color catalog, which includes lush images and details shots and an essay by Kate Bonansinga, Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio available on our website.

VIEW EXHIBITION ONLINE: Artsy
VIEW EXHIBITION IN PRINT: Order an Allies for Art catalog

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Join browngrotta arts for a private Tour and Reception in Saturday, October 15th from 4 pm to 7 pm to benefit World Affairs Forum. The event will be our Fall 2022 Art for a Cause.

The Details
At 4PM, Tom Grotta will host a Private Tour of the exhibition Allies For Art: Work from NATO-related Countries. From 5 to 7PM, there will be brief Remarks by speakers from WAF and browngrotta arts will host a Reception, with exhibition-themed canapés and a curated cocktail where guests can socialize, view and learn more about the exhibition’s works of art.

The Speakers

Two experts on art and culture will speak briefly about making and protecting art in conflict zones. Cindy Maguire, PhD is a researcher and professor, and co-author of the book “Arts and Culture in Global Development Practice,” also with Ann Holt, PhD. Rob McCallum, PhD is both a practicing artist who has exhibited his work at numerous international solo and group shows, as well as a global educator with a PhD in Art Education. 

Register Here to attend.

The Cause/World Affairs Forum
In addition to 100% of the proceeds from public ticket sales, 10% of the proceeds from all sales of art, books, or catalogs at this Art for a Cause event will be donated to World Affairs Forum, an independent, nonpartisan organization dedicated to engaging the public and leading voices to better understand the world. Since 1946, World Affairs Forum in Stamford, CT has been providing top-level and thought-provoking presentations, debates, and discussions of foreign policy and global affairs featuring world leaders, economists, diplomats, scholars, business luminaries, corporate change-makers, authors, journalists, and Nobel laureates. Its mission is to create conversations in our community about global affairs, foreign policy, and America’s role in the world.

The Exhibition:
Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (October 8 – 16) features over 130 pieces from nearly 50 artists, and will highlight work from 21 countries in Eastern and Western Europe made from the 1960s to the present. The diverse fiber works and sculpture in the exhibition were created by artists who fled repressive regimes, who have worked under and around government restrictions and who have been influenced by current conditions. 

Signing Up
Public registration for the general reception, from 5pm to 7pm, is $25. Public registration for the 4pm private tour + general reception from 5pm to 7pm is $50.
Click to register: Art for a Cause.

Note:
We will be closing registration when the gallery venue reaches capacity, so please register as soon as possible to secure your tickets.

Address:
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897

Safety protocols:
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • We will follow current state and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 • As of October 1, 2022, masks are not required • No narrow heels please (barn floors.)

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1. Aldrich: 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone
Through January 8, 2023.
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
258 Main Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
Tel 203.438.4519
6.2 Miles

Aldrich: 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone (https://thealdrich.org/exhibitions/52-artists-revisiting-a-feminist-milestone) celebrates the fifty-first anniversary of the historic exhibition Twenty Six Contemporary Women Artists, curated by Lucy R. Lippard and presented at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in 1971. 52 Artists showcases work by the artists included in the original 1971 exhibition, alongside a new roster of 26 female identifying or nonbinary emerging artists, tracking the evolution of feminist art practices over the past five decades. 52 Artists encompasses the entirety of the Museum (approx. 8,000 sq. ft)—the first exhibition to do so in The Aldrich’s new building which was inaugurated in 2004.

2. From the Pen to the Knife
From October 15 – November 27, 2022
Westport MoCA
19 Newtown Turnpike
Westport, CT 06880
Tel. 203-222-7070

From The Pen To The Knife features the watercolor paintings of Marian Christy. Christy was a pioneer of the Knifed Watercolors® style, a process that creates original watercolors using only palette knives and puddles of paint.  

3. Grace Farms
365 Lukes Wood Rd.
New Canaan, CT 06840
Tel. 203-970-1702

Always a rejuvenating place to visit,  Grace Farms is a scenic 80-acre cultural and humanitarian center in New Canaan, Connecticut. Schedule a tour or make a reservation for one of Grace Farms’ unique events. Visitors must schedule a visit in advance. Admission is free. (https://gracefarms.org/visit/) 

4. Leaves: The Endangered Species of New England
Through December 1, 2022.
Fairfield University Art Museum, Bellarmine Lawn
1073 North Benson Road
Fairfield, Connecticut 06824
(203) 254-4000
(https://www.fairfield.edu/museum/leaves/) 

The leaves installed on the Bellarmine lawn are on loan to the Fairfield University Art Museum for the next year from the American artist Alan Sonfist (b. 1946), best known as a pioneer of the Land or Earth Art movement. These four larger-than-life aluminum sculptures of leaves were created in 2011 and represent several of New England’s most beloved native trees: the American Beech, the American Chestnut, the Burr Oak, and the Sugar Maple. The sculpted leaves act as reminders to honor and protect the trees, and as a warning that failure to do so could result in their extinction. 

The museum is working with the Biology Department, the Environmental Studies Program and the artist, around a series of programs to be presented in the spring of 2022 to highlight these sculptures, along with climate change and endangered species.

5. Yale Art Gallery: Three New Thematic Displays of Asian Art
1111 Chapel Street (at York Street) 
New Haven, Connecticut
(203) 432-0600
(https://artgallery.yale.edu/news/three-new-thematic-displays-asian-art) 

Yale Art Gallery’s collection of Asian art comprises nearly 8,000 works from East Asia, South Asia, continental Southeast Asia, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and spans the Neolithic period to the 21st century. Highlights of the collection include Chinese ceramics and paintings, Japanese paintings and prints, and Indian and Persian textiles and miniature paintings. Due to the sensitivity of these artworks to light and climate, they are rotated out roughly every six months. 

On view through November are three new thematic displays of Asian Art including: Understanding an Eighteenth-Century Indian Album which brings together several manuscript pages featuring exquisite paintings of musical modes, given to Yale in 1939 and 1940. Second, Chinese Painting between War and Revolution, 1830–1950 highlights the vibrancy and experimentation with Western and Japanese visual traditions that characterized Chinese painting during the tumultuous period between the Opium War (1839–42) and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Finally, celebrating the varied rendering of cherries in paintings, woodblock prints, lacquer, and metalwork, Sakura: Cherry Blossoms explores the longstanding Japanese fascination with the beauty of this delicate blossom as a symbol for the ephemeral nature of life and its pleasures.

Have great trip! We look forward to seeing you at browngrotta arts:

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries
Saturday October 8, 11 -6
Sunday, October 9, 11-5
Monday, October 10 to Saturday October 15, 10 – 5
Sunday, October 16, 11 to 6
276 Ridgefield Road

Wilton, CT 06897

203-834-0623

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Baiba Osite is from Latvia. Since graduating from the Latvian Academy of Art Textile Department and finishing her Master’s degree, she has participated in art exhibitions worldwide. Among those exhibitions were the biennial Textil Art of Today which traveled to Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, International Fiber Art Biennial, From Lausanne to Beijing, China, the World Textile Art Biennial, Madrid, Spain, and the 3rd International Textile Competitions, Kyoto, Japan. She works in education and is a member of Latvian Artist Union and Textile Association. Recently, she has enriched her experience in two valuable residencies: ”Cite des Arts” in Paris and “Textilsetur” residency in Iceland. Osite leads a folk art textile studio. Partipants there spent two months sewing a safety net for Ukrainian national guards, a project they will continue again in the fall.

Osite is known for her work with different fiber materials including driftwood, glass beads, wire, metal spirals, wool and linen. “Historically,” Osite says, “these materials were used in household textiles. I assign to them contemporary understanding and concept.” The various materials are sources of inspiration for Osite to create new works. Her work is also inspired by traditional ethnographic patterns and influenced by different cultures.

The works that Osite will exhibit in Art for Allies are made from driftwood segments that she collects  on the shore of the Baltic Sea. One of Osite’s driftwod works, Substantia, was awarded the Acquisition Prize of Contextile 2018, the Contemporary Textile Art Biennial in Portugal. The work was based “on the paradoxical game between ‘being’ and ‘not being’ and the transformation of ‘being,’” Osite explains. Driftwood works like City Walls reflect her propensity for dissecting patterns from nature and recreating them in a new form. Osite created City Walls for the World Textile Association Biennial, Sustainable City in Madrid in 2019.

Mecedes Vicente is an artist based in Galicia, Spain, specializing in craft art. A regular participant in exhibitions around the world, Vicente is currently working with wood and textile projects, including sculptures made of canvas strips. Her work is influenced by the French artist Pierre Huyghe.

Born in Madrid in 1958, Mercedes Vicente’s family moved to various locations in Spain during her youth, an experience that pushed her to approach learning in a fundamentally self-taught manner. Initially, her art was pictorial, but it evolved into sculpture, with canvas as her primary medium. She loves the elastic, organic, flexible and translucent properties of the fabric with which she works. She must first prepare the untreated canvas by gluing it and priming it.

“When I started using this technique, I realised that people were amazed by such a manual process,” she says. “Then I started to think that what I was doing was within the realms of craftsmanship, art and design.” She chose fabric in part because it was easy to get hold of, since a member of her family worked in a factory producing canvas.

Vicente’s works often being or adapt a spiral shape. She told Thought Object about the significance of that shape. “Space is where the spiral arranges itself and where it’s subject to effects that impact it as if it were an architectural work: it’s exciting and moving how light acts upon the figure and how you can imagine yourself for a moment inside the spiral,” she points out. “This is part of the experience of space, dimensions, and volumes. It’s also the material with its finish and configuration and moreover, it’s the empty space around it where emotion lives.”

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (browngrotta arts, October 8 – 16, 2022) will feature nearly 50 artists and highlight work from 21 countries in Eastern and Western Europe, 18 countries in NATO and the three current applicants. The artists in the exhibition reflect diverse perspectives and experiences. Allies for Art will include art created under occupation, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, art by those who left Hungary, Romania and Spain while occupied, and art by other artists who left Russia in later years. Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related Countries will also include works created by artists. like Osite and Vicente, who are currently working in Europe. Reserve your spot in Eventbrite. 

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Anneke Klein of the Netherlands was originally educated as a goldsmith. Her passion for weaving was born from her struggle with hard and cold materials. In order to pursue her preference for warmth and softness in materials, she retrained herself as a weaver.  After a period of designing and manufacturing clothing, she worked on a commission for the American minimalist Richard Tuttle for his exhibition in the Vleeshal of the Frans Hals Museum and for Alexis Gautier in the Bozar Museum Brussels. She developed her own style for wall objects. As a goldsmith she learned to express in miniature. It suits her, and she often applies that approach in her textile works as an element for rhythm and repetition. “I create a variety of shapes, textures and structures to express my imagination of social themes,” she says. “It is an ever-growing process inspired by instinct and intuition, an investigation, a translation, as if looking through a symbolic lens at the everyday and the things that touch me emotionally. It stimulates social awareness in myself and probably the viewer, too.”

For Aby Mackie, an emerging artist who lives and works in Spain, the very act of making artwork is political. Mackie responds to current economic and social inequities in her country, particularly in housing and food, by confronting consumerism head on. “Everything I buy, from the materials for my artwork to the clothes that I wear, the furniture in my house to the books that I read, I buy second hand — recycling, reusing, reimagining — standing against the insane consumerism that adds to that sense of us all living in a system that is broken.” Mackie reconstructs textiles — cutting, painting, stitching, weaving and gilding them … a process of deconstruction and transformation. “The materials that I use,” she says, “are sourced from the local flea market, a practice that was born out of necessity to find cheap (but unique, high quality, interesting, often sumptuous) and free materials to use in my artwork. I go at the end of the day and buy up all the unwanted antique cloth, clothing, and domestic textile, collecting the discarded, such as flamenco dresses, Spanish plates, antique dolls, horse collars integrating them into my practice.” In Mackie’s hands, these “discards” are given a new life as elegant and engaging artworks. A rich mix of influences can be seen in Mackie’s work in terms of concept (the found object sculpture of Picasso, Miro, Tapies, Grau-Garriga), techniques and materials (Anatsui) and subject matter and aesthetic sense (Basquiat, Schwarz), inviting the viewer to create their own connections and interpretations and encouraging a personal storytelling through materiality.

Join us at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT
for Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (October 8-16):

Exhibition Schedule:
Opening & Artists Reception (300-Visitor Cap)
Saturday, October 8th: 11AM to 6PM  
Viewing Dates & Times (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, Sunday October 9th: 11AM to 6 PM
Monday, October 10th – Saturday, October 15th: 10AM to 5PM 

Final Day (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, October 16th: 11AM to 6PM  

Address
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 068977

Safety protocols
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • We will follow current state and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 • As of August 1, 2022, masks are not required • No narrow heels please (barn floors)

RESERVE YOUR TIME: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/allies-for-art-work-from-nato-related-countries-tickets-392833123447

Contact Information
P: 203.834.0623
E: art@browngrotta.com

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Join us for this Fall’s Art in the Barn event at browngrotta arts: Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries. 

Political instability can bring about unexpected and engaging art. It can influence an individual artist’s career for a lifetime. The current upheaval in the Ukraine and the security concerns of neighboring European countries suggests echoes experiences of artists exhibited by browngrotta arts who have lived in, fled, or emigrated from repressive regimes. It weighs, too, on the minds of those working in the surrounding nations. German artist, Heidrun Schimmel says that living in a country, united and secure in NATO since 1989, “its now hard for us to learn: … everything is hanging by a thread…”

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related countries (browngrotta arts, October 8 – 16, 2022) will feature nearly 50 artists and will highlight work from 21 countries in Eastern and Western Europe, 18 countries in NATO and the three current applicants. The artists in the exhibition reflect diverse perspectives and experiences. Allies for Art will include art created under occupation, in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, art by those who left Hungary, Romania and Spain while occupied, and art by other artists who left Russia in later years. Gyöngy Laky’s family, for example, escaped from Soviet-occupied Hungary after World War II — to Austria, then America, experiences that are reflected in her politically themed works. Adela Akers’ family left Franco’s Spain, first for Cuba, then to the US. In the 1960s and early 1970s, Ritzi Jacobi’s expressive work in tapestry, abstract by nature, allowed her to circumvent the Romanian government’s preference for academic, figurative art which supported communist ideology. 

Other artists in the exhibition from Eastern Europe, including Jolanta Owidzka, Zofia Butrymowicz, Anna Urbanowicz-Krowacka, and Krystyna Wojtyna-Drouet of Poland and Luba Krejci and Jan Hladik of Czechoslovakia, were introduced to US audiences in the 1960s through 1980s by Chicago gallerists Jacques and Anne Baruch who spirited their work out of countries under oppressive regimes. On August 20, 1968, for example, the Baruchs left Prague after meeting with artists, just five hours before Soviet tanks rolled into the city and brutally ended a brief period of democratic reforms. 

Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related Countries will also include works created by artists currently working in Europe, including Gudrun Pagter of Denmark, Åse Ljones of Norway, Włodmierz Cygan of Poland and, artists new to browngrotta arts, including Esmé Hofman of the Netherlands, Anneke Klein of Denmark, and Baiba Osite of Latvia. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color catalog, which will include an essay by Kate Bonansinga, Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Exhibition Schedule:
Opening & Artists Reception (300 Visitor Cap)
Saturday, October 8th: 11AM to 6PM  

Viewing Dates & Times (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, Sunday October 9th: 11AM to 6 PM
Monday, October 10th – Saturday, October 15th: 10AM to 5PM 

Final Day (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, October 16th: 11AM to 6PM  

Address
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 068977

Safety protocols
Eventbrite reservations strongly encouraged • We will follow current state and federal guidelines surrounding COVID-19 • As of August 1, 2022, masks are not required • No narrow heels please (barn floors)

RESERVE YOUR TIME: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/allies-for-art-work-from-nato-related-countries-tickets-392833123447

Contact Information
P: 203.834.0623
E: art@browngrotta.com

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