Category: Basketmakers

Art Assembled: Featured in March

April 2, 2017 0 Comment

Three sculptures and a assemblage of paper made up the offerings for New The Week at browngrotta arts in March.

89ks Looped vintage zipper tape and thread, approx. 7” x 35.5” x 16”, 2013 Photo by Tom Grotta

Karyl Sisson’s Looped, is a sinuous sculpture made of vintage zippers and tape. Sisson is preoccupied with useful objects from the past — sewing notions, women’s vanity items, paper drinking straws. In her art, they are given a post-functional future as forms and structures that suggest living organisms, indigenous architecture or ceramic vessels. Like Sisson,

20kn Interlacing Blue, Keiji Nio , nylon , 7.5” x 13” x 11”, 2013. Photo by Tom Grotta

for Interlacing Blue, Keiji Nio also used fiber tape, in his case nylon tape, to create a more formal geometric forms.

8rw Collider
Randy Walker
steel, nylon
29.75” x 31.5” x 12”, 2015.Photo by Tom Grotta

Randy Walker incorporates found objects into his work, re-envisoning them and giving them a new life as art, as here in Collider. In Emerging,

27ht Emerging, Hideho Tanaka, japanese carbon ink drawing, inkjet print, collage (cotton cloth which put a japanese tissue paper.), 17.125″ x 22.25″, 2013 Photo by Tom Grotta

Hideho Tanaka’s interest in creative forms peculiar to fiber materials, which emerge in time and space and yet which also metamorphose and disappear, is evident. In this work, he as combined Japanese carbon ink drawing, inkjet print, cotton cloth and Japanese tissue paper. All four of these artists will be among those featured in Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art, which opens at browngrotta arts on April 22nd. For a complete artist’s list visit http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php.

Art Assembled: Featured in January

January 31, 2017 0 Comment

We had four New This Week selections in January, including evocative sculptures of black willow and recycled aluminum plate and two works that offer commentary on current events.

Christine Joy January New this Week

40cj Smoke Ring, Christine Joy
willow with black encaustic, 23″ x 22″ x 12″, 2014

Christine Joy sources, harvests and then transforms willow into dramatic sculpture. Smoke Ring represents a new direction for Joy, she says, “more looseness and movement on the edge, visually, of coming apart, more exploration of added color to give unity and emotional depth.”

Merja Winqvist January New this Week

11mw Water Lily, Merja Winqvist
recycled aluminum plate, 26” x 25.75” x 1.75”, 2016

Merja Winquist of Finland has created a stylized and shimmering Water Lily of recycled aluminum.

Ceca Georgieva January New this Week

14cg The Iron Curtain, Ceca Georgieva
burrdock burrs, 19” x 16” x 5” 2016

In Iron Curtain, a sculpture of burdock burrs, by Ceca Georgieva of Bulgaria, a figure seeks escape from a web of red threads. The work is about Georgieva’s generation, who remained n Eastern Europe after World War II on the Red side―the Communist side―of the Iron Curtain. “As children,” she says, “we proudly wore the red scarf of a Young Pioneer, and we believed whatever we were told to believe. Our future was programmed and seemed to be clear and beautiful. When cracks began to appear in the Iron Curtain and news from the West slowly filtered into the country, we learned about beat poetry, rock ‘n’ roll, blue jeans and Coca-Cola. We started to feel the lack of freedom and the desire to go out and to live without fear of restriction and deprivation. Then the wall fell down. Now, 25 years later, we are still in front of the half-open curtain, making efforts to get rid of the red iron threads.”

Norma Minkowitz January New this Week

66nm Are We The Same?, Norma Minkowitz, mixed media, 12” x 28” x 26.375”, 2016

Are We the Same? by Norma Minkowitz, also addresses societal change, in this case, assimilation. “My thought was about our society and how, as time goes on, we intermingle and intermarry, ” says the artist, “and at the end we are a combination of many different genes and DNA and perhaps are eventually blended in some way.” Enjoy our selections.

Art Assembled: Featured in December

December 27, 2016 0 Comment
Dona Look White Birch Bark Baskets

Dona Look
10dl #10-1, white birch bark and waxed silk thread, sewn with wrapped edge
12.6” x 10” x 10”, 2010
10dl #13-2, woven white birch bark, sewn and wrapped with waxed silk thread
13.75” x 8.5” x 8.5”, 2013
9dl #15-2, white birch bark and waxed silk thread sewn exterior, woven interior and wrapped edge
11.75” x 11.75” x 11.75”, 2015.
Photo by Tom Grotta

Each week of the year at browngrotta.com, we draw attention to a work, a book or a project by one of the artists we represent. Beginning this December, we’ll be providing a monthly round up of these works here on arttextstyle.com. This month on browngrotta.com we featured four very disparate works. First, baskets of white birch by Dona Look, who harvests the bark herself in Wisconsin where she lives. “Look carefully selects bark from large, healthy trees that will soon be logged—evaluating the diameter of each tree and the bark’s thickness, for its unique markings and flexibility,” explains Jane Milosch in “The Entanglement of Nature and Man,” Green from the Get Go: Contemporary International Basketmakers (browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT 2016). “Collecting and preparing the bark is painstaking and must be done in the spring when the sap is running. Unfortunately, her work has become increasingly difficult of late as not all of the trees are in a natural cycle, and some are dying due to climate change, such as white birch trees, once prevalent in northern Wisconsin forests.” The simple geometric patterns of some of her works, writes Milosch, “recall the patterns of Native American parfleche pouches, which were a kind of geographical depictions of the surrounding land, at the same time her basket preserves the radiant splendor of birch.”

steel weaving by Kyoko Kumai

31kk Kyoko Kumai, Sen Man Na Yu Ta, stainless steel filaments, 44″ x 38″ x 7.75″, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

A strikingly different sensibility is evident in Sen Man Na Yu Ta, Kyoko Kumai’s wall sculpture of stainless steel. The steel filaments, mass-produced in a factory, are inorganic and monotonous by themselves, but when they are woven, twisted or bundled together they take on an organic appearance that serves to express various aspects of wind, air and light.

Glass and paper boat

32jb Glass Boat, Jane Balsgaard, plantpaper, twigs and glass, 14″ x 13″ x 1.5″ 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

Our third choice, Jane Balsgaard’s Glass Boat, deftly blends a sail of lightly processed handmade paper and a hull of glossy glass. Finally, in Process Piece, Ed Rossbach takes on construction, deconstruction and reconstruction in one work. First, he printed an image onto fabric, then he unraveled the fabric and finally re-constructed it into a new version. “I thought he was crazy,” his wife, artist Katherine Westphal told us.
The four works create a fine sentiment for 2017: Seek the splendid, airy, shiny and light; be willing to re-envision and remake.

Ed Rossbach Weaving

159r Process Piece, Ed Rossbach, 15″ x 15″ x 2.5″, 1981. Photo by Tom Grotta

SOFA Chicago Sneak Peek; Judy Mulford’s Empty Chairs Series

October 31, 2016 0 Comment
Judy Mulford 80 Empty Chairs Photo by Tom Grotta

Judy Mulford 80 Empty Chairs Photo by Tom Grotta

At SOFA Chicago this week, artist Judy Mulford will present her remarkable room-sized mixed media installation Empty Chairs. The installation features a central sculpture entitled “What now?” she said. “What now?…What now?…What now?…” surrounded by 80 individually rendered chairs in frames. The intimate and emotional sculpture chronicles domestic life. The dollhouse chairs, dolls, buttons and embellishments used in the work were collected by the artist from family members, flea markets, antique stores and friends. Mulford spent a year on the work, which marks her upcoming 80th birthday. She has also produced a limited-edition book, 80 Empty Chairs, as a part of this project.

Mulford’s sculptures have been exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery and The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. and the 12th International Biennial of Tapestry in Hungary. Mulford’s work is informed by her studies of the basket-making culture of Micronesia, particularly on the islands of Truk and Ulithi. She was a member of the studio team for Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in the 1970s.

Judy Mulford Portrait in her studio. Photo by Tom Grotta

Judy Mulford Portrait in her studio. Photo by Tom Grotta

Mulford will speak at her Special Exhibition booth, SE221, and sign copies of her book at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, November 4th. Mulford will also be at browngrotta arts, Booth 921 at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday the 6th and will be available for questions and conversation throughout SOFA.

SOFA Chicago, Artists Wall to Wall: Lectures, Booksignings and Booth Q&As

October 28, 2016 0 Comment

At this year’s SOFA Chicago, browngrotta arts has planned a full calendar of activities. Hope to see you at one or more of our special events:

Friday, November 4th

Norma Minkowitz and Nancy Koenigsberg. Photos by Tom Grotta

Norma Minkowitz and Nancy Koenigsberg. Photos by Tom Grotta

Fiber Art in Three Dimensions: A History and Discussion of Fiber Art Off the Wall, including Norma Minkowitz and Nancy Koenigsberg
10:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Lecture Room B

Artist Q&A: Norma Minkowitz
2 p.m.
browngrotta arts, booth 921
Norma Minkowitz’ work is intense and finely wrought, merging sculpture, stitching, crochet and fine pen-and-ink drawing. Join us at browngrotta arts’ Booth 921 at 2 p.m. Friday when Minkowitz will answer questions about her inspiration and process.

Art in the Future: A Look at Collecting Fragile and

Jennifer Falck Linssen

Jennifer Falck Linssen at SOFA Chicago

Unusual Materials, including Jennifer Falck Linssen
2:30 – 3:30 pm
Lecture Room A
As contemporary artists experiment with innovative techniques and non-traditional materials, a collector must consider the fragility and instability of these new works. Collectors of Studio Art Glass, CEO of The Conservation Center, Executive Vice President, Business Development, Gurr Johns, Gallery Director, TAI Modern and artist Jennifer Falck Linssen, browngrotta arts, will address issues of preservation and conservation in a panel moderated by Michelle Impey, AVP – Fine Art & Collections Manager, Risk Consulting Group, Chubb Personal Risk Services.

Judy Mulford in her studio. Photo by Tom Grotta

Judy Mulford in her studio. Photo by Tom Grotta

Judy Mulford: Special Booth Talk/Book Signing
3:30 p.m.
Special Booth SE221
Judy Mulford incorporates photographs, words, beads, figures, antique silver, buttons and more into her knotted and woven sculptures that celebrate the family. Mulford will speak about her remarkable room-sized mixed media installation, Empty Chairs, and sign copies of her limited edition book, 80 Empty Chairs.

Artist Q&A: Jennifer Falck Linssen
5 p.m.
browngrotta arts, booth 921
The foundation of Jennifer Falck Linssen’s artwork lies in the ancient Japanese paper and textile traditions of katagami, stencil carving and katazome. Join us at browngrotta arts’ Booth 921 at 5 p.m. Friday when Linssen will answer questions about her inspiration and process.

Saturday, November 5th

Marian Bijlenga SOFA Chicago 2008 photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga SOFA Chicago 2008 photo by Tom Grotta

Marian Bijlenga: 30 Years of Making, Lecture
11:30 a.m
Lecture Room C
Fiber artist Marian Bijlenga explores her inspirations in creating wall sculptures from delicately worked elements of horse hair, viscose, paper, glass and fish scales, how she balances intuitive and structured creative impulses, her 30 years of making, and what lies ahead.

Marian Bijlenga Book Signing
12:30- 1:30 p.m.
browngrotta arts Booth 921
Marian Bijlenga will sign copies of her limited edition book:
Marian Bijlenga: MINIATURES: An Autobiographical Archive, reflecting 30 years of work

Artist Q&A: Christine Joy
2 p.m.
browngrotta arts booth 921
Christine Joy’s baskets of willow, maple, cottonwood and osier appear as if they are moving, as she intends, growing and animated, as though the shapes had been cut from a tree or pulled from moving water. Join us at browngrotta arts’ Booth 921 at 2 p.m. Friday when Joy will answer questions about her inspiration and process.

Grethe Sørensen at browngrotta arts 10th Wave III opening. Photo by Tom Grotta

Grethe Sørensen at browngrotta arts 10th Wave III opening. Photo by Tom Grotta

Artist Q&A: Grethe Sørensen
3 p.m.
browngrotta arts booth 921
Grethe Sørensen explores digital technologies to create her tapestries that combine weaving and video, selecting and manipulating still images to create a poetic universe of pixels, headlights, traffic lights, neon shop and advertising signs meticulously rendered in cotton thread. Join us at browngrotta arts’ Booth 921 at 3 p.m. Saturday when Sorenson will answer questions about her inspiration and process.

Sunday, November 6th

Artist Q&A: Judy Mulford
1 p.m.
browngrotta art
Judy Mulford incorporates photographs, words, beads, figures, antique silver, buttons and more into her knotted and woven sculptures that celebrate the family. Join us at 1 p.m. on Sunday the 6th at browngrotta arts, Booth 921 when the artist will speak about her remarkable room-sized mixed media installation, Empty Chairs and her artistic process and sign copies of her limited edition book, 80 Empty Chairs.

Art Al Fresco: Gyöngy Laky and Chris Drury Create Environmental Art

June 14, 2016 0 Comment
Chris Drury, The Wandering, Environmental art installation drawing

Chris Drury, The Wandering

In May, Chris Drury began work on The Wandering, an environmental work of art commissioned by the State of Western Australia for the site of the new Perth Stadium, sited on the south bank of the Swan River, overlooking the city to the west. “The work is a meandering dry-stone wall which emerges from a stone whirlpool on the isthmus of the lake to the south, winds its way north in a series of loops, and descends again into the earth on the higher ground, “ says Drury. It appears to have no beginning or end, arising from the high ground in the north and plunging into the stone whirlpool to the south (or vice versa). The wall is 190 meters long and covers a distance of 90 meters as the crow flies.

Chris Drurys The Wandering being built

Chris Drury The Wandering under construction, photo by Chris Drury

This structure, however, is no ordinary wall, for it will be built as a Cornish dry-stone hedge, which is a growing, living thing: a miniature ecosystem and biodiverse habitat. In the UK some of these walls have stood for a thousand years because they are constructed with an earth infill, allowing plants to grow and give rise to habitat for insects etc, eventually binding the structure together. Here in Perth, I adapted the work to the Western Australian climate by planting the wall with indigenous drought-resistant plants, which will be irrigated.” You can see more images on Drury’s website: http://chrisdrury.co.uk/the-wandering/.

Gyöngy Laky Rope-Polcenigo-Caneva Italy

Gyöngy Laky Rope-Polcenigo-Caneva. photo by: Francesca Giannelli (6/12/16)

In May, Gyöngy Laky was a Special Guest at Humus Park, International Biennale V of Land Art, with a collaborating artist, Paul Discoe, northeast of Venice, Italy. Humus Park is Italy’s most important Land Art event. The Land Art is an artistic form using natural materials. Some of its numbers: 13 days, 3 locations, more than 80 artists from 13 countries all over the world, 8 art schools and academies involved. Laky was there for two weeks working onsite. “ Arriving in magical Polcenigo I heard its water symphony… beautiful, clean blue/green water flowing everywhere,” Laky says. “The sound was intoxicating and it explained the verdant green foliage all around. The sun was warm and bright. It was an awe-inspiring place. And, later when it rained and rained, it was still beautiful and I understood even more about the invigorating water gushing from the mountains.” Laky and Paul Discoe, who she invited to be her art partner, very quickly agreed on a project. “We both have worked extensively with trees and materials from trees,” explains Laky, “and we also both share a deep interest in shimenawa – rice straw ropes used in the Shinto religion to adorn sacred places. We found a magnificent tree overlooking the water and reflecting in it. We wanted to honor it. We decided to make rope from the hay provided to adorn the tree. It occurred to us that we were engaged in making something that was, probably, similar to what the ancient inhabitants of that lake dwelling site most likely made also. Rope making with plant fiber dates back to prehistoric times. We were connecting with the land and its history in, yet, another aspect.” See the artists at work at Humus Park on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vwJg1ZYATw&feature=youtu.be&app=desktop. You can also see — and own — smaller scale works by Gyöngy Laky and Chris Drury in Green for the Get Go: International Basketmakers, at the Morris Museum, Morristown, New Jersey through June 26, 2016. All the works are for sale and we have additional works on our website. For more information: http://www.morrismuseum.org/current-exhibitions/.

Gyongy Laky Pordenone-wheelbarrow Italy

Gyongy Laky Pordenone, photo by Pat van Boeckel, Rerun Produkties, Holland

Make a Day of It: Artboom and Events Nearby

April 24, 2016 0 Comment
pictured works by: Christine Joy, Debra Sachs and Lilla Kulka; Photo by Tom Grotta; browngrotta arts

pictured works by: Christine Joy, Debra Sachs and Lilla Kulka; Photo by Tom Grotta; browngrotta arts

Artboom: Celebrating Artists, Mid-Century, Mid-Career opens at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut next Saturday April 30th, 12 -6 p.m. The exhibition is open through May 8th; hours from May 1st to May 8th are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., earlier or later by appointment. When you are in our neighborhood, there are other art events that are well worth visiting:

Wilton Historical Society Basket Exhibition

Wilton Historical Society Basket Exhibition

The Wilton Historical Society, just down the road from bga in Wilton at 224 Danbury Road/Rt. 7, has
Hickory, Ash and Reed: Traditional Baskets, Contemporary Makers, http://www.wiltonhistorical.org/exhibitions.html on exhibit, which showcases several baskets by the late Marian Hildebrandt, whose work is represented by browngrotta arts, along with work by Jonathan Kline, Stephen Zeh, Lois Russell and Kari Lonning. Curated by Shawna Barrett, the works by contemporary basketmakers who use natural materials like brown ash, black ash, hickory, willow and reed are thoughtfully displayed aside unique historic baskets from the Society’s permanent collection. The Historical Society is closed Mondays.

Davis Brooks: Continuous Service Altered Daily, exhibit at the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut. Photo by Tom Grotta

Davis Brooks: Continuous Service Altered Daily, exhibit at the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut. Photo by Tom Grotta

From May 1st, Davis Brooks: Continuous Service Altered Daily, will be on exhibit at the Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut: http://aldrichart.org/article/continuous-service-altered-daily just north of us at 258 Main Street/Ridgefield Road, Ridgefield, Connecticut. “The stunning array of dismantled John Deere combine parts, exhibited in a diverse system of presentation, are designated according to the ecosystem service they represent, making it impossible to conceive of the combine in its entirety or to determine the machine’s complete functionality; similarly, an ecosystem integrates innumerable processes, many of them intangible or undetectable, into one whole, making it impossible for us to conceive of a life unfolding within it.” The Aldrich is closed on Tuesdays.

Paul Villinski, Self-Portrait (Detail), 2014, Steel, birds nest, 68 x 20 x 8 inches Courtesy of the artist and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York

Paul Villinski, Self-Portrait (Detail), 2014, Steel, birds nest, 68 x 20 x 8 inches
Courtesy of the artist and Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York

The Nest, an exhibition of art in nature, at the Katonah Museum of Art, 134 Jay Street/Route 22, Katonah, New York, provides an unexpected lens through which to observe the fascinating parallels between human and animal behavior, raising timely questions about the survival of the birds and their habitats in our increasingly fragile ecological world http://www.katonahmuseum.org/exhibitions/TheNest/ The Katonah Museum is closed on Mondays.

Art Update: April Openings and Closings Here and Abroad

April 20, 2016 0 Comment
Beyond the Trees: Dona Look and Dorothy Gill Barnes. Photo courtesy of the Wood Turning Center

Beyond the Trees: Dona Look and Dorothy Gill Barnes. Photo courtesy of the Wood Turning Center

It’s a Spring chock full of interesting exhibitions in the US and abroad. You’ve have just a few days remaining to see Beyond the Trees: Dona Look and Dorothy Gill Barnes http://centerfor
artinwood.org/
exhibition/dorothy-
gill-barnes-dona-
look-beyond-the-
trees/ at the Center for Wood Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two browngrotta artist are featured in this exhibition, which closes April 23rd.

photo by Tom Grotta, Green From the Get Go, Morris Museum

Photo by Tom Grotta, Green From the Get Go, Morris Museum

Their work can also be seen through June 26th at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey in Green From the Get Go: Contemporary International Basketmakers, curated by browngrotta arts. In New York, New York, the Experiments in Art & Digital Technologies includes innovative bga artist Lia Cook, http://www.liacook.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/EADT-Press.pdf who will lecture in New York on May 5th https://creativetechweek2016.sched.org/event/6DN5/weaving-and-digital-innovation.

12 of 32 Lia Cook Su Series Tapestries

12 of 32 Lia Cook Su Series Tapestries

Work by Lia Cook is also front and center in a San Francisco, California exhibition, Lines that Tie: Carol Beadle and Lia Cook http://sfmcd.org/press-release-lines-that-tie/ the exhibition is curated by bga artist, Deborah Valoma. Cook will lecture there tomorrow, April 21st. Identify Yourself, in Honolulu, Hawaii http://honolulumuseum
.org/art/exhibitions/
15320-identify_yourself/, which closes this week, on April 24th, also features work by Lia Cook. Two events in Wilton, Connecticut to attend. Hickory, Ash and Reed: Traditional Baskets, Contemporary Makersat the Wilton Historical Society, http://www.wiltonhistorical.
org/exhibitions.html, Includes several baskets by the late Marian Hildebrandt, whose work is represented by browngrotta arts and whose work is also currently on exhibit in Green from the Get: International Contemporary Basketmakers at the Morris Museum.

Detail of Nordic Gold by Birgit Birkkjaer. Photo by Tom Grotta

Detail of Nordic Gold by Birgit Birkkjaer. Photo by Tom Grotta

Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mide-Century, Mid-Career is open at browngrotta arts for just 10 days, from April 30th-May 8th https://arttextstyle.com/
2016/04/19/art-barn-
2016-artboom-
celebrating-artists-
mid-century-mid-
career-wilton-ct-
april-30th-may-8th/.

MER LUMINEUSE and J'AI MA LA MER S'ILLUMINER by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Photo by Tom Grotta

Mer Lumineuse and J’ai Ma La Mer S’illuminer
by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. Photo by Tom Grotta

In the halls of the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland, Nomadic tapestries, an exhibition of some of the extensive contemporary collection of the Toms Pauli Foundation, traces in the evolution of textile art from the 1960s to 2000s,
http://www.musees.vd.ch/en/museem-beaux-arts/exhibition/past-exhibitions/tapisseries-nomades-fondation-toms-pauli-collection-xxe-siecle/. browngrotta arts has work available by twelve of the artists included in this very significant international survey of art textiles — Magadalena Abakanowicz, Lia Cook, Sheila Hicks, Jan Hladik, Ritzi Jacobi, Naomi Kobayashi, Maria Laszkiewicz, Jolanta Owidzka, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Wojciech Sadley, Sherri Smith and Hideho Tanaka. The exhibition will be on view through May 29th. In Tilburg, the Netherlands the Textile Museum is hosting a major retrospective of American artist and textile pioneer Sheila Hicks, born 1934 http://www.textielmuseum.nl. Internationally renowned, thanks to her participation in numerous large solo and group exhibitions, this is her first appearance in the Netherlands for many years. The exhibition extends through June 5, 2016.

Art in the Barn 2016: Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career, Wilton, CT, April 30th – May 8th

April 19, 2016 0 Comment
photo includes work by Merja Winqvist, Jiro Yonezawa and Włodzimierz Cygan

photo includes work by Merja Winqvist, Jiro Yonezawa and Włodzimierz Cygan

In less than two weeks, browngrotta will open its 2016 Art in the Barn exhibition, Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid Career. This year’s exhibition brings together “baby boomers,” 33 artists born between 1946 and 1964, who are mid-way into their lives of making art. We’ve asked them to provide us work that is reflective; work that tells us where they’ve come from or where they hope to go; work that illustrates influences, roads not taken, and the like. Or, work that reflects on being a boomer, perhaps— part of the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to that time and the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve. It was a generation that created music and literature in the 60s and art — including fiber art — to describe the change this generation was determined to bring about.

14cg The Iron Curtain, Ceca Georgieva, Burrdoch burrs,19" x 16" x 5", 2016

14cg The Iron Curtain, Ceca Georgieva, Burrdoch burrs,19″ x 16″ x 5″, 2016

The results are contemplative and thought provoking. Ceca Georgieva’s sculpture, The Iron Curtain, reflects her life in a Communist and post-Communist state. Karyl Sisson’s In Stitches, harkens back to her family’s past in New York’s Fashion industry — her grandmother made hats and beaded bags in New York’s lower East side; her mother spent 25 years as a buyer for the specialty store Bonwit Teller. For Lewis Knauss, this stage of his career means seeing unrealized ideas (sketches, notes, photos) and failed work in a new light. “I am happier with chaos,” he says, “the way I need to give up a bit more control of the outcome, flaws and in nature, the beauty of disaster. I guess it is acknowledging the approaching wall. I enjoy working at my pace rather than a deadline enforced one, allowing things to just happen, evaluating the outcomes as I finish each work. Keeping and discarding.” The Artist’s Opening for Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career is Saturday, April 30th from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The hours of the exhibition from May 1st through May 8th are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. — just call if you’d like to come by earlier or later: 203.834.0623. browngrotta arts’ contemporized 1895 barn is at 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897. For more information and a complete list of artists visit browngrotta.com: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php. A catalog, Artboom: Celebrating Artists Mid-Century, Mid-Career will be available from browngrotta.com after May 1st.

pictured works by: Birgit Birkkjaer; Grethe Sorensen; Grethe Wittrock; Gudrun Pagter; Mary Merkel-Hess; Tom grotta; browngrotta arts

pictured works by: Birgit Birkkjaer; Grethe Sorensen; Grethe Wittrock; Gudrun Pagter; Mary Merkel-Hess; Tom grotta; browngrotta arts

Press News: Green from the Get Go – browngrotta arts’ 44th catalog is now available.

April 13, 2016 0 Comment

GreenCover-1We are excited to announce that our 44th catalog, Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers, is now available at browngrotta.com. The catalog, photographed by Tom Grotta, contains 132 full-color photos of artwork from browngrotta arts’ current installation, Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers, on exhibit at the Morris Museum, in Morristown, New Jersey through June 26th. Green from the Get Go showcases more than 75 works by 33 artists from Canada, Europe, Japan, Scandinavia and the US — innovators in the genre of 20th-century art basketry as well as emerging talents. These artists take their inspiration from nature and the history of basketry but their inventive works challenge our conceptions of what a “basket” can be. In Naoko Serino’s Generating 12.2, for example, cylinders of spun jute, of varying degrees of transparency, stand in rhythmic, ethereal balance. The artist hopes that “an expression and dialogue will be produced, that the space would be created/generated in which there is a comfortable energy, expressions that will continue to exist in balance with the surroundings.” In Stéphanie Jacques’s Wall / Mur, we get not one basket, but a honeycomb — nearly a dozen basket spheres made of willow. Jane Balsgard’s Barkbaden boat shape is more literal — a willow frame covered in handmade paper — but the result is unexpected.

Naoko Serino Generating 12

The artists in Green from the Get Go, “have a strong connection to the land, whether cultivated fields or wild prairies, marches, or forests,” writes Jane Milosch in her essay, The Entanglement of Nature and Man. “Several cultivate, harvest, and prepare the materials from which they construct their work. They have a respectful awareness of the origin of things, and of the interconnected aspects of nature and ecosystems, which are both fragile and resilient.” In 2011, Milosch, Director, Provenance Research Initiative, Smithsonian Institution and former curator, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, approached browngrotta arts about mounting an exhibition featuring artists working in basket forms. Discussions quickly coalesced around designing an exhibition that would highlight these artists’ processes and techniques and shed light on their intimate connection to nature. Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers, the exhibition and catalog, featuring dozens of baskets, vessels and related objects of natural materials — bark, twigs, willow, cedar and bamboo, was the result.

Dona Look Basket #976

The work in Green from the Get Go reveals a heightened sensitivity to the physicality of materials, one that honors the stewardship of nature by the artists’ choice and use of materials. That practice is under challenge, however. For Dona Look, collecting and preparation of the birch bark for her work is weather dependent and labor intensive. That process has grown more difficult as white birch trees, once prevalent in northern Wisconsin, have become harder to find due to climate change. Christine Joy has begun collecting a great amount of red mountain maple, as her neighbors in Montana remove it to protect their homes from forest fires. Mountain maple in it’s first year of growth is a beautiful burgundy and not too branchy, she says, but she did not use it until it was seen as a fire hazard. “The environmental factor of fire affected my material choices,” says the artist.

ChristineJoy.Greenfromthegetgo“These baskets feel complete, and at the same moment they invite human interaction and interpretation,” writes Milosch. Explore them in the catalog (www.browngrotta.com/Pages/c40.php.) and at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey from now until June 26th; www.morrismuseum.org/current-exhibitions/.