Category: Obituary

In Memory: John McQueen

September 17, 2025 0 Comment

This week we share another testament to the profound influence that John McQueen has had within the art world. The recollection below is from Hideko Numata, the curator of the influential exhibitions Weaving the World: the Art of Linear Construction at the Yokohama Museum of Art in Japan in 1999.

Last month, I received the deeply saddening news from Hisako Sekijima that John McQueen had passed away. I was filled with a profound sense of sorrow and regret. Meeting John McQueen remains one of the most meaningful and unforgettable experiences of my career as a curator.

John McQueen's sketches
Twig sketches behind John McQueen’s Saratoga New York’s workbench. Photo by Tom Grotta

I first encountered John McQueen around 1997, while I was planning the 10th-anniversary exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art. I was responsible for the crafts section. At that time, I had the uncomfortable sense that there was a noticeable divide between fine art and crafts in the Japanese art world. Even in our museum, which focused on modern and contemporary art, the crafts section was often undervalued, and I frequently found myself frustrated by these limitations. I began to wonder whether it might be possible to curate an exhibition that transcended traditional art categories and explored the origins of artistic formation.

Hisako Sekijima’s book, The Formula of Basketry
Hisako Sekijima’s book, The Formula of Basketry

It was during this period that I came across Hisako Sekijima’s book, The Formula of Basketry. Although Japan has a longstanding tradition of bamboo craft, her book transformed my understanding of basketry—not simply as the weaving of plant materials into containers, but as a medium of dynamic expression with limitless potential. Basketry, I realized, could incorporate not only natural elements but also paper, wire, and other materials, to create both flat and sculptural forms from linear elements.

John Mcqueen Workshop Gakugei
John McQueen Workshop in Japan, courtesy of the Yokohama Museum of Art

Hisako Sekijima began making baskets in Japan, but her time in the United States from 1975 to 1979 exposed her to basketry as an art form. She was captivated by the spirit of freedom and experimentation she found there. Participating in John McQueen’s workshop during that period was a turning point for her. Her vivid recollections in the book sparked my own interest in both McQueen’s work and the artist himself.

When I first encountered his art, I was immediately struck by its originality. McQueen used a wide range of materials and weaving techniques to create abstract forms, alphabetic characters, and large-scale figures of people and animals. His works were not functional baskets but powerful sculptures—three-dimensional expressions of contemporary art. The materials and weaving methods themselves appeared to alter the forms and movements they expressed. They overturned my preconceived notions of sculpture.

The act of weaving — strands forming two- or three-dimensional shapes — is one of the most fundamental, universal methods of making. Practiced globally since ancient times, it holds an infinite capacity for expression. I felt it could offer a way to bridge the gap between fine art and craft. This realization led me to curate the exhibition Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, which brought together works from both craft fields such as basketry and textiles, and contemporary art that used linear or woven elements.

Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction
Installation shot of Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, courtesy of the Yokohama Museum of Art

For this exhibition, John McQueen contributed one bird’s nest-like piece and two human-shaped sculptures. The bird’s nest-like structure was constructed from short wooden branches inserted and layered to form a structure that, while sturdy, appeared almost fragile—like it might collapse at any moment. The human figures were created using branches and vines secured with plastic cable ties. One figure was made by weaving taut, slender vines into an airy yet resilient human shape. It maintained a strong presence, offering glimpses through its woven mesh to the inner space and the world beyond. The other was composed by densely interweaving branches to fill the interior form. Although it was structurally solid, it lacked the gravitas of stone or bronze, instead possessing a lighthearted, even humorous character. McQueen’s work effortlessly transcended the boundaries between sculpture and craft.

Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction
Installation shot of Weaving the World, Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, courtesy of the Yokohama Museum of Art

The exhibition featured artists from Europe, the United States, and Japan, spanning both the craft and contemporary art worlds. These included browngrotta arts gallery artists such as Norma Minkowitz, Markku Kosonen, Toshio Sekiji, and Hisako Sekijima; sculptors like Richard Deacon and Martin Puryear; installation artists working with natural materials, including Andy Goldsworthy and Ludwika Ogorzelec; Supports/Surfaces artists like François Rouan; and conceptual artists such as Rosemarie Trockel and Margo Mensing. Though diverse in practice, they were united in their exploration of “line” as a medium – unfolding into inner landscapes, social commentary, and artistic forms Viewers could deeply appreciate the richness of art created by weaving linear materials as they moved through the exhibition space.

workshop participants Weaving Yokohama
Workshop participants Weaving Yokohama, Crossing Paths, courtesy of the Yokohama Museum of Art

During the exhibition, we held a three-day public workshop titled “Weaving Yokohama, Crossing Paths” led by John McQueen and Margo Mensing. Takahiro Kinoshita, an educator of the Yokohama Museum of Art’s education group, organized this workshop. He spent an entire year coordinating the event with the two artists. Fifty participants and twenty-three volunteers took part. On the first day, there was an introduction to the workshop, consecutive lectures from McQueen, Mensing, and Sekijima. The following two days were dedicated to creation, taking place in the museum’s open-air portico, where the public could observe the process.

Weaving Yokohama, Crossing Paths
Weaving Yokohama Crossing Paths workshop, courtesy of the Yokohama Museum of Art

The workshop used bottom trawl nets previously employed by Yokohama’s fishermen. Working in pairs, participants traced human shapes onto the nets, cut them out, and wove various materials into the forms. On the first day, they completed the human-shaped silhouettes. The second day focused on filling the interior spaces by weaving in different materials. Though more challenging than expected, the collaborative process allowed each pair to create a unique piece through trial, connection, and creativity. Even beginners were able to experience the satisfaction of shaping and completing something with their own hands. Each work reflected its creators—different in material, method, and spirit—shining with individuality.

The exhibition and workshop were warmly received by the public, and the exhibition was honored with that year’s Ringa Award for the outstanding exhibition that year. I believe that by focusing on the elemental act of weaving, visitors were able to rediscover the joy of form-making and expression—beyond the confines of any genre.

I remain deeply grateful to John McQueen. He reminded me that even the most humble materials and methods can give rise to profound beauty and meaning. His inspiration continues to live on, not only in his works but in all of us who had the honor of working with him.

May he rest in peace.
Hideko Numata
Professor, Showa University of Music
Former Chief Curator of the Yokohama Museum of Art Curator,
Weaving the World: Contemporary Art of Linear Construction, 
Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan 1999

Lives Well-Lived: John McQueen

August 1, 2025 3 Comments
John McQueen Harvesting Willow
John McQueen harvesting willow. Photo by Tom Grotta

We were deeply saddened to learn of the death of John McQueen last week. He was a remarkable artist. We had long admired his work from afar and over the years had placed several works that he showed at other galleries. We got to know him personally when he began to exhibit with browngrotta arts more than 15 years ago. He visited us in Wilton on several occasions and we traveled to upstate New York to see him and photograph him at work.

Happenstance, John McQueen
Detail: 82jm Happenstance, John McQueen, willow, waxes string,22.5″ x 8.5″ x 8.75″, 2011. Photo by Tom Grotta

McQueen created three-dimensional items of twigs, branches, bark, and sometimes plastic and cardboard, all of material he harvested and collected. These objects included books, fish, birds, lions, and human figures, and vessels and structures, some basket like, others not.  McQueen insisted that he was not a sculptor, but a basketmaker. Containment was a consistent interest. “Baskets connect with the definition of a container — a very broad concept. This room is a container. I am a container. The earth is being contained by its atmosphere. This is so open. I don’t need to worry about reaching the end of it.” (Quoted on the relationship in the catalog for his solo exhibition at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Language of Containment, in 1992).

Untitled #88, John McQueen
64jm Untitled #88, John McQueen, elm bark and maple, 14” x 14” x 10.5”, 1979. Photo by Tom Grotta

McQueen pushed the boundaries of his art form of choice throughout his working life. He created forms of pieced bark, using forms made of cardboard, “paintings” of plastic contained within frames of twigs and branches, and integrated sly and subtle messages throughout his works. Words entered his works in 1979 in Untitled #88, in which a web of words creates the container in part and conveys an idea — “Always is always a ways away.” His subsequent works abounded with puns, rebuses, and messages to be deciphered.

Falling Fruit, John McQueen
20jm Falling Fruit, John McQueen, sticks and string on a wood grid, 40” x 48” x 12”, 2014. Photo by Tom Grotta

Man’s fruitless efforts to control nature were a frequent subject of McQueen’s art. As Vicki Halper observed in The Language of Containment, for McQueen “[t]he basket becomes an agent for investigating the fragile truce between humans and nature.” In Falling Fruit, for example, tiny stick figures are mounted beside sharks and palm trees made of twigs.  We may think we can control our world, but McQueen’s camouflage-like scene suggests otherwise. As Nature does, McQueen offers surprising combinations that remind us that life is not predictable. 

1000 Leaves, John McQueen
49jm 1000 Leaves, John McQueen, willow, waxed linen, 27″ x 48″ x 48″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

In 2022, McQueen decided to take on a project that would take him a year. This was an approach regularly taken by his life partner, artist Margo Mensing, who would choose a subject — generally a person — and spend a year creating artworks, poetry, performances, and multi-media installations in response. For McQueen, the result of his year’s work was 1000 Leaves, an assemblage of individually crafted structures that paid homage to trees, the source of the material that gave life to his work.

A Tree and Its Skin Again, John McQueen
78jm A Tree and Its Skin Again, John McQueen, mixed media, 30″ x 20.25″ x 8.25″, 2006. Photo by Tom Grotta

McQueen was born in Oakland, Illinois in 1943. He received a Bachelor’s degree from the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida (where Jim Morrison was his roommate). After college he went to New Mexico where his interest in basketmaking began. Courses in weaving were a logical entry point to basketry so he enrolled in the Master’s program at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, where he studied with Adela Akers among others. He received many awards in his career including an artist fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, a United States/Japan Friendship Commission Fellowship, a Virginia A. Groot Foundation Award, the Master of the Medium Award from the James Renwick Alliance, and the Gold Medal from the American Craft Council. His work is found in numerous permanent collections, including that of the Museum of Arts and Design, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway, Detroit Institute of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

Not Believable, John McQueen
59jm Not Believable, John McQueen, woven willow, plastic, 20.25″ x 41″ x 5″, 2005. Photo by Tom Grotta

McQueen’s art stirs powerful feelings in viewers, forcing them to think about construction and words, metaphysically and literally.  “McQueen’s genius lies in finding a simple declarative means of speaking about paradox, essences, and fundamental truth,” Elizabeth Broun, then-director of the National Museum of American Art observed. His genius will be greatly missed.

Lives Well-Lived: Lija Rage

March 26, 2025 0 Comment
Portrait of Lija Rage
Lija Rage in London in 2019. Photo by Baiba Osite

Sadly, this week we lost another artist, Lija Rage (1948 – 2025), who has worked with browngrotta arts for more than 10 years. Rage was a talented designer and fiber artist. Her creative life has spanned important periods in Latvian art. 

Orange tapestry by Lija Rage
2lr Animal, Lija Rage, silk, metal thread, and flax, 46″ x 65″, 2006. Photo by Tom Grotta

While studying at the Art Academy of Latvia, from 1968 to 1976, Lija Rage worked as a costume designer. Rage graduated from the Textile Art Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1973. After working for the theatre for 15 years and realizing costumes and stage design for about 60 performances, Rage wanted to create individual works. Her artistic influences were many. “I am influenced by different cultures,” she wrote. “I plunge into them with the help of literature. I am particularly interested in ancient cultures — drawing on the walls of caves in different parts of world, Eastern culture with its mysterious magic, drawings of runes in Scandinavia, Tibet and the mandala, Egyptian pyramid drawings. World culture seems close and colorful to me due to its diversity.”

Home, mixed media tapestry by Lija Rage
5lr Home, Lija Rage, mixed media, wooden sticks, linen and copper, 75″ x 71″. Photo by Tom Grotta

Nature played a role in determining Rage’s color palette. For her exhibition, Colours, at the prestigious Mark Rothko Museum, she wrote, “Green – the woods outside my window; blue – the endless variety of the sea; orange – the sun in a summer sky; brown, grey and black – fresh furrows and the road beneath the melting snow; red – the roses in our gardens. The colors in my work are drawn from the splendor of Latvian nature.” For her work Home, she turned to her immediate environs, “My home, which inspired this work,” she wrote, “is a fishing village with wooden houses and boats painted in the sun and the salty sea, their special gray.”

Lija Rage detail
7lr Home-II, detail, Lija Rage, mixed media, wooden sticks, linen and copper, 53″ x 38″, 2020. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Throughout her creative life, Lija Rage found the dynamics of Latvia’s cultural environment and art centers were insufficient for the creative ambitions of her nation’s artists and the breadth of their creativity. As a solution, Rage actively participated in art events around the world, drawing inspiration from exhibitions held abroad. She regularly participated in Latvian, Baltic, and international competitions and exhibitions.  Her work was featured in several exhibitions at browngrotta arts including, Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related Countries; Stimulus: art and its inception; art + identity: an international view, and Field Notes: an art survey. “I believe that modern world culture cannot be closed,” she said. “Each of us grows up from the culture we live in, through centuries, and are further subjected to other impacts and become interwoven with the world culture influences.”

Lija Rage received a number of awards including the Grand Prix of the Baltic Applied Arts Triennial in Tallinn, Estonia (1985), Special Award of the Korean Biennial (2007), the Valparaiso Foundation Grant (2009); the Nordic Culture Point Grant (2010); Excellence Award of the 7th International Fiber Art Biennial in China (2012); and the Excellence Award of the Applied Arts Biennial in China (2014). Rage’s work is held in museum and private collections in the USA, Australia, France, Japan, Russia, Latvia, Germany, and Sweden.

Crossroads award winning tapestry
Crossroads, for which Lija Rage received an Excellence Award in 2020 at a solo exhibition at the Zana Lipkes Memorial Museum, in Riga Latvia.

In a 2020 exhibition at the Zana Lipkes Memorial Museum, in Riga, Latvia, which memorializes a family that hid Jews during World War II, Rage received an Excellence award. She offered uplifting words on that occasion, a fitting memory: “With our works and our choices, we all leave traces and footprints. Human paths intersect, and the choices we make have consequences and affect others. To life! Spread goodness.”

Lives Well Lived: Sylvia Seventy

March 19, 2025 0 Comment
Sylvia Seventy Portrait
Sylvia Seventy in her home/studio, 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

We were so sorry to learn of the passing of artist Sylvia Seventy who began her exploration of innovative techniques in papermaking in the 70s. She was a member of Northern California’s prestigious Fiberworks community, then moved to Healdsburg, California in 1973, where she taught at Becoming Independent in Berkeley and worked as a professor in the Fine Arts Department at Santa Rosa Junior College in Santa Rosa.

Bound Vessel IX by Sylvia Seventy
13ss Bound Vessel IX, Sylvia Seventy, molded recyled paper, wax, sisal cord, graphite, 11″ x 20.25″ x 20.25″, 1983. Photo by Tom Grotta

For browngrotta arts’ catalog, Stimulus: art and its inception, Seventy wrote in 2011 about her relationship to papermaking. “Paper has long been an inspiration for me,” she wrote. “Paper dolls, paper Christmas tree ornaments, scrap books, pen pal letters, stamp collecting, jigsaw puzzles, photo albums, paper snowflakes,forts made of cardboard boxes and rolling head-over-toes in giant cardboard cylindrical containers down the length of the 40-foot driveway slope to crash-stop into the garage door, are all early memories of paper becoming an essence in my life.”

Sylvia seventy portrait
Sylvia Seventy in her home/studio, 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

In 1973, when she moved north from southern California to Healdsburg, she discovered the Pomo Indian culture. She wrote of that discovery in 2012, “In my first basketry class at the local ‘Indian School,’ Mabel McKay, instructor and tribal leader, asked me if I had an awl. She showed me hers, passed down for generations. I returned to the next class with an altered antique screwdriver I turned on a grinder and then finely sanded into a very authentic awl. She was impressed, and I saw my artistic path continuing ahead of me. I still use my awl as I assemble my vessels.”

17ss Thrums, Sylvia Seventy, molded recycled paper, wax, foil, wire, beads, plastic tubing, stickers and threads, 2.5″ x 8″ x 9.75″, 2007. Photo by Tom Grotta

Seventy’s vessels were created over molds, earthy bowl shapes, embedded with bamboo, cotton cord and sisal. “When I started making my vessels, it soon became evident to me that the universal shape of what appeared to be an ancient pottery bowl was an approachable path for the viewer. With or without an art background, my bowls allowed people to let their guard down and be drawn into the complexity of the art vessel, its intricate interior and conceptual allusion.” 

Sylvia Seventy Portrait
Sylvia Seventy in her home/studio, 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

From a distance, Seventy’s works look like ceramic or stoneware. On closer inspection, their fragility is evident. Her vessels feature an accretion of items: compositions of beads, feathers, fishhooks, googly eyes, hand prints, and buttons. The walls of Seventy’s vessels contain a record number of processes, that not only mark change, but tracings of time. Her work is found in major museum collections including the Musuem of Arts and Design in New York, Erie Art Museum, Pennsylvania, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wisconsin, Oakland Museum, California, Arkansas Decorative Arts Center, Little Rock, and the Redding Art Museum, California.

Sylvia Seventy baskets
Sylvia Seventy: 21ss Looking at the Back, molded recycled paper, vintage cotton embroidered fabric, wax, wire, beads, waxed carpet thread, 3.5” x 8.5” x 8.5”, 2016; 22ss How Wild Does Your Garden Grow, molded recycled paper, wax, woven vintage wallpaper, wire, beads, brads, colored pencil, dove tail feathers. 2.75″ x 9″ x 9″, 2018; 22ss Primary Windows at 22 with Blue Spill on the Sill, molded recycled paper, wax, button drawings, buttons, beads, feathers, cotton thread, staples. 4.5″ x 13.5″ x 13.5″. 2017. Photo by Tom Grotta

Seventy’s home/studio was a fascinating collection of cultures and curiosities. It reflected her interests and held items that influenced her work. Tom and Carter Grotta were delighted to visit her and document her surroundings in 2017.

Lives Well Lived: Maggie Henton

August 16, 2024 0 Comment
Portrait Maggie Henton
Maggie Henton, August 2024. Portrait by Tom Grotta

We were so sorry to learn about the death of artist Maggie Henton in August 2024. We have been exhibiting Henton’s work since our exhibition, The British Invasion: Maggie Henton and Dail Behennah in 1994. That event featured Henton’s meticulously constructed baskets of wire and colorful cane. Their weave patterns  were developed from the study of Southeast Asian weaving techniques, and reflected her interest in rhythm, form, and the interaction between layers of pattern. Henton attended the opening of The British Invasion in Wilton, Connecticut meeting many collectors who were excited by her work.

Two Sides of Double Sided Folding Screen, interlaced birch plywood and wire, 59” x 80”, 1996. Photos by Tom Grotta

Born in 1953, Henton studied basketmaking at the London College of Furniture. Henton’s work involved more than creating baskets and objects of wood, however, it also included drawing, stitch, printmaking, photography, video, and installation. Much of Henton’s practice is developed in response to specific sites. She was interested in quality of place, and in how places are constructed and inhabited. These interests led her to complete an MA in Architecture and Spatial Culture.

Triangular Box with Lid, dyed cane wire and metal, 7” x 14” x 14”, 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

“Work is usually made in response to a specific location,” she said. “The forms the work take reflect the particularities of the site. Pieces included installations, photography, print, stitched and drawing series. Working in this way provided the stimulus for the development of new ideas, whilst the apparent restrictions (of working on site (and often out of a suitcase) are a creative challenge and a prompt to think beyond my comfort zone. I have worked at sites in various locations in Europe and extensively in Australia.” 

Rain at Dawn, birch plywood, acrylic paint, stainless steel wire, 18″ x 19″ x 4″, 2001. Photo by Tom Grotta

In recent years, Henton made work in response to museum collections, (including Hasting Museum in 2018); and textile mill buildings and their history (Sunnybank Mill in 2019). During 2020 she researched the 18th and 19th century textile trade and its legacy of mill buildings in Lancashire. Much of this work focused on investigations into the legacies of Empire, including a project concerning poverty and disease in Victorian London. 

Diamond Bowl
Diamond Bowl, Maggie Henton, dyed and painted cane and copper wire, 7.5” x 30” x 19”, 1993. Photo by Tom Grotta

In reviewing Henton’s legacy upon her death, artist Caroline Bartlett wrote, “I have found there a lifetime’s work from basketry and wood-based pieces to textile works and combinations of stitch and print, all executed with such integrity and based on thorough research of content and material.”

Maggie Henton Birch Plywood Sculptures
0206mh Untitled, Maggie Henton, laminated birch plywood, sandblasted perspex, acrylic paint, steel nuts and bolts, 14” x 11.675” x 5.275”, 2002; 0105mh Untitled, Maggie Henton, laminated birch plywood, sandblasted perspex, acrylic paint, steel nuts and bolts, 14” x 16” x 7.25”, 2001. Photo by Tom Grotta

Henton’s work is found in a number of public collections include that of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; American Craft Museum, New York, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas; Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Art, Racine, Wisconsin; Ulster Museum, Ireland; Negenoord Maaspark, Belgium; Crafts Council, London, UK; Contemporary Arts Society, UK; Calderdale Museums, Halifax, UK; Shipley Art Gallery, UK; Leicester City Art Gallery, UK; Zoology Museum, Cambridge, UK; Bankfield Museum, Halifax, UK;  the Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire, UK; Platt Hall Costume Museum, Manchester, UK; and Shoreditch Town Hall, UK. 

Lives Well-Lived: Hiroyuki Shindo (1941-2024)

July 4, 2024 0 Comment
Hiroyuki and Chikako Shindo portrait
Hiroyuki and Chikako Shindo at browngrotta arts Sheila Hicks, joined by seven artists from Japan exhibition in 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

We first met the talented and charming artist, Hiroyuki Shindo in 1995. Shindo was one of the artists in the east-west textile dialogue that Sheila Hicks crafted at browngrotta arts’ original location. Entitled Sheila Hicks, joined by seven artists from Japan, Shindo was one of the exhibition artists who created, in Hicks’ words, “strictly abstract, nonfolkloric works … Major statements in modest formats. Livable art. More than livable — inspirational and elevating, magnets of meditation.” Shindo and his wife, Chikako, came to Wilton, Connecticut from Japan, as did artist Chiyoko Tanaka, to install the exhibition with Hicks. Shindo served as an invaluable translator and witty raconteur. We learned about the virtues of cold sake, offerings made to the indigo gods, and his adventures in Broken Bow, Nebraska. (He had travelled, he told us, to Nebraska because it was where Sheila Hicks was born.) 

Indigo Thread Balls, Hiroyuki
Indigo Thread Balls, Hiroyuki Shindo, linen, cotton, indigo dye, 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

We also learned in 1995 about Shindo’s remarkable art process. Shindo worked with indigo, which he first encountered as a student at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts in the late 1960s. An older artisan had told Shindo that he was the last of 14 generations of indigo dyers — Shindo was determined to prevent this art form’s extinction.

Hemp & Cotton, Hiroyuki Shindo
21hs Hemp & Cotton, Hiroyuki Shindo, linen, handspun and handwoven, indigo dye, 82″ x 44″, 1998. Photo by Tom Grotta

Shindo used only natural indigo for his work, which involved an elaborate ritual of his own formulation. He would first ferment the dye, pour it into a cement pool that contained pebbles. Next, he would move pebbles in a trough into the configuration he liked. Finally, he would press linen or flax into the trough of pebbles and dye, revealing the shapes and blurred edges he envisioned — from areas of nearly black to nearly invivible blue shadows. Shindo also made fascinating “thread balls” of wound thread where certain areas were highlighted with dye. As Hicks described the result, ”He is painting. He is sculpting. He is creating entire environments.” The white was as important to these works as the indigo Shindo believed. “If the white is not brilliant enough, or the undyed portion is not the right proportion, the balance is broken, and so I insist, white is as important to my work as is indigo.” Once dyed, the balls were placed in a nearby stream for rinsing, a process that is beautifully filmed in the video Textile Magicians by Cristobal Zanartu.

Wall Hanging, Hiroyuki Shindo
2hs Wall Hanging, Hiroyuki Shindo, linen and handspun and handwoven, indigo, x 12″, 1995. Photo by Tom Grotta

Shindo’s work has been exhibited widely. At the North Dakota Museum of Art, he created a series of panels responding to the flat landsape of the plains. He was among the artists included in Structure and Surface: Contemporary Japanese Textiles at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and Textile Wizards from Japan at the Israel Museum of Art in Jerusalem. His work is in a large group of museum collections including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York, and Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City. In 1997, he became a professor and head of the textile department at the Kyoto College of Art. 

Two Large Indigo wall hangings by Hiroyuki Shindo
Two Large Indigo wall hangings by Hiroyuki Shindo. Photo by Tom Grotta

In 2005, Shindo founded the Little Indigo Museum, in an old thatched-roof house, in the village of Kayabuki-no-Sato, north of Kyoto. This private art museum includes examples of indigo works not only from Japan, but also from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central America — a representation of indigo dye culture from all over the world. The collection features indigo textiles found by the artist among discarded belongings, collected during field trips, and pieces received “from people along the way.”

Hiroyuki Shindo Large Wall Hanging detail.
Hiroyuki Shindo Large Wall Hanging detail. Photo by Tom Grotta

We are among the people he met along the way. He will indeed be missed.

Lives Well-Lived: Adela Akers (1933-2023)

August 23, 2023 0 Comment

We were greatly saddened to learn of the passing of celebrated artist Adela Akers on August 9, 2023 after a long illness.

Adela Akers portrait
Adela Akers portrait in her California home/studio. Photo by Tom Grotta

Akers’ journey to the US and to fiber arts was an extraordinary one. “During the Civil War in Spain my family left Spain and everything behind in 1937,” she told us in 2022 as we prepared for Allies for Art: Work from NATO-related Countries. “A right wing coup led by Francisco Franco and aided by Hitler and Mussolini. It was a brutal war, but soon was overshadowed by the World War II that it helped introduce. My family relocated in Havana, Cuba. A tale of idealism, suffering tragically doomed yet a noble cause …. I definitely grew up being very aware of wars and emigration.” 

Two Akers Weavings
Adlea Akers, 63aa Rain and Smoke, linen gauze, India ink, acrylic paint and metal foil , 30” x 22”, 2021; 54aa Dark Horizon, Adela Akers. linen, horsehair and metal, 23″ x 24″, 2016. Photo by Tom Grotta

Akers studied to be a pharmacist in Cuba, but began taking art courses while in Havana. Her family supported her switch to art. She came to the US and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, then the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, was weaver-in-residence at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina, and then taught at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia for 23 years before relocating to coastal California. Her students included Lewis Knauss, John McQueen, and Deborah Warner.

17aa Night Pyramid, Adela Akers, linen, horsehair and metal, 28” x 100”, 1999. Permanent Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Akers’ affinity for math and geometry shaped her artwork. Akers was very attached to using a loom because the process of weaving is linear and mathematical.“ [W]eaving combines structure and order, and offers me the best way to put together my visions,” she observed.  In 1965, Akers traveled to Peru as a weaving adviser to the Alliance for Progress Program and studied early Indian weaving techniques there. Pre-Columbian textiles, especially, appealed to Akers because of their mathematical and geometric properties. Her tapestry forms incorporated the subtle shaping and striping, slits, and tabs that she studied there. Architecture, especially doors which she saw as slites and walls which she saw as weaving, travel, particularly to the sea, Scandinavian weaving, the paintings of Mbuti women and Agnes Martin, and a book called The World From Above by Hanns Reich are among the many other influences Akers cited in her oral interview with Mija Reidel for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

56aa Summer and Winter, Adela Akers, sisal & linen, 54” x 66”, 1977-2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

The artist’s work evolved and advanced throughout her career. In 2015, Ezra Shales noted the sweeping impact of Aker’s ouevre: “This one artist suggests the immensity of pleasures and productive capacities for what fiber art might be and where it might go,” he observed, comparing works from 1977, 1988, and 2014 (Influence and Evolution: Fiber Art … then and now, browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT, 2015). In the 60s, Akers’ works grew larger and incorporated multiple units. In the 70s, she added sisal and jute for greater haptic and structural effects. Work from the 70s and 80s was monochromatic in subdued colors, black, brown, gray, maroon.  By the late 80s and 90s, color had returned along with a unique approach in which she created two views, each of which can only be seen clearly from opposite vantage points. When spliced together and arranged in an accordian shape, the overall images in these works shift as viewed from different angles. After leaving Tyler in 1995, Akers moved from large works of heavy fibers to more delicate materials including horsehair, linen, and recycled metal foil, which she painstakingly wove and stitched into repetitive, optical wall-works, often incorporating painting on their wefts. Shales described this body of work, “From afar, the surface image … is illusionistic and self-referential to the process of interlace, while up close a rhythm of metallic rectangles, quieter incidents that are the wrapping off of wine bottles, keeps the surface lively and unpredictable.”

8aa Compostela, Adela Akers, sisl, linen and wool, 60” x 180” x 6”, 1985. Collection of the Minneapolis Museum of Art

Adela Akers’ mastery has been widely recognized through grants and collections. In 2014, Akers was an Artist in Residence at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA. She was named a Fellow of the American Crafts Council in 2008. Fellowships, awards and grants include: Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2008); Flintridge Foundation Award (2005); Faculty Award for Creative Achievement, Temple University (1995); Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Grant (1989 and 1983); National Endowment for the Arts Award Individual Artist Fellowship (1980, 1974, 1971, 1969); New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grant (1971); and Cintas Foundation Fellowship (1968 and 1967). Her papers are at the Archives of American Art. Her works are found in numerous permanent collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; de Young Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, California; Museum of Art, Providence, Rhode Island; Detroit Institute of Art, Michigan; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; Sonoma County Museum, California; Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. 

Lives well lived: Sandra Grotta

August 30, 2021 0 Comment
Sandra Grotta at her 80th birthday party. Jewelry by David Watkins, Gerd Rothmann and Eva Eisler. Photo by Tom Grotta

browngrotta arts is devasted by the loss of Sandra Grotta, our extraordinary collector and patron and mother and grandmother. Sandy and her husband Lou have been pivotal in the growth of browngrotta arts through their advice and unerring support. Sandy graduated from the University of Michigan and the New York School of Interior Design. For four decades, she provided interior design assistance to dozens of clients — many through more than one home and office. She encouraged them to live with craft art, as she and Lou had done, placing works by Toshiko Takezu, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Helena Hernmarck, Gyöngy Laky, Markku Kosonen, Mary Merkel-Hess and many other artists in her clients’ homes. Among her greatest design talents was persuading people to de-accession pieces they had inherited, but never loved, to make way for art and furnishings that provided them joy. Sandy was a uniquely confident collector and she shared that conviction with her clients.  

Her own collecting journey began in the late 1950s, when she and Lou first stepped into the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York City after a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. “The Museum’s exhibitions, many of whose objects were for sale in its store, caused a case of love at first sight. It quickly became a founding source of many craft purchases to follow,” Sandy told Patricia Malarcher in 1982 (“Crafts,” The New York Times, Patricia Malarcher, October 24, 1982). It was a walnut table ”with heart” on view at MoCC that would irrevocably alter the collectors’ approach. The table was by Joyce and Edgar Anderson, also from New Jersey. The Grottas sought the artists out and commissioned the first of many works commissioned and acquired throughout the artists’ lifetimes, including a roll-top desk, maple server and a sofa-and-table unit that now live in browngrotta arts’ gallery space. She followed the advice she would give to others:  “When we saw the Andersons’ woodwork,” Sandy remembered, “we knew everything else had to go,” Sandy told Glenn Adamson. From the success of that first commission, the Grottas’ art exploration path was set. The Andersons introduced the Grottas to their friends, ceramists Toshiko Takaezu and William Wyman. “The Andersons were our bridge to other major makers in what we believe to have been the golden age of contemporary craft,” Sandy said, “and the impetus to my becoming our decorator.”  

Sandra Grotta in her Maplewood, NJ living room
Sandra Grotta in her Maplewood, NJ living room surrounded by works by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Peter Vouklos, William Wyman, Toshiko Takaezu, Rudy Autio, Joyce and Edgar Anderson and Charle Loloma. Photo by Tom Grotta

When Objects USA: the Johnson Wax Collection, opened in New York in 1972 at MoCC, by then renamed the American Craft Museum, the Grottas began discovering work further afield. ”Objects USA was my Bible,” Sandy told Malarcher describing how she would search out artists, ceramists, woodworkers and jewelers. A trip to Ariel, Washington, led the Grottas to commission an eight-foot-tall Kwakiutl totem pole for the front hall by Chief Don Lelooska. Sandy ordered a bracelet by Charles Loloma from a picture in a magazine. ”I always got a little nervous when the packages came, but I’ve never been disappointed,” Sandy told Malarcher. ”Craftsmen are a special breed.” Toshiko Takaezu, as an example, would require interested collectors like the Grottas to come by her studio in Princeton, NJ, a few times first to “interview” before she’d permit them to acquire special works. It took 15 years and several studio visits each year for the Grottas to convince the artist to part with the “moon pot” that anchors their formidable Takaezu collection. Jewelers Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins in the UK also became dear friends as Sandy developed a world-class jewelry collection. At one point, in a relationship that included weekly transatlantic calls, Sandy told Wendy she needed “everyday earrings.” Wendy responded with earrings for every day – seven pairs in fact. “For me, the surprise was that they found me,” says John McQueen. “I lived in Western New York state far from the hubbub of the art world.” McQueen says that he discovered they the Grotta’s were completely open to any new aesthetic experience. “from that moment, we established a strong connection, that has led to a rapport that has continued through the years – a close personal and professional relationship.”

Sandy Grotta's bust by Norma Minkowitz
Norma Minkowitz’s portrait of Sandy Grotta sourounded by artwork’s by Alexander Lichtveld, Bodil Manz, Lenore Tawney, Ann Hollandale, Kay Sekimachi, Ed Rossbach, Toshiko Takaezu, Laurie Hall. Photo by Tom Grotta

Their accumulation of objects has grown to include more that 300 works of art and pieces of jewelry by dozens of artists, and with their Richard Meier home, has been the subject of two books. The most recent, The Grotta Home by Richard Meier: A Marriage of Architecture and Craft, was photographed and designed by Tom Grotta of bga. They don’t consider themselves collectors in the traditional sense, content to exhibit art on just walls and surfaces. Sandy and Lou’s efforts were aimed at creating a home. They filled every aspect of their lives with handcrafted objects from silver- and tableware to teapots to clothing to studio jewelry and commissioned pillows, throws and canes, a direction she also recommended for her interior design clients. The result, writes Glenn Adamson in The Grotta Home,”is a home that is at once totally livable and deeply aesthetic.” Among the additional artists whose work the Grottas acquired for their home were wood worker Thomas Hucker, textile and fiber artists Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney and Norma Minkowitz, ceramists Peter Voulkos, Ken Ferguson and William Wyman and jewelers Gijs Bakker, Giampaolo Babetto, Axel Russmeyer and Eva Eisler. They have traveled to Japan, the UK, Czechoslovakia, Germany and across the US to view art and architecture and meet with artists.

Perhaps their most ambitious commission was the Grotta House, by Richard Meier. Designed to house and highlight craft and completed in 1989, it is a source of constant delight for the couple, with its shifting light, showcased views of woodlands and wildlife and engaging spaces for object installation. The Grottas were far more collaborative clients than is typical for Meier. “From our very first discussions,” Meier has written,”it was clear that their vast collection of craft objects and Sandy’s extensive experience as an interior designer would be an important in the design of the house.“ The sensitivity with which the collection was integrated into Meier’s design produced “an enduring harmony between an ever-changing set of objects and they space they occupy.” The unique synergy between objects and architecture is evident decades later, even as the collection has evolved.  Despite his “distinct — and ornament-free — visual language, Meier created a building that lets decorative objects take a leading role on the architectural stage,” notes Osman Can Yerebakan in Introspective magazine (“Tour a Richard Meier–Designed House That Celebrates American Craft,” Osman Can Yerebakan, Introspective, February 23, 2020). The house project had an unexpected benefit — a professional partnership between Sandy and Grotta House project manager, David Ling, that would result in memorable art exhibition and living spaces designed for the homes and offices of many of Sandy’s design clients.

Sandy and Lou became patrons of the American Craft Museum in 1970s. As a member of the Associates committee she organized several annual fundraisers for the Museum, including Art for the Table, E.A.T. at McDonald’s and Art to Wear, sometimes with her close friend, Jack Lenor Larsen, another assured acquirer, as co-chair. At the openings, she would sport an artist-made piece of jewelry or clothing, sometimes both, and often it was an item that arrived or was finished literally hours before the event. “I wear all my jewelry,” she told Metalsmith Magazine in 1991 (Donald Freundlich and Judith Miller, “The State of Metalsmithing and Jewelry,” Metalsmith Magazine, Fall 1991) “I love to go to a party where everyone is wearing pearls and show up in a wild necklace …. I have a house brooch by Künzli – a big red house that you wear on your shoulder. I can go to a party in a wild paper necklace and feel as good about it as someone else does in diamonds.” Sandy served on the Board of the by-then-renamed Museum of Arts and Design, stepping down in 2019. 

Portrait of Sandy Grotta
Sandra Grotta Portrait in Florida Apartment in front of sculptures by Dawn MacNutt and a tapestry by Jun Tomita

From its inception, Sandy served as a trusted advisor, cheerleader and cherished client to browngrotta arts. She introduced us to artists, to her design clients and Museum colleagues. Questions of aesthetic judgment — are there too many works in this display? too much color? does this work feel unfinished? imitative? decorative? — were presented to her for review. (She was unerring on etiquette disputes, too.) The debt we owe her is enormous; the void she leaves is large indeed. We can only say thank you, we love you and your gifts will live on.

You can learn more about Sandy’s life and legacy on The Grotta House website: https://grottahouse.com and in the book, The Grotta Home by Richard Meier: A Marriage of Architecture and Craft available from browngrotta at: https://store.browngrotta.com/the-grotta-home-by-richard-meier-a-marriage-of-architecture-and-craft/.

The family appreciates memorial contributions to the Sandra and Louis Grotta Foundation, Inc., online at https://joingenerous.com/louis-and-sandra-grotta-foundation-inc-r5yelcd or by mail to The Louis and Sandra Grotta Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 766, New Vernon, NJ 07976-0000.