Vanishing and Emerging: Hideho Tanaka’s Retrospective in Tokyo

July 29, 2013 0 Comment

photo by Tom Grotta

In 2012, the Musashino Art University Museum & Library, Tokyo, Japan hosted, Hideho Tanaka Retrospective: Vanishing and Emerging, an exhibition commemorating the retirement of craft and industrial design professor, Hideho Tanaka. The exhibition featured Tanaka’s signature sculptures made of industrial fibers. In 1985, Tanaka reformulated his notions about the nature of fiber.

VANISHING & EMERGING 2009 I, stainless steel and paper, 22 x 21cm, photo by tanaka nahoshi

VANISHING & EMERGING 2009 I, stainless steel and paper, 22 x 21cm, photo by Jun Sanbonmatsu

Since then, he explained, as part of the Beyond the Surface: Japanese Style of Making Things, he shifted his form of expression “from a longing for eternity to an embracing of things born of relationships that incessantly change and develop.” Why cloth and fiber? Tanaka explains that, “in those days I was constantly inquiring into the nature of material attractions and the necessities of expression. I then became interested in creative forms peculiar to fiber materials, which emerge in time and space and yet which also metamorphose and disappear. This was also part of my realization that there was a kind of fascination in the hierarchy that places accidentals beneath conscious things. The creation of a contrast between what vanishes and what remains, and the moving of this indoors, allows me certain special kinds of expression.

VANISHING 1995 Ⅰ Hideho Tanaka, stainless steel and paper, 27.5" x 59" x 59", photo by tanaka nahoshi

VANISHING 1995 Ⅰ
Hideho Tanaka, stainless steel and paper, 27.5″ x 59″ x 59″, photo by Jun Sanbonmatsu

These have developed into experiments in the intervention of fire into a combination of stainless steel wire (a contemporary inorganic material), and linen (an organic material).” The exhibition was accompanied by a 91-page catalog, Hideho Tanaka Retrospective: Vanishing and Emerging, which is available of $39.95 from browngrotta arts.

Intercultural Approaches: Artfully Connected at the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo

July 24, 2013 0 Comment
Artfully Connected

Artfully Connected artists and Swedish Ambassador Lars Vargö.

Earlier this year, the Embassy of Sweden in Tokyo presented Artfully Connected, a look at Sweden through the eyes of  an exciting group of artists from Japan, Korea, Sweden and the US, curated by artist

Eva Vargo Download me Korean paper cord, Korean old book paper, Japanese ink 48 x 48 cm, 2012

Eva Vargö, Download me (photo: Eric Micotto)
Korean paper cord, Korean old book paper, Japanese ink
48 x 48 cm, 2012

Eva Vargö. The artists who participated were: Young Soon CHA, Korea (Fiber),

CHO-Hikaru

CHO Hikaru, Every thing is not what it seems, Acrylic painting (Photo: Hikaru Cho), 60 × 42 cm, 2013

Hikaru CHO, Japan (Photos and videos), Miwha OH, Korea (Metalsmith – Jewelry), Hisako SEKIJIMA, Japan (Basketmaker),

Jin-Sook So, View the Storsjön (Photo: Pack Myung Re) Steel mesh, electroplated silver, gold painted acrylic color, 90 x 42 x 9 cm, 2012

Jin-Sook So, View the Storsjön (Photo: Pack Myung Re)
Steel mesh, electroplated silver, gold painted acrylic color, 90 x 42 x 9 cm, 2012

Jin-Sook SO, Sweden/Korea (Paintings on steel mesh), Naoki TAKEYAMA, Japan (Enamelled works on copper), Eva VARGÖ, Sweden(Paper weaving and paper Objects),

Lisa VERSHBOW Corsages, six brooches on a stand, Silver, Copper with color pencil patina and wet-felted wool Installation – 21 x 67 x 3 cm, (each brooch approx. 14 x 3 x 1 cm), 2013

Lisa Vershbow, Corsages (photo: Eric Micotto) six brooches on a stand, Silver, Copper with color pencil patina and wet-felted wool, Installation – 21 x 67 x 3 cm, (each brooch approx. 14 x 3 x 1 cm), 2013

Lisa VERSHBOW, USA (Metalsmith – jewelry). Click the links on each name and you can read a brief “story” about the artists and the influence Sweden had on their works.

Hisako Sekijima SE, Kudzu vine, 33 x 20 x 17 cm, 2013

Hisako Sekijima
SE (photo: Eric Micotto) Kudzu vine, 33 x 20 x 17 cm, 2013

Hisako Sekijima, for example, describes the map of Sweden she found on the internet as influencing, SE, the basket she created for the exhibition. Hikaru Cho’s Every Thing Is Not As it Seems speaks to discrimination.”We always bear prejudice and a sense of discrimination somewhere inside,” says the artist in her story. “Often, we don’t even notice it. I have experienced it many times while living in Japan with Chinese nationality. People differentiate the own ethnic group from others in order to strengthen the solidarity.” You can read more about Cho, in the Asahi Shimbun article, “Japan-born artist turns her eye to discrimination,” by Louis Templado, June 14, 2013, http://ajw.asahi.com/. The Embassy also teamed up with well-known Swedish cameramaker Hasselblad to create a behind-the-scenes video, filmed by Eric Micotto, that you can view here: http://vimeo.com/65644600.

In Memoriam: Niels Diffrient

July 16, 2013 0 Comment
Niels Diffrient

Niels Diffrient, photo by Helena Hernmarck

browngrotta arts lost a close friend and the world an influential designer last month, with the passing of Niels Diffrient. With an academic foundation in design and architecture and a degree from Cranbrook Academy, Diffrient channeled his knowledge of engineering, architecture and human factors into the creation of highly functional and aesthetically timeless designs, including the Freedom, Liberty and World chairs for the company Humanscale. His three-volume reference work, Humanscale 1/2/3, Humanscale 4/5/6, and Humanscale 7/8/9 explored the relationship of spine to chair and contributed to the quest for the totally comfortable place to sit down. In 2002, he told TED audiences about his early design inspirations — aircraft and aviators in the 1930s — and much more. You can watch him at:

Diffrient’s was an interesting personal story, which he covered in a memoir last year, Confessions of a Generalist.  He was refreshingly forthright, in a way that those of us from the Midwest recognize and appreciate. Born on a farm in Star, Mississippi in 1928, his family moved to Detroit in search of work. Diffrient attended Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Wayne State University and completed a BFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield, Michigan. At Cranbrook, he worked with Eero Saarinen on contemporary chairs for Knoll. After graduation, traveled to Italy on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1954 and worked on the award-winning Borletti sewing machine. Returning to the US, he joined Henry Dreyfuss Associates and worked on products for, among others, John Deere, Polaroid and Bell Telephone. He taught at UCLA and Yale. He moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut with his wife, textile artist, Helena Hernmarck, in the early 80s and founded Niels Diffrient Product Design, where the couple shared a design and tapestry studio until his death. Diffrient spoke to Martin C. Pedersen of Metropolis in February about linkage in his life, work and philosophy http://www.metropolismag.com/Point-of-View/June-2013/Niels-Diffrient-A-Tribute-in-Conversation. “Your new book seems like a different thing. It’s part memoir, part philosophy of design,” Pedersen observed. “I can’t separate those things,” Diffrient responded. “I don’t go to work and become a different person. I live exactly what I preach. My own life is guided by the same principles. So I can’t separate them. I didn’t really think about it, but in a way it helps to make this sort of thing personal. I think it gives it life.” He will be greatly missed.

In Memoriam: Mutsumi Iwasaki

June 3, 2013 0 Comment
photos by Tom Grotta

photos by Tom Grotta

Japanese artist Mutsumi Iwasaki passed away on April 11, 2013. browngrotta arts has promoted Mutsumi’s meticulously constructed forms since 2006. After working as a textile artist for nearly two decades, in 1998, Iwasaki began making both baskets and her own paper. In 2000, her new work was included in the influential In Our Hands Exhibition, in Nagoya, Japan. “I make works in which elements are “piled,” she explained in our 2011 catalog, Stimulus: Art and Its Inception. “They are like small boxes of air and a record of the everyday. I use washi paper that I make myself as the main material. When I use commercial paper I feel the difference in the material.” An illustrated interview with Iwasaki in Japanese appears at: http://www.isogaya.co.jp/artist/iwasaki-mutsumi/iwasaki-m-rireki.htm. With the help of an online translator, you can learn a bit more about her approach, which included adding paraffin to paper made of Japanese mulberry to create thickness. “I liked that the experiment changed the look of the material,” Iwasaki told interviewer, Jinnai Ritsuko in 2008.

photos by Tom grotta

photos by Tom grotta

Dispatches: Scottsdale, Old and New

May 27, 2013 0 Comment
photo by Tom Grotta

Tom in front of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, photo by Tom Grotta

We had reason to visit my old high school haunts in Scottsdale, Arizona earlier this month. It was a picturesque and delicious trip replete with stirring desert vistas and intriguing art and architecture site-ings.

550px-Valley_Ho_Hotel

Hotel Valley Ho, photo by Dru Bloomfield

Among them, the mid-century modern Hotel Valley Ho. The Hotel Valley Ho opened in 1956 and was a hideaway for Hollywood stars including Zsa Zsa Gabor, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis and Bing Crosby. It also hosted Robert Wagner and Natalie Woods’ 1957 wedding reception. The hotel was saved from the wrecking ball in 2003 and re-opened in 2005 after an $80 million restoration, which Chicago reporter Hoekstra noted retained  the original “Jetsons-in-the-desert flavor”. We had a terrific lunch outside the pop-colored, revamped bar area. We saw similar  splashes of lime and aqua and orange that people have added to adobe and concrete facades throughout the city — a lively change from the olive that predominated in the 70s.

Rhonda and Carol underneath Randy Walkers "Entanglement"installation

Rhonda and Carol underneath Randy Walkers “Entanglement”installation, photo by Tom Grotta

We also found two art installations sponsored by Scottsdale’s Public Art Project. The first was Randy Walker’s Entanglement, his installation of solution-dyed acrylic braid at Scottsdale’s Bell Tower, which we knew about and made a point of finding and photographing.

randy walkers "Entanglement" installation detail

Randy walkers “Entanglement” installation detail, photo by Tom Grotta

With Entanglement, Randy Walker asks “What if the boundary of container and contained was blurred?”   The other was Rachel Bowditch’s Memory Room, which we stumbled upon on Marshall Way, one of two art sites set up in empty storefronts, in the greatly diminished  gallery area of old Scottsdale. Loosely inspired by Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and the concept of a “memory palace’” first attributed to the Greek poet Simonides (556-468 BC) and further developed by Giulio Camillo (1480-1544) , Memory Room is a durational multi-media performance installation that investigates the relationship between women, writing and memory.

Rachel Bowditch's Memory Room

Rachel Bowditch’s Memory Room

A “memory palace” is a mnemonic system to spatially organize memories using specific ‘loci’ or spatial locations organized along a predetermined path. When items need to be remembered, one walks along the path to recall one memory at a time.  Memory Room layers a series of “memory palaces” of women writers—Emily Dickenson, Zelda Fitzgerald, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Audre Lorde, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath among many others—all women who made an indelible mark on the world of literature. There are live performances that are documented by video cameras, but the storefront site includes some exquisite textiles on which memories are written and women are memorialized in photos.  We did a bit of memory walking in the area ourselves, happy to see the Sugar Bowl  still holds its own on Scottsdale Road and even better, that the cheese crisp and Gaudi-esque decor at Los Olivios are just as good as we remembered.

Los Olivios, photo by Tom Grotta

Los Olivios, photo by Tom Grotta

More than 60 years since it opened, the restaurant is still family-owned and the tortillas and salsas are still homey and handmade.

Process Notes: Mary Giles on Inspiration and Influence

May 18, 2013 0 Comment

In April, Mary Giles received the Master of the Medium Award for Fiber from the James Renwick Alliance. In receiving the award, Giles spoke of her process and her sources of inspiration:

Mary Giles in Forest

Mary Giles amongst the California Redwoods, © Jim Harris

GIles Hairy Round Basket

“Copper Haze”, 2003, © John Koch

 

Giles Lakeview

Sunrise, St. Croix River, Minnesota, © Mary GIles

“I have always been influenced by place and especially the natural world in those places. In the early 80’s, having taken up scuba diving, I did a series based on sea life called “walking tentacles.” Later, during many trips to New Mexico, I discovered mesa forms as well as Native American kivas and petroglyphs. Those sources dominated my work for over 10 years. Most recently the changing light, colors, and patterns seen from our retirement home on the banks of the St. Croix River in Minnesota have informed by work. My ideas are an accumulation, my sources most often from nature and my pallet is drawn from the colors of earth, water, wood and stone.

I’ve been drawn to the woods most of my life, from childhood summers at a log cabin in northern Minnesota, to the redwoods of northern California, to the tropical jungles of Costa Rica, and now at our current home on the banks of the St. Croix River. From the St. Croix shore I have photographed many sunrises, reflections, shadows and moonlit nights. These scenes continually change throughout the day, from day to day, and season to season.

"Sunrise", 2007, John Koch, St. Louis, MO

Detail, “Long Divide”, 2013, © Don Caspar

The materials I use on the surface of the coiled forms are often individually hammered pieces of twelve- to eighteen-gauge wire made of copper, tinned copper, iron, lead or brass.  In addition I use waxed-linen thread and fine wire. By torching the metals I am able to alter the colors in varying degrees enabling me to blend them from darks to brights.  I use this blending to interpret the colors, textures and light that I see in the natural settings.

Giles Boulders

Stone Boulders, © Mary Giles

Detail Large Boulder Sculpture

Detail, “Long Divide”, 2013, © Don Caspar

I became particularly excited about rocks ten years ago when my husband and I decided to build an addition to what was to become our retirement home.  Because this home is on a river in an old glacial landscape, the dozer unearthed a mountain of boulders. Philip Johnson, the architect, said, “I never met anyone who can talk about a pile of rocks.” Well, I never met Philip Johnson. I have photographed rocks in many parts of the world. I’m interested in all sorts of rocks: broken rocks, large rocks, pebbles and boulders. I love their surfaces aged by wear or accumulations. I find many forms in their crevices and shadows.

Mary Giles Tree Shot

Costa Rica © Mary Giles

In the winter we often go to a relatively remote Pacific location in Costa Rica. I spend hours walking the beach photographing yet more rocks, driftwood, and wave and animal patterns in the sand. On the walks I always carry two bags, one for trash and one for treasure.

In my studio I begin a new idea with a sketch. Most recently I have been building clay models. The models have helped me work through details and attempt more complex forms. I’m often asked how long it takes to complete a vessel. I don’t usually keep track but I do remember my first basket from the late 1970’s, three inches high, took twelve hours. My most recent piece, which is fifty inches long, took five months.

Grey Breakby Mary Giles, photo by Tom Grotta

Grey Break by Mary Giles, © Tom Grotta

Six years ago I started doing wall panels that dealt with my concerns about population. They are not baskets but the men they incorporate have been on my vessels for nearly thirty years. The first expression of this theme was directly on a 10 X 30-foot gallery wall. It was composed of hundreds of torched copper wire men arranged outwardly from dense to sparse.  I am still working with these ideas of overpopulation, density and boundaries.

The architect Le Corbusier said “creation is a patient search.” I so enjoy this peaceful experience. I feel fortunate to have found this work for myself. I am very grateful for your generous support. Thank you. “

Mary Giles – April 2013

Book Notes: Not Quite Beach Reads, but Recommended

May 2, 2013 0 Comment

A series of attractive books have wound up in our mailbox this spring.  None are quite right for the beach, but each immerses a reader in another culture, locale or artist’s viewpoint — a bit of an adventure without leaving home. Even for fans of indigo, like me, 61DVt8IGxzL._SX285_Indigo: The Color that Changed the World by Catherine Legrand (Thames & Hudson 2012)  is a revelation. The book covers geographical regions (Japan, China, India, Laos and Cambodia, Africa, Central America and Europe — who knew?) where the ancient art is still practiced and indigo forms a part of the fabric of everyday life. The differences and similarities in the uses of indigo in these varied locales is fascinating. There are 500 glorious photographs, many of them a full page each. It’s not a reference in the typical sense as others have covered this material more comprehensively, but a visual one. I have found myself repeatedly returning to the book and leafing through the images again just to immerse myself in the patterns and hues.

41hsTQd0R3L._SY380_A Handbook of California Design, 1930-1965, Craftspeople, Designers, Manufacturers, edited by Bobbye Tigerman (Los Angeles County Museum of Art and MIT Press 2013) offers more of a trip through time. Designed by acclaimed book designer Irma Boom, the pages look like newsprint and are handcut and edged in day-glo orange, the same color used for the cover. The photos and illustrations are nearly all in black and white and convey the design sensibility of the period, which was a halcyon period for design — California was “a breeding ground for new ideas to flourish without constraints,” and design benefited from its many institutions of higher learning and the technical and material innovations that WWII brought to the aerospace and defense industries. The connections and collaborations of the book’s subjects — from Harry Bertoia to Mary Ann DeWeese (Catalina Swimwear) to Charles and Ray Eames to Trude Guermonprez to Gertrud and Otto Natzler to browgrotta arts’ artists Ed Rossbach and Katherine Westpahl (featuring photos by Tom Grotta) and Kay Sekimachi — are mapped on a helpful chart. In each biography, the names of other subjects in the book appear in day-glo orange so that the reader can look for cross references. The biographies are brief and insightful.

61z5mPsxGvL._SX285_In Textiles: The Art of Mankind (Thames & Hudson 2012) Mary Schlosser sets out to explore the “continuum of creativity” that links ancient textiles to those created in the 21st century. Her chapter on structure, in which she argues that all textiles, even lengths of yardage, are three-dimensional objects takes an interesting look at non-tensional techniques, primarily basketmaking. The book contains a wealth of resources, including website addresses for artists and designers, and a staggering 1,058 illustrations. We were puzzled, though, by the author’s failure to mention browngrotta arts‘ website which has more than 1,000 images of textile art among the resources or list any of the 40+ catalogs on art textiles that we have published. Most disappointing — though she includes more than two dozen illustrations of work by Ed Rossbach, Katherine Westphal, Sara Brennan, Kay Sekimachi and Karyl Sisson, she fails to provide a website reference for any of them, even though there are images and information on each at http://browngrotta.com. Despite that omission — it’s a remarkable book, and well worth seeking out.

Magdalena Abakanowicz Survey: Marlborough Gallery, New York through this Saturday, April 27th

April 24, 2013 0 Comment

Just a few days remain to see the impressive survey of works by Magadalena Abakanowicz at Marlborough Gallery in New York. Marlborough’s exhibition includes 55 works created over a 21-year period from 1987 to 2009. Pieces from several of the artist’s various “cycles,” including War Games, Hoofed Mammal Heads, Coexistence and the Anatomy Cycle as well as three of the artist’s “crowd” figures, including Bambini, a group of 10 children, from 1998-99.

MONTANA DEL FUEGO, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1983, photo by Tom Grotta

MONTANA DEL FUEGO, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1983, photo by Tom Grotta

Abakanowicz who is recognized as among the most original and powerful sculptors working today, initially gained international recognition for her remarkable, over-sized dimensional works of fiber. In Warsaw, in the late 50s and early 60s, Abakanowicz worked with what was available. “I could not pick up stone or marble and go to a foundry because there was no stone, no marble and no foundry to cast it,” she told Rita Reif of The New York Times in 2001, The Jackboot Has Lifted. Now the Crowds Crush. “This absence brought me to what they call the ‘world of fiber.’ It would never have happened if everyday life had been different. I needed to build something around me like a fence, to shut out the unpleasantness.” She called her early works, made of sisal ropes salvaged from the docks on the Vistula River in Warsaw “constructions” Abakanowicz has said that she had no desire to learn weave. Nonetheless, one of her first woven works, Composition of white forms, created a sensation at the first international Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962, not only because of the monumental scale — large enough to walk into, but because the work was such a departure from pictorial tapestry conventions. Though now far better known as a sculptor, Abakanowicz continued to create tapestry forms, albeit unconventional ones, through at least the mid-80s.

LUNE DE MIEL 1 sisal 55" x 78" x 8", 1986

LUNE DE MIEL 1, Magdalena Abakanowicz, 1986, photo by Tom Grotta

Magdalena Abakanowicz: A Survey 1987-2009, Marlborough Gallery, 40 West 57th Street, New York, NY, 10019, 212-541-4900. To see a sampling of the exhibition, visit: http://marlboroughgallery.com/exhibitions/magdalena-abakanowicz-a-survey-1987-2009.

Eco-Art Update: Images for Earth Day

April 22, 2013 0 Comment
Many of the artists promoted by browngrotta arts address nature and environmental concerns in their work.  In honor of Earth Day, we present a series of images of works from Europe, Asia, the US and the UK.  These include outdoor sculptures by Chris Drury and Ceca Georgieva,  ethereal sculptures of jute by Naoko Serino and a complex new basket, A Panic of Leaves by John McQueen, made of sticks and strings.
Green Leaves by Ceca Georgieva, photos by Ceca Georgieva

Green Leaves by Ceca Georgieva, photos by Ceca Georgieva

These are images of some of Ceca Georgieva’s “park art experiments.” Georgieva is a textile artist working in the field of nature art. “Working with natural materials not only brings me joy,” she says, “but also much wisdom. In even the smallest piece of grass there is incorporated history, meaning and purpose. I admire and learn from her genius “installation” of design, color, smell and light … It is a great challenge to enter her laboratory and to be able to add my own thing.”

Window on Blood and Water by Chris Drury, photos by Chris Drury

Window on Blood and Water by Chris Drury, photos by Chris Drury

Window on Blood and Water is a temporary installation at Abbaye Jumieges, near Rouen in France created by Chris Drury for the region’s festival of Water. The work takes the shape and dimensions of the arch of the ruined church and fills it with a flow pattern of water and blood from the heart, drawing a link to the nearby river Seine and the Abbey’s violent history over the centuries. The work is 78.75 feet x 26.25 feet and is made from split logs and stones from the ruin. The exhibition of six works opens on May 14, 2013 and runs through the Summer/Autumn season.
Naoko Serino Detail, photo by Naoko Serino

Naoko Serino Detail, photo by Naoko Serino

Works made entirely of jute are created by Naoko Serino of Japan. Moon Lee says that in Serino’s work,”the golden sheen and sinuous strands of jute yield a most spectacular softness and luminosity. The natural fibers are spun densely or pulled thin, making for infinite gradations of densities. Irregular shapes in varying degrees of transparency provoke an effect that is strongly biological. Spheres, tubes, tubes contained within spheres, spheres contained within cubes, and rows of coiled strands evoke thoughts of phospholipid bilayers of cell membranes, veins, sea sponges, and so forth.” http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/naoko-serino-spins-vegetable-fiber-into-golden-sculptures.
A Panic of Leaves by John McQueen, photo by Tom Grotta

A Panic of Leaves by John McQueen, photo by Tom Grotta

John McQueen’s vessel form celebrates leaves — their diversity of shape and color. McQueen often “draws” with sticks, in ways that make a viewer consider his or her relationship to the world. “Steel is natural,” he says, “because it comes from an iron ore in the ground. But when you look at steel, you don’t connect it with the ground because it’s been processed so many times, whereas there’s a direct visual connection between looking at my work and seeing the world.”

 

 

Congratulations! Mary Giles is a Renwick Gallery Master of the Medium

April 7, 2013 0 Comment
Mary Giles details by Tom Grotta and Don Casper

Mary Giles details by Tom Grotta and Don Casper

Today, Mary Giles will receive the 2013 Master of the Medium award for fiber from the James Renwick Alliance and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. The Masters of the Medium award recognizes artists of consummate craftsmanship who have contributed to and influenced their chosen fields. The Masters of the Medium awards were initiated in 1997 on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of the James Renwick Alliance and the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Renwick Gallery. The Masters of the Medium Awards are given biennially in odd numbered years.

Mary Giles resides in St. Croix, Minnesota. She creates mixed-media coiled baskets that are sculptural in nature, totems and three-dimensional wall works. Giles’ recently created a 53-inch “boulder,” The Long Divide, of hammered waxed linen, torched tin-coated copper and brass.

The Long Divide by Mary Giles, photo by Don Casper

The Long Divide by Mary Giles, photo by Don Casper

Her 2012 work,Twist, has been added to the American Decorative Arts collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Sentry Field by Mary giles, photo by Tom Grotta

Sentry Field by Mary giles, photo by Tom Grotta

The sculptural piece was made of waxed linen, iron twists, hammered tin and coated copper wire. Giles’ work is in several other museum collections, including that of the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, Minnesota, Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin, Contemporary Art Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York. She has said of her work, “Today, I am very concerned about the environment and try to capture the forms, textures and light found in nature” and that she is influenced by the views out of her studio windows, “the light on the river, shadows in the woods, and the textures of the water, rocks and trees.”