Guest Post Alert: Carol Westfall

November 28, 2011 0 Comment

Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers

Carol Westfall first Guest Post is up. To Read FibernFutures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers, click Guest Post Above;

Hitomi Nagai (1954- ). Birth, 2011. Cotton; waffle weave. 79 x— 43 x— 11 in. (200 x— 110 x 28 cm). Photo: Mareo Suemasa.

 

 

Guest Post Alert: Carol Westfall’s First Guest Post This Monday

November 25, 2011 0 Comment

Kazuyo Onoyama, Orikata (Folded Form), 2006. Kyôko Ibe, Screen from the Hogosho series, 2009. Fuminori Ono, Feel the Wind, 2010. Hisako Sekijima, Kôzô o motsu ryô II (Volume That Has Structure II), #546, 2009. Hisako Sekijima, Renzoku suru sen (Continuous Lines), #559, 2010. Hisako Sekijima, Jûsan’yô no satsu (A Book with Thirteen Leaves), #553, 2009. Installation photo by Richard Goodbody.

Over the next few months, we’ll be featuring Guest Posts by artist, educator, collector and friend, Carol Westfall.  Westfall’s work has been exhibited extensively in Japan, Europe, South America and the US. She has taught at both Columbia University’s Teacher’s College in New York City and in the Fine Arts Department at Montclair State University in New Jersey  and is one of the artists included in the upcoming exhibition, Distinguished Educators, at the Crane Arts Building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania next March. We worked with Westfall when she was at Montclair state University to produce the Art of Substance  exhibition in the gallery there.

In her first post, up Monday, November 28th, she takes a comprehensive look at the Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers exhibition, open through December 18th, which is still being talked up in New York City (including in a segment on Sunday Arts NY on PBS, Channel 13). In December, she’ll review Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design, at the Museum of Arts and Design, in New York through January 15th. Kazuyo Onoyama, Orikata (Folded Form), 2006. Kyôko Ibe, Screen from the Hogosho series, 2009. Fuminori Ono, Feel the Wind, 2010. Hisako Sekijima, Kôzô o motsu ryô II (Volume That Has Structure II), #546, 2009. Hisako Sekijima, Renzoku suru sen (Continuous Lines), #559, 2010. Hisako Sekijima, Jûsan’yô no satsu (A Book with Thirteen Leaves), #553, 2009. Installation photo by Richard Goodbody.

Artful Gift Giving Made Easy: Visit our Online Gift Gallery for suggestions from $14 to $1200

November 21, 2011 0 Comment

Jiro Yonezawa bamboo vase $380, photo by Tom Grotta

Our Online Gift Gallery link makes it easy to surprise the special people on your gift list — and maybe even yourself — with a memorable, one-off gift of art. Art is often among the items people choose to forego in trying economic times. By choosing an artful gift, you can offer your family and friends something they might not be willing to buy for themselves, but something they’d love to own. You’ll have chosen a truly one-of-a-kind, individually selected gift, and that’s an art in itself.

Rebecca Medel TWO PATHS $650 photo by Sam Fritch

The Online Gift Gallery at browngrotta arts makes choosing art gifts simple by featuring three price tiers. In tier one are works $500 and under, which includes catalogs, books and videos starting $14, raw silk scarves made in India by Japanese artists Chiaki and Kaori Maki starting at $380, a whimsical lidded bowl made of measuring tapes by Karyl Sisson for $160 and an elegant bamboo vase, complete with presentation box, by Jiro Yonezawa for $380. In tier two are works from $501 to $1000, including delicate black baskets of waxed linen, thorns and porcupine quills by Birgit Birkkjaer of Denmark, a surprising geometric sculpture of safety pins by Tamiko Kawata, and a sculptural piece by Rebecca Medel. In tier three are works from $1001 to $1200, including a small embroidered drawing by Russian artist Irina Kolesnikova, an indigo banner by Hiroyuki Shindo and a wall sculpture made of newspaper and saw blades by Kate Hunt.

Irina Kolesnikova, BALANCING II $650

Purchase any item from the Online Gift Gallery before December 1st and your shipping, anywhere in the US, will be free.  (If you purchase videos, books or catalogs from the Online Gift Gallery through our website before December 1st, we’ll send you a refund for the shipping.) And, for every item we sell from the Online Gift Gallery by the end of the year, we’ll donate $5 to the International Child Art Foundation http://www.icaf.org.

browngrotta arts will also participate in Small Business Saturday on November 26th. American Express cardholders who register their cards before that date and then make a purchase at a participating member on the 26th will receive an American Express gift card worth $25. Register here.

The Next Big Thing: Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers

November 17, 2011 0 Comment

Jiro Yonezawa bamboo Bridge and Kay Sekimachi Leaf bowl. photo by Tom Grotta

We’ve had a busy fall season at browngrotta arts. First was Stimulus: art and its inception, which you can still see in the catalog http://www.
browngrotta.com/Pages/c36.php and online through the end of the month http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/StimulusOnlineExhibit.php. Next up, is Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers at the Wayne Art Center, Pennsylvania http://www.
wayneart.org/exhibition/green-from-the-get-go-international-contemporary-basketmakers which runs from December 2, 2011 to January 21, 2012.  Green from the Get Go is curated by Jane Milosch, former curator of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with browngrotta arts. The exhibition features an exciting compilation of more than 40 works by artists who take inspiration from nature and the history of basketry. Since prehistoric times artists and craftspeople have been highly attuned to the beauty and resources of the natural world, whether depicting a pristine landscape, untouched by man, or harvesting plants and minerals for pigments and brushes. Sustainability is part of the design and craft process, which requires a heightened sensitivity to materials, one that honors the caring for, replenishing and repurposing of materials. Artist Dorothy Gill Barnes captures this eco-friendly position well when she explains, “my intent is to construct a vessel or related object using materials respectfully harvested from nature.”

CROSSING OVER Dona Anderson bamboo kendo (martial art sticks), patterned paper, thread 15″ x 94″ x 30″ 2008. photo by Richard Nicol

 

Some of the sculptural baskets in Green from the Get Go are made from both flora and fauna, from bamboo, pine, sea grass, and willow to emu feathers and bayberry thorns. The tactile nature of these fiberous works stimulates all of the senses—sight, smell, touch and even sound. Each maker brings his or her own conceptual approach and expression to the design and fabrication process. Some works are small enough to nestle in the hand or rest table-top, while others are monumental or hang on the wall. Green from the Get Go stretches our imagination in terms of what materials and forms constitute a basket and how art bespeaks the interconnected relationship of man and nature.

The exhibition includes artists from Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, Scandinavia and the US, featuring innovators in the genre of 20th-century art basketry as well as emerging talent: Dona Anderson, Jane Balsgaard, Dorothy Gill Barnes,Dail Behennah. Nancy Moore Bess, Birgit Birkkjaer, Jan Buckman, Chris Drury, Lizzie Farey, Ceca Georgieva, Marion Hildebrandt, Kiyomi Iwata, Christine Joy, Virginia Kaiser, Markku Kosonen, Gyöngy Laky, Dawn MacNutt,  John McQueen, Mary Merkel-Hess, Norma Minkowitz, Valerie Pragnell, Ed Rossbach, Hisako Sekijima, Kay Sekimachi, Naoko Serino, Klaus Titze, Jiro Yonezawa and Masako Yoshido.

PILLOW, Norma Minkowitz, fiber, wood, paint, 2011

 

The preview party for Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers and Craftforms 2011, juried by Elisabeth Agros of the Philadelphia Art Museum, takes place on the evening of December 2nd and we’ll be there. For more in formation, contact the Wayne Art Center: http://www.wayneart.org/events/?id=48.

Art Within Reach: Mary Giles and Sue Lawty in the Latest DWR Catalog

November 11, 2011 0 Comment

photo by Carter Grotta, courtesy of cbgimages.com

November DWR catalog

The November Design Within Reach catalog, a primary source for modernist classics like the Freedom Task Chair by our friend Niels Differient and the Jen Chair by another friend, Jens Risom, was partially photographed in our house last August.

photo by Carter Grotta, courtesy of cbgimages.com

photo by Tom Grotta

Mary Giles‘ work Multiplicity and Sue Lawty’s, Lead III made it into the catalog — check out pages 34-35, 38 and 92 http://s7d3.scene7.com/s7/brochure/flash_brochure.jsp?company=DWR&sku=2011_DWR_NovCatalog&config=DWR/2010_1test&locale=en.

photo by Tom Grotta

photo by Carter Grotta, courtesy of cbgimages.com

Watching the shoot was a treat for Tom and Carter, our then-soon-to-be photomajor.  Here’s a glimpse of the catalog and their behind-the-scenes shots.

Installation News: Randy Walker Completes Passage in Minnesota

November 7, 2011 0 Comment

Randy Walker, 1875 iron bridge, acrylic fiber 115′ x 17 ‘x 15’

Randy Walker has turned the historic Shanaska Creek Bridge in Minnesota into an artwork, weaving strands of colored acrylic fiber from one to side of the structure to the other creating a large loom of sorts that will remain in place for 6 to 8 months.

Randy Walker, 1875 iron bridge, acrylic fiber 115′ x 17 ‘x 15’

At the end of that time, Walker will remove the fibers and they’ll be transformed into a textile work by the St. Peter Weavers in St. Peters, Minnesota. Walker’s Passage project asks viewers and participants to recall a forgotten past by transforming a decaying artifact into a vibrant artwork through the combined efforts of the artist and the community.

“I want people to celebrate the history of the bridge as they walk across.” Walker told the Le Center Leader. “I am very thankful for the opportunity provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Le Sueur County Commissioners to give this bridge another chapter in life.”  http://lecenter.comYou can also see Randy and his son discussing the bridge project in a video at:
http://www.keyc.tv/story/16012998/shanaska-creek-bridge-transformed-into-a-work-of-art

 

Randy Walker, 1875 iron bridge, acrylic fiber 115′ x 17 ‘x 15’

 

Spinning Straw Into Gold: ACC Gold Medalists and Fellows at SOFA Chicago and Online

October 30, 2011 0 Comment

5R CEDAR EXPORT BUNDLE. Ed Rossbach, plaited cedar bark from Washington state with heat transfer drawing, waxed linen, rayon and rags, 5.5″ x 11″ x 9″, 1993, ©Tom Grotta, 2011

This year at SOFA Chicago (November 4-6) the American Craft Council (ACC) will recognize 28 artists who have been awarded an ACC Gold Medal between 1994 and 2010 in a display at the Navy Pier, curated by Michael Monroe. The ACC awards recognize those who have demonstrated outstanding artistic achievement and leadership in the field for 25 years or more.  Since 1981, the ACC has selected just under four dozen artists working in Fiber to receive a Gold Medal for consummate craftsmanship and/or join its College of Fellows.  We’ve mounted an online exhibition of 21 these artists on our website, browngrotta.com, under Awards. Many of these artists are featured in the catalogs published by browngrotta arts and in the videos and other publications we offer. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/catalogs.php Works by Fellows and Medalists  Adela Akers, Dorothy Gill Barnes , Lia Cook, Helena Hernmarck, Gyöngy Laky, John McQueen and Norma Minkowitz are featured in our current exhibition,  Stimulus: art and its inception. Enjoy the show.

 

Press News: Stimulus: art and its inception — our 40th catalog now available

October 23, 2011 0 Comment

Stumulus catalog front and back covers

We are very (and this will date me) jazzed about our 40th catalog, Stimulus: art and its inception. It’s a departure for us, not in the variety of artists and number of countries represented — sculpture, ceramics, art textiles and mixed media by 55 artists from 14 countries — but in what’s new — images and statements designed to give readers a sense of each artist’s creative process. For each of the pieces highlighted in exhibition, the process of finding an image to illustrate the genesis  — whether an event, an object, an emotion, a place —  and of working with the artists to share something of that process in words, was stimulating for Tom and me.  We were also energized by working with Jane Milosch, Director, Provenance Research Initiative, Smithsonian Institution, and former curator, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, who writes about creativity and its embodiment in this exhibition in the introductory essay.

Stimulus Catalog: Norma Minkowitz Compound with Stimulus

The stimuli identified by the artists in this catalog is diverse. Current events, like the earthquake in Japan and global warming, inspired some of the artists,  including Norma Minkowitz, whose stitched wall work, Compound, illustrates the attack on Osama Bin Laden. “I began in a spontaneous, unplanned manner,” Minkowitz explains, “arranging lines and subtle patterns, until I had a feeling of the direction it would take. Suddenly the linear image took on the apparition of an aerial view of the compound that I had seen in a newspaper article. Compound combines a replica of the space and my vision of the event.”

Mcqueen, Bess, LaBianca, Serino, Henriksen, Akers, Bijlenga, Hunt, Walker

Several artists, including John McQueen, Nancy Moore Bess, Lawrence La Bianca and Naoko Serino of Japan, have taken Nature as their inspiration. In Serino’s case, Generating-3 was inspired by a Philodendron selloum, which she tended for 22 years before it finally bloomed. Others were inspired by the efforts of previous artists.  Ane Henriksen of Denmark, considered the work of coverlet makers from the 1800s; Adela Akers‘ work references Mbuti designs from Africa. Palimpsest 1, a wall piece by Marian Bijlenga, of the Netherlands, was composed by following the pinholes on the walls of Dutch masterweaver Herman Scholten’s studio to recreate the nearly erased surface.
Still other artists looked to their immediate surroundings. Trio 4, a sculpture of twine and newspaper by Kate Hunt, was inspired by the goats who share her studio. Echoed Surface, an energy-charged object by Randy Walker, was made from a charred and deformed badminton racquet that he found near his home;  Re-Tire,  is a basket Dona Anderson created from a tire chain she found by the roadside.
The catalog is 140 pages and contains 197 color photographs.  It can be purchased on our website: http://browngrotta.com/Pages/c36.php

 

Don’t Miss: Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers at the Japan Society in New York

October 19, 2011 0 Comment

Naomi Kobayashi, Kyoko Kumai and Takaaki Tanaka installation

We had the chance to attend the opening of Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers exhibition last month (which coincided with the addition of the Japan Society’s headquarters to the Landmark Preservation Commission’s roster of buildings in New York) http://www.japansociety.org/page/
programs/gallery. The exhibition is significant in scale — 15 artists, some with room-size installations — and in the comprehensive portrait it provides of the practice of textile art in Japan today. The materials, techniques and sensibility of the pieces varies widely. “During the past decade,” writes in her essay for the exhibition catalog,  Hiroko Watanabe, a professor at Tama Art University and one of the participants in the exhibition, “the unique softness and flexibility of fabric — qualities shared by no other material — have inspired these artists to move beyond mere mastery to create daring, original works that hold the promise of still more impressive advances in the years to come.” There are five related lectures and workshops coming up in November and December:

LECTURE
Mastermind in Textile: An Evening with Dai Fujiwara
Wednesday, November 16, 6:30 PM;
WORKSHOP
Free-Form Saori Weaving Workshop
Sunday, November 20, 10 AM
Sunday, November 20, 1 PM
WORKSHOP
Irresistible Colors: Shibori-Dyeing Workshop
Saturday, December 3, 1 PM
WORKSHOP
Nature’s Inspiration: Embroidery Workshop
Saturday, December 10, 1 PM
WORKSHOP
Nature’s Inspiration: Embroidery Workshop
Saturday, December 10, 1 PM
All at the   Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, New York, New York (212) 832-1155.

If you cannot get to New York, or you just want to learn more, there is a catalog, Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers, produced by Yale University and available from browngrotta arts http://www.browngrotta.com/
Pages/b45.php. There’s also a free Fiber Futures app with images and artist statements  http://itunes.apple.com/kz/app/fiber-futures-japans-textile/id464150856?mt=8, and a video tour by Nihon NY,  on the exhibition, Episode 18,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE1X279oDVo.

Make a Day of It! Stimulus and Other Art Events Nearby

October 16, 2011 0 Comment

If you plan to come to Wilton between October 22nd and November 1st for Stimulus: art and its inception, consider adding a stop at one of our other local art venues to your trip. There are several exhibitions to choose from — all within 20 minutes of browngrotta arts:

Jessica Stockholder, Hollow Places Court in Ash-Tree Wood (partial installation view at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield), 2011 Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Jessica Stockholder: Hollow Places Court in Ash-Tree Wood, a collaboration of sculptor Jessica Stockholder, cabinetmaker Clifford Moran and screenprinter Gary Lichtenstein utilizing the wood from a ailing 100-year old ash tree from the Aldrich’s grounds.
258 Main Street, Ridgefield
Tuesday – Sunday, 12 pm to 5 pm.
http://www.aldrichart.org/exhibitions/stockholder.php

Norma Minkowitz at her New Cannan Library Opening

New Canaan Library

Drawn to the Edge: Sculpture and Drawings by Norma Minkowitz
151 Main Street, New Canaan
Monday -Thursday 9 am – 8 pm; Friday – Saturday 9 am – 5 pm; Sundays 12 pm – 5 pm
http://newcanaanlibrary.org

Silvermine Arts Guild, Joe Saccio, Elegy for Clint, Homage for Motherwell, Wood, 6′ x 3′ x 14″

Silvermine Arts Guild

Memory and Metamorphosis, an exhibit of sculptural works in a variety of sizes and materials, including wood, paper and fiber bindings, by Joseph Saccio.
Discovered Masterworks: The Extraordinary Collages of Larry Lewis, the Director’s Choice exhibit that features works by reclusive artist, Larry Lewis, as seen in the collage books that he began in the late 60s and continued to produce until his death in 2004.
1037 Silvermine Road, New Canaan
Sunday: 1 pm – 5 pm; Monday -Tuesday: By Appointment; Wednesday-Saturday: 12 pm – 5 pm
http://www.silvermineart.org

Westport Arts Center

Love: In The Eye Of The Beholder, a members exhibition juried by David Kiehl of the Whitney Art Museum
51 Riverside Avenue, Westport
Monday – Friday, 10 am – 4 pm; Saturday – Sunday 12 pm – 4 pm
http://westportartscenter.org/ev?genre=exhibitions#11valove