Tag: Bamboo

Spotlight on Bamboo: Bamboo Baskets Get the Nod at the Met

August 30, 2017 0 Comment

Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection, is the first show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to concentrate on basketry, it features works of Japanese bamboo art dating from the late 19th century to the present—the period when basketry in Japan became recognized as an art form that transcends “craft.” The exhibition showcases more than 80 bamboo baskets and sculptures created by accomplished artists, including all six masters who have received the designation “Living National Treasure.” It celebrates the promised gift to the Met of more than 70 mostly extraordinary bamboo baskets and sculptures from the New York collectors Diane and Arthur Abbey. The exhibition also includes a site-specific installation, The Gate, by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, a fourth-generation bamboo artist born in 1973, meandering forms, that Roberta Smith says have “an animated-cartoon energy and snap; they cavort almost wickedly.” “Throughout the exhibition,” Smith continues. ” you will see basketry abstracted, deconstructed and all but exploded in the hands of successive generations of artists.” The exhibition will be open through February 2018 — it is not to be missed.

The Gate by Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Tiger bamboo, 2017, Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

A number of the artists exhibited by browngrotta arts have frequently worked with bamboo. Jiro Yonezawa , awarded the Lloyd Cotsen Bamboo Prize in 2006, is a master — creating vessels, seductive objects and human-size sculptures.

Red Heat Haze by Jiro Yonezawa, bamboo and thread, 100″ x 13.5″, 2004, Photo: Tom Grotta

While Yonezawa harvests and prepares his own bamboo, (and speaks about that process here), Dona Anderson repurposes the bamboo she uses from kendo and hockey sticks to create vessels and sculptures. She began in the 1980s, making a series of missiles of bamboo sticks combined with colored fabrics stitched with a sewing machine, each nearly five feet high.
Nancy Moore Bess has studied bamboo extensively. She is the author of Bamboo in Japan, called by Donald Richie

” a compendium of information that is not likely to be soon duplicated.” She is also the creator of works that combine bamboo and waxed linen. “I met Tanabe-san on the first tour,” Bess writes. “He is a lovely young man.” The entry piece in Japanese Bamboo Art: The Abbey Collection is “ spectacular” in Bess’s view. The artist/author met Yamagishi-san who provided the Tiger Bamboo in the Met exhibition and from which The Gate is made, when she was researching the book. “Interestingly,” Bess writes, “if you take a rhizome of his tosatorafudake (tiger bamboo from Tosa, had to show off a bit) and plant it anywhere else, the skin does not develop the distinctive tiger markings!”

The exhibition will be open through February 2018 — it is not to be missed. For more information on the show click here. The show’s catalog is available in The Met’s online store here.

Dispatches: Art Among the Pines —thinking Maine

June 3, 2015 0 Comment
Deer Isle Maine Hiking Trail, Photo by Carter Grotta

Deer Isle Maine Hiking Trail, Photo by Carter Grotta

In honor of National Trails Day, http://www.nationaltrailsday.org on June 6th we’re publishing — belatedly — this post about visiting Jiro Yonezawa last summer at Haystack in Deer Isle, Maine, which features miles of beach and wooded hiking trails. Last month, Jiro received a Special Prize at the Japan Contemporary Craft Exhibition held at the National New Art Museum in Tokyo. Jiro’s was the only work of bamboo to be awarded a prize.

Jiro Yonezawa at Haysatck. Photo by Tom Grotta

Jiro Yonezawa at Haysatck. Photo by Tom Grotta

We’ve brought you several artist and student reports from the Haystack School of Crafts in Maine http://www.haystack-mtn.org/index.php in previous posts on arttextstyle. (Visit: David Ling https://arttextstyle.com/2014/02/06/dispatches-david-ling-haystack-school-crafts-deer-isle-maine/; Hisako Sekijima https://arttextstyle.com/guest-post-hisako-sekijima/; Nancy Moore Bess https://arttextstyle.com/guest-posts/ to get a good sense of the Haystack experience.) Last August, we had the chance to visit Haystack ourselves as we were vacationing in nearby Stonington, Maine. Haystack is in a glorious location and we visited on a crystalline day. Jiro Yonezawa’s 

Jiro Yonezawa at Haystack, Photo by Tom Grotta

Jiro Yonezawa at Haystack, Photo by Tom Grotta

Bamboo Weaving Techniques and Decoration class was kind enough to let us interrupt. The students were excited and engaged and grateful for Jiro’s generous teaching. One described his helping her until 1 a.m. that morning. Each student had interesting and accomplished works to show for his or her time there. Carter is now angling to attend a session. Other art-y activities we enjoyed on our trip: the terrific Turtle Gallery in Deer Isle http://www.turtlegallery.com; the sprawling sculpture center created by Peter Beerits at Nervous Nellie’s Jams and Jellies in Deer Isle http://www.nervousnellies.com/peter-beerits-sculpture/ and the creatively curated collection of buoys and locks and knots and ropes at the Marlinspike Chandlery in Stonington http://www.marlinespike.com/. The locale offers art appreciation, hiking, kayaking, great eating, and, as always, a great time was had by all.

Jiro Yonezawa at Haystack, Photo by Tom Grotta

Jiro Yonezawa at Haystack, Photo by Tom Grotta

Last Minute Art Gift Ideas from browngrotta arts

December 20, 2014 0 Comment

We’ve got lots of art-y gift ideas for all the Basket Cases, Paper Chasers, Metal Heads, Log Lovers and Soft Touches on your list.
Select something for more than $50 before January 15th and we’ll pay to upgrade your shipping and send a donation to the International Child Art Foundation!!

b53 Fiber Sculpture  1960 - Present 

Fiber Sculpture 1960 – Present By Jenelle Porter

119L Notes to Self

Notes to Self, Gyöngy Laky, wood and paint, 29.5” x 21.5”, 2012

Stephanie Jacques

Sauvages Dyptch, Stephanie Jacques willow, 51″ x 18″ x 12″, 2014

Eye

Eye, Jiro Yonezawa, bamboo, steel, urushi lacquer, 20” x 20” x 20”, 2014

Large Shallow Bowl

Large Shallow Bowl, Karyl Sisson, wood clothspins and wire, 5” x 21” x 21”, 1987

58mg Gathering

Gathering, Mary Giles, galvanized steel wire, paint, wood, 30” x 30″, 2012

60nk Cube Red

Cube Red, Naomi Kobayashi, Japanese paper, paper thread, mirror, 2.5” x 10.5” x 10.5”, 2014

In the Realm of Nature

In the Realm of Nature: Bob Stocksdale & Kay Sekimachi By Signe Mayfield

 

Sneak Peek: Artpalmbeach, January 14th -19th

January 10, 2010 1 Comment

Palm-Beach-Ad.jpgWe’re leaving the ice and snow (sigh) for sunnier climes next week, where browngrotta arts will join more than 50 other galleries exhibiting at the Palm Beach County Convention Center at Artpalmbeach, art + photography + design. The fair opens on January 15th and lasts through the 19th. A theme of this year’s Artpalmbeach,  art + photography + design is “going global.” As always, browngrotta arts will do its part; we are exhibiting the work of artists from 15 countries. Our installation in Booth 204 will include some of the highlights of this fall’s 10th Wave III exhibitions as well as new works by several artists including a significant wall sculpture by Ritzi Jacobi; pieces made of fish scales by Marian Bijlenga and new works of repurposed encyclopedias by Wendy Wahl. We’ll present the work of two artists in Palm Beach for the first time: We’ll present the work of two artists in Palm Beach for the first time: Jennifer Falck Linssen of the US and Carolina Yrarrázaval of Chile. US Artist Norma Minkowitz will be at the booth on Monday, January 18th from 2-4 p.m. to discuss her work; Dawn MacNutt of Nova Scotia will be at the booth to discuss her work on Tuesday, January 19th, from 2-4 p.m.

10th Wave III: Online– The next best thing to being there

October 23, 2009 0 Comment
Jazzy-10th-wave.jpg

Our first online exhibit, the10th Wave III: Online, opens today. The exhibit is a carefully curated selection of works presented in installation shots, images of individual works and detail photos. Approximating the in-person experience, viewers can “walk” through 26 images of the exhibit installed; click to view each of the 125 works in the show more closely, focus in on images of dozen of details and click to read more about each of the artists in the exhibition. “Images of individual works of art online are commonplace,” says Tom Grotta, president of browngrotta arts. “We have tried, instead, to give viewers a sense of the work in space, combined with the option of looking more closely at the pieces that interest them, just as they would have if they were visiting the exhibit in person.”

The artists in the 10th Wave III are experimenting with forms and techniques in novel and surprising ways, exploring new relationships among structure, design, color, and pattern.” They work in a wide range of materials from silk, stainless steel and rubber to recycled raincoats and linen to tree bark, safety pins and telephone books. Among the artists in the online exhibition are Lewis Knauss, Lia Cook, Gyöngy Laky from the US, Sue Lawty from the UK, Ritzi Jacobi from Germany, Jin-Sook So from Sweden, Carolina Yrarrázaval from Chile and Hisako Sekijima and Jiro Yonezawa from Japan.

The 10th Wave III: Online runs through December 20, 2009.

Guest Post Alert: Nancy Moore Bess

October 19, 2009 0 Comment

THE VOCABULARY FOR DEFINING BEAUTY

photo Nancy Moore Bess

photo Nancy Moore Bess

Nancy Moore Bess has penned her fifth and last Guest Post this year, The Vocabulary for Defining Beauty. To read it, with our thanks, click Guest Posts above.

 

Guest Post Alert: Nancy Moore Bess

September 20, 2009 0 Comment

Haystack–Renewal–Magic!
by Nancy Moore Bess
Click Guest Posts tab to read Nancy’s Haystack Reverie


 

Guest Post Alert: Nancy Moore Bess

September 15, 2009 0 Comment
In less than a week, on Sunday, September 20, 2009, we’ll inaugurate our first Guest Post. Our first guest blogger will be artist, author, curator, teacher and art tour guide Nancy Moore Bess. Nancy’s work has been exhibited or acquired by the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; Barbican Centre, London; Szombathely Art Museum, Hungary; the Hunterdon Art Museum, New Jersey; the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco; Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin; and the Society for Arts and Crafts in Boston. Nancy is an insightful observer of the fiber art field and an acclaimed writer. Nancy lived and researched bamboo in Hawaii and Japan, then authored Bamboo in Japan, now in its second printing. The Japan Times called Bamboo in Japan, “a compendium of information that is not likely to be soon duplicated” and “one of the best-designed books of the year.”