The way we experience an artwork is deeply influenced by its setting. Context—whether physical, spatial, or digital—acts as a lens that shapes how we interpret and emotionally respond to a piece. We experienced the impact of context quite graphically in the early days of browngrotta arts. Our first space had a room with a brown linoleum floor. We displayed three red-and-black canvas paintings in there — they attracted absolutely no interest. We finally sprung for a black floor. Suddenly the paintings popped, we sold the paintings within weeks to a client who’d actually seen them before, but not noticed them. 

We’ve since learned more about the difference a well-thought out framing solution can make. We’ve learn to consider varying display options — on a surface and or a wall. And of course, as a hallmark of browngrotta arts, we’ve become proponents of off-the-wall installation for nearly everything. In this post we’ll talk about what a difference a display can make and we’ll illustrate that discussion with examples of works that display well — but often quite differently — when shown flat versus elevated. 

In a museum or gallery, the environment invites quiet reflection. Controlled lighting, open space, and minimal distractions encourage focused engagement. In contrast, a public space transforms viewing into a more spontaneous and social act. A mural on a busy street or a sculpture in a park becomes part of everyday movement and conversation. The artwork interacts with architecture, weather, and passersby, taking on new meanings shaped by its surroundings. browngrotta arts adopted the concept of “art in use” nearly 40 years ago. We intentionally eschew the “white cube” approach, choosing instead to show artworks in a residential setting with backgrounds of brick, wood, window, steel, and dry wall. We photograph art in the same way — including a bit of window frame or furniture for scale and for context.

The digital versus physical context offers another layer of contrast. Seeing an artwork online or in a book provides accessibility but lacks the scale, texture, and material presence of the original. Standing before a large painting or a textured sculpture can evoke a visceral reaction that a screen cannot replicate. The digital experience flattens, while the physical presence immerses. We’d go a step further and say that viewing a fiber sculpture hung away from the wall, lit to enhance its dimension and capacity for  shadow, offers an even more captivating experience. 

Within physical spaces, display choices significantly alter perception. An artwork displayed on a wall—such as a painting, photograph, or relief—often encourages a frontal, visual engagement. Wall art draws the eye upward and outward, transforming flat surfaces into expressions of color, movement, and meaning.The viewer remains slightly distanced, observing the work as an image or window into another world. In contrast, an artwork placed on a pedestal invites a more three-dimensional, sculptural interaction. The pedestal elevates the object, granting it importance and encouraging viewers to move around it, to see it from multiple perspectives. This spatial relationship emphasizes the artwork’s physicality and objecthood.

Finally, the adjacent works and curatorial decisions surrounding an artwork shape how it is read. A piece displayed among others with shared themes or contrasts can create narratives, tensions, or dialogues. The context of display becomes part of the artwork’s meaning.

Ultimately, no artwork exists in isolation. Whether encountered in a hushed gallery, a bustling street, a digital space, as part of curated residential collection, or elevated on a pedestal, its setting transforms not only how we see it—but also how we understand its place in the world.

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In January, the Metropolitan Museum of Art launched a new short-session game, Art Links, that invites players to identify common threads and intriguing connections between works of art from The Met collection. 

We thought we would give arttexstyle readers a chance to make material Links between works from artists who work with browngrotta arts.

Materials to match: A) IRON – B) WOOL – C) STEEL – D) LINEN – E) COTTON – F) PAPER – G) LIGHT – H) SILK

There are 16 images in this post — 8 pairs. Based on the major materials utilized, match two art works to create a pair based the material they share. Note — We’ve cheated a bit on the names in some cases to preserve the mystery.

There are artworks by fourteen artists for you to match.

Here are the final two.

Here is the LINKS Key:
IRON:   3 and 15 
STEEL:  10 and 13
SILK: 14 and 16
WOOL:  8 and 12 
LINEN:  5 and 11 
COTTON:  1 and 9 
PAPER:  2 and 7 
LIGHT:  4 and 6 

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Join us this week, through Sunday May 12, at 6 pm to see our Spring Art in the Barn exhibition, Discourse: art across generations and continents. Traffic has been steady, including a guided tour for 15 people on Tuesday, but we still have slots available for gallery appointments and drop ins.

Viewers will enjoy 150+ works by more than 60 artists from 20 countries. Many people take two trips through the space to ensure they have not missed anything.

While here they learn more about works in the show including Irina Kolesnikova’s Spectator, a filmstrip- like group of woven portraits of her alter ego. She places him in discomfiting situations.  “Sometimes the events happening around him are frightening,” Kolesnikova says, “he wants to go away, to run far away. But curiosity makes him come back again, secretly observing, trying to memorize all impressions.”

James Bassler’s This Old House, is another work that encourages viewers to take a closer work and consider its inspiration and origins. “Over a year ago, a friend gave me a book, Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson,” Bassler writes. “It  caused me to begin yet another weaving of a flag, which includes references to the textile traditions of Africa.  In my early days of learning how to weave, the late 60s and early 70s, I wove many samples, and after weaving, experimented with batik and dyeing.  After all these years, those woven samples — maybe eight or ten of them —  were sewn together to become the surface on which the flag would eventually, after about a year, emerge.”

Same Difference by John McQueen draws appreciative comments (“That’s clever!” “I get it.”) when people learn its backstory. It’s comprised of three items on pedestals made of sticks tied with waxed linen — a wooden sump pump, the skeleton of a bonsai tree, and a representation of the elephant god Ganesh made of tied twigs. The items seem to have been chosen randomly, but they are not. Each draws water from the ground and uses it to slake thirsty crops and people, trees and animals.

Wendy Wahl’s work in Discourse explores inversion — a reversal of position, order, form, or relationship — and requires people to take a closer look. Wahl writes that she reassembles encyclopedia pages because of their symbolism, conceptual reference, and unique paper quality.  “My interactions with these materials,” she writes, “are meditative. These pieces are created by deconstructing the books, rolling and pinching the individual parts, and, like a puzzle, fitting them to the panel. The interconnected spiral elements become the picture plane that explores dimension, direction, texture, color, and reflection.” 

The evocative forms of Rachel Max’s work draw viewers in for inspection and introspection. Over the last few years, Max has been making forms that explore notions of infinity and time. The title for her piece in this exhibition, Caesura, came to her while she was making it. “I was thinking about the composition, working out where the weave should become less dense and where one section would end and another begin. I wanted to create a visual interruption, my equivalent to a break in music or a pause. In poetry, I discovered,  this is called Caesura.”

There are dozens of works to discover at Discourse: art across generations and continents and five days remaining to join us. Hope we’ll see you!

Schedule a visit
Times to visit Discourse: art across generations and continents can be scheduled on POSH. 

Exhibition Details:
Discourse: art across generations and continents
Through May 12, 2024
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Wednesday May 8th through Saturday, May 11th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 12th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)
Schedule your visit at POSH.

Safety protocols: 
POSH reservations strongly encouraged • No narrow heels please 

Catalog:
A full-color catalog, browngrotta arts’ 59th, Discourse: art across generations and continents, with an essay by Erika Diamond, Artist | Curator | Associate Director of CVA Galleries | Chautauqua Institution, will be published by the browngrotta arts in May 2024 in conjunction with the exhibition.

Upcoming:
browngrotta arts will present a talkthrough of slides from Discourse on Zoom, Art on the Rocks: art art talkthrough with a twist, on Friday, June 11th at 7 pm EST.

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In curating our exhibitions, we develop an idea, then begin to compile art to build out the concept. We tweak the theme and design the installation in response to the what arrives. The process, and the artists we work with, always deliver surprises. 

The impetus for this Spring’s Discourse: art across generations and continents exhibition was formed by our hanging abstract weavings by Warren Seelig from 1976, one white and black, one red and black, next to a strikingly kindred work of black and red and grey and off-white by Blair Tate from 2023. The works seemed to have something to say to one another. We realized we had other works from different time periods and artists who approached the same material and techniques very differently. The result: Discourse, an exhibition inviting dialogue, discourse, comparison and contrast.

As we compiled work for Discourse, an unanticipated subtheme emerged. The color red featured in several works that would be included. There was Anneke Klein’s Dialogue that we wanted to include, for obvious reasons. Gudrun Pagter sent us Red. Lija Rage sent us Leaves. Jin-Sook So offered us three red bowls, Federica Luzzi a dramatic wall sculpture, Red Shell No. 4, and Mary Merkel-Hess a red-tipped basket. After much online research, we had discovered the maker of a work from the estate of Mariette Rousseau-Vermette that we also wanted to include. It was Margareta Ahlstedt-Willandt of Finland and again, the work featured a good amount of red.  

There are more than 100 works in Discourse and most of them are not red. But red has a way of making itself known — as the works in the exhibition do. As we were planning, a theory, “Unexpected Red,” hit Tik-Tok, and, as Tik-Tok sensations are wont to do, then hit The New York Times, the Washington Post and Elle Decor. “Splashes of red really do just make anything mysterious, sexy even,” the Washington Post, quotes an email from Colette van den Thillart, a designer in Toronto. “Red is so dynamic, dangerous, and commanding. It can set an environment alight, which is why this trend makes total sense to me.” (“Designers say ‘unexpected red’ really works. Here’s how to use it.The theory making the rounds on social media can add a little intrigue to any room,” Washington Post, Kathryn O’Shea-Evans, March 16, 2024.)

There’s a scientific basis for red’s preeminence, notes Ingrid Fetell Lee, who hosts The Aesthetics of Joy blog. In studies, red has been shown to capture and hold attention in emotional situations better than other colors and that exposure to red light increases blood pressure, respiratory rate, skin conductance, and eye blinking, all measures of an increase in what psychologists call arousal, a physiological measure of excitement. Many evolutionary biologists believe that our color vision evolved in large part to help our primate ancestors find ripe fruits and young leaves (which naturally appear red) among the green leaves of the treetop canopy. “So perhaps ‘unexpected red’ in a home functions more like seeing a bowl of ripe cherries than a cut to the finger,” Lee hypothesizes, like “a bright and exciting burst of joy.”

Bursts of joy is what we hope you’ll find at Discourse (May 4 – 12). Not just red; we’ve got works in shades of green, others in blue, beige, yellow and orange — lots of works in paper and natural materials, works by 50 artists from 18 countries. Schedule your visit to Discourse now.

Exhibition Details:
Discourse: art across generations and continents
May 4 – May 12, 2024
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Saturday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm [Opening & Artist Reception]
Sunday, May 5th: 11am to 6pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, May 6th through Saturday, May 11th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 12th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)
Schedule your visit at POSH.

Safety protocols: 
POSH reservations strongly encouraged • No narrow heels please 

Catalog:
A full-color catalog, browngrotta arts’ 59th, Discourse: art across generations and continents, with an essay by Erika Diamond, Artist | Curator | Associate Director of CVA Galleries | Chautauqua Institution, will be published by the browngrotta arts in May 2024 in conjunction with the exhibition.

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If Wikipedia is to be believed, Pop-Up art exhibitions began in 2007 in New York City. They now occur all over they world. Pop-ups are generally temporary events, less formal than a gallery or a museum, often using unusual spaces. Their popularity has boomed since the oughts, including Banksy’s Dismaland which collected work by 58 artists in a rundown seaside town in the UK in 2015, Yasoi Kusama’s room that exploded with flowers in Melbourne, Australia in 2018, the Museum of Ice Cream (not technically a museum) currently in several locations including Miami, Boston and Singapore, and The Color Factory in New York City, Houston, and Chicago. Pop-Ups are often immersive, interactive, and collaborative like Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, which began in 2008 as a small collective of artists sharing an interest in publicly displaying their works and developing their skills. Meow Wolf now aims to “redefine the paradigm of art and storytelling to make a positive difference in the world.”

Fast forward to 2024: browngrotta arts has its own Pop-Up of sorts at JUICE Creative Group in Norwalk, CT. JUICE handles our social media, website development, event planning and other miscellany. It has loads of clients coming into its business and rental studio space each week. Now, select Juice visitors are able to view (and acquire) JUICE Art, a specially assembled group of works from artists who work with browngrotta arts.

In curating the collection, we were mindful of the JUICE ethos. It’s a brand and digital agency based in the US, with team members all over the world. JUICE takes pride in the team of brand experts, designers, marketers and tech geeks it’s built, and the vibrant creative culture it has fostered. To reflect that creativity and energy, we suggested works like Grethe Sorensen’s Out of Focus that references pixels from printing, Warren Seelig’s mechanical sculptures, Small Double-Ended and White Wheel, Gyöngy Laky’s playful Beach Sketch, made of electrical tape wrapped branches and Electricity/Energy by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, a tapestry that incorporates wire.

Printed pages are another theme; the agency produces a lot of textual content. There are collages made of books and newspapers by Toshio Sekiji; works by Wendy Wahl of encyclopedia pages, and an interesting work by Mercedes Vicente that mixes string and spiral notebook pages and “hints” at writing. Photography, too, was a theme. In a room clients use, we placed a textile triptych made of photo images of Japanese tile roofs that are fragmented, silk screened, and metal-leafed made by Glen Kaufman along with works of paper by Gizella Warburton. On a floor of offices, there are photographs of fiber sculptures by Federica Luzzi, White Shell Tongue 1 and 2 beside a graphic tapestry by Gudrun Pagter.

In deciding what to display, we also collaborated with the JUICE team, including some works by artists they chose. John McQueen is a favorite of several team members. We included Intimate Domain, which includes a tree made of repurposed plastic surrounded by a frame made of small branches and cable ties and also Treed, a depiction of a tree where the drawing creeps off the page an onto the frame. Another popular artist was Canadian painter and ceramist Claude Vermette. There are two of his large canvases, one triptych and one small water color hung throughout the space. Also on the team’s list, works by Keiji Nio, Jo Barker, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Jiro Yonezawa, Chiyoko Tanaka and Jennifer Falck Linssen.

For us, a Pop-Up is a Good Op. The JUICE space looks better, clients and staff appreciate the work, and we get more eyeballs for some great works of art!

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But, that’s just the beginning of the excitement. We’ve also been hard at work prepping for our next upcoming exhibition.. We will be sharing the details soon, so be sure to keep following along so you don’t miss out!

Until then, we invite you to recap on our past month of ‘New This Week’ features below.

To start off our series for the month, we began by highlighting the late, Ethel Stein. With a career spanning decades, Stein left an indelible mark on the world of weaving and textile art. Her intricate and masterful creations were not only celebrated across the country but also earned her a solo exhibition at the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago in 2014.

What makes Stein’s artistic journey truly exceptional is her mastery of the drawloom—a skill that few contemporary weavers possess. This expertise allowed her to craft intricate textiles that were both technically advanced and visually captivating.

Her influence resonated across the globe, as her works found a place in exhibitions not only in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and beyond.

Up next in January, we turned our focus to the talented Federica Luzzi. Luzzi’s vertical loom technique allows her to transform fibers from their traditional two-dimensional frame into captivating three-dimensional creations.

What truly sets Luzzi apart is her presentation. She curates her works in dimensional installations, where they appear as fragments of a galaxy, blending the macrocosm and microcosm seamlessly. Her artistry is akin to a magnetic aggregation of fragile bodies, meticulously arranged like constellations or an enigmatic form of writing.

At the core of Luzzi’s exploration lies a deep connection with nature. Her work delves into the intricate beauty of leaves, barks, seeds, and plant pods. Through her art, she unveils the hidden wonders of these organic elements, inviting viewers to ponder the intricate patterns of the natural world.

Up next in our series, we highlighted the work of artist, Nancy Moore Bess. Based in California, Bess is an artist who views tradition as a reference point rather than a boundary. Her journey has revolved around the idea of mystery and containment within the realm of basketry, and she brings a unique twist to her creations using lids and closures inspired by her time living in Japan.

When creating, Bess seamlessly weaves together the practicality of traditional basketry with an enigmatic, and almost secretive allure. Her works beckon viewers to imagine the hidden treasures they might hold.

We are continuously impressed by the work Bess creates, and that’s exactly why we wanted to shine a light on her, so our audiences can see it too!

Nearing the end of the month, we brought you all art from the one and only, Warren Seeling. Seelig’s impact on the art world is significant, with his work featured in over 30 major museum exhibitions worldwide. His relentless exploration of possibilities within textile and fiber art continues to inspire and challenge conventional ideas of texture, weight, and form.

Warren Seelig’s journey as an artist has been marked by a relentless pursuit of innovation. Back in the late ’70s, he ventured into creating structural, fan-like works, using mylar frames and introducing a unique double-weave technique that pushed the boundaries of traditional textile art. Over time, Seelig’s focus evolved, leading him to craft suspended spoke-and-axle pieces and wall-mounted shadow fields.

To close out our series for the month, we brought you art from the late artist, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. With a career spanning four decades, she left an indelible mark on the world of tapestries and sculptures, captivating collectors and commissions across the globe.

Rousseau-Vermette’s artistic journey took her from the Quebec School of Fine Arts to working alongside Dorothy Liebes in California. She later participated in five International Tapestry Biennials in Lausanne, using these opportunities to connect with artists worldwide. In the 1980s, she made significant contributions as part of the Art and Architecture program, ultimately heading the Fibers Department at the Banff Center for the Fine Arts.

It’s no wonder why her achievements are so widely recognized! She is truly one of the best.

We hope you enjoyed our January series! Stay tuned for more ‘New This Week’ features in the months ahead.

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We may have anticipated what would become a decorating trend. “Suspended Art is the New Gallery Wall,” claimed Apartment Therapy in 2021. “If you’ve been able to visit a museum or gallery safely recently (or even caught a digital exhibition), then you might have noticed that artwork is starting to move off of walls,” wrote Danielle Blunder. “Framed pieces and canvases alike are being suspended straight from ceilings, and I have to say, it’s an ever-so-slight — but clever — alternative to the gallery wall that I’d consider trying in my home to create an unexpected focal point.” (“This Art Hanging Idea Will Make Your Favorite Pieces Look Even More Luxe,” Danielle Blunder, Apartment Therapy, August 14, 2021. https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/suspending-art-from-the-ceiling-36962165.) Blunder’s article gives several examples, including a designer who hung a framed photograph from the ceiling in front of a pair of heavy drapes — effectively creating a picture wall where there wasn’t one. Below are examples of works that could be ceiling-installed in front of a window.

The results of a ceiling installation can be dramatic. Federica Luzzi’s contemporary fiber works have hung in Renaissance spaces, creating intriguing juxtapositions. Jane Balsgaard’s boats have graced churches — inspiring transcendent experiences. 

Grethe Wittrock’s lofty sail works create another incentive for using ceiling space.

Mia Olsson’s sisal panels create still one more.

And, of course, there’s always straight from the ceiling, like these works by Masakazu and Naomi Kobayashi. 

Contact us at art@browngrotta.com for ideas to create an aerial gallery in your space. Send us photos of the spot you have in mind and we can digitally install various options.

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Projects that result from this collaborative approach can be exciting and out of the box — and some of them involve textile concepts. In an unconventional partnership, a team of undergraduates in design and engineering from Brown and RISD won Most Creative Concept in 2021 at NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing Idea Challenge. The team was given $90,000 to create a solution for moon dust. Their solution to control moon dust, which creates significant problems for astronauts and their equipment, involved bundles of fibers, inspired by chinchilla fur, that carry a static charge. Dust that’s not repelled by the charge is caught in the fibers. The design and prototyping lead of the project was Hannah Skye Dunnigan, daughter of bga artist Wendy Wahl and furniture designer John Dunnigan. As a designer, Dunnigan told The Brown Daily Herald,  she was very proud that the team showed that “designers can be in the space as well, not just engineers.” (“Brown, RISD team wins ‘Most Creative Concept’ at NASA Challenge Forum,” The Brown Daily Herald, November 22, 2021). The Brown-RISD connection is potent, Christopher Bull, a senior lecturer in engineering and principal investigator of the project, told the Herald, because it “gets diverse people in the same room trying to solve the problem.” (Here is a Youtube link of their presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQnJnzSlxBo.) 

Lia Cook of California, has spent years in STEAM experimentation of her own, exploring the intersections of art, technology and science in her artwork. She is one of the artists in Radical Fiber: Threads Connecting Art and Fiber at the Tang Museum at Skidmore College, a celebration of interdisciplinary creativity and collaborative learning. As the Museum explains, Radical Fiber provides the work as at once fine art, process-driven craft, and scientific tool, complicating existing frameworks across fields. It asks questions: “Can a crochet hook and yarn uniquely explain the complexities of non-Euclidean geometry? How does the 1804 Jacquard loom relate to modern computing?” The exhibition reframes the histories of fiber/science intersections, asking not only how artists continue to engage in scientific inquiry through fiber, but also, how the medium can be used to improve our world for the future. Among the questions to be asked is one Cook has been exploring for some time: How do viewers’ reactions vary when they look at a photograph versus her Jacquard weavings of a photo image  During the Radical Fiber exhibition, a study will be conducted by the Skidmore’s Psychology Department in the neuroscience lab comparing behavioral responses to a series of woven faces by Lia Cook with with the identical photo of the same image. The subjects will be shown 10 digitized photos of the black-and-white photographs of faces and 10 digitized photos of the black-and-white, cotton-and-rayon, woven tapestries translated from the photos and asked to rate the intensity of the facial expression depicted in the image, from 1 (not at all intense) to 7 (extremely intense).

Cook has conducted her own studies of viewers’ responses. To create Data Dots Emotional Intensity, Cook conducted an informal survey of viewers of a large childhood photo of herself and a weaving of the same image. She translated the data she collected into dots and superimposed them on a woven portrait — blue for people who felt no difference between the two; yellow for those more affected by the photo and red for those who found the woven image more emotionally affecting. The woven image won. Red dots predominate, an observable amalgam of art and science.  “A visual pun is at hand,” writes Deborah Valoma of Lia Cook’s work.“[D]igital technology is juxtaposed to digital senses, a reminder that no matter how technologically sophisticated the process, weaving is still a medium of touch and embodied thought….,” Deborah Valoma, “Lia Cook: Seeing Touch,” Lia Cook: In the Folds — Works from 1973-1997 (2007, browngrotta arts, Wilton, CT).

Italian textile sculptor, Federica Luzzi has created works born of conversations with researchers at the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Frascati, Italy on concepts of dark matter, antimatter, nuclear, subnuclear physics, and an accelerator of particles. Various images of each side of three white sculptures are depicted; “gesture and matter are the terms of a relationship still waiting to be deciphered,” Luzzi explains. Working in the opposite direction of the classic and traditional concept of sculpture as a “way of removing,” the textile medium allows Luzzi to work around a void. Each sculpture, while having a mathematical initial scheme, is ultimately rendered with an element of mistake. “The final unexpected effect I interpret as an ideogram, a gesture, that presents itself as the work unfolds,” she says. “The White Shell Tongue prints suggest a primordial voice, speaking in a language now unknown to us but original, a pure, reductive writing externality, with wrappings and emptied shells.” 

In Denmark, Grethe Sørensen has unpacked digital technologies to create her tapestries. She has developed her own technique, combining weaving and video, selecting and manipulating still images to create a poetic universe of pixels, headlights, traffic lights, neon shop and advertising signs meticulously rendered in cotton thread. She is fascinated by color gradation; dying on the warp before weaving, varying the colors by mixing threads of different nuances in the warp. For Out of Focus 1-9, the artist created an image of hard-edged pixels in basic colors blown up until they appeared “liquid.” Pixels in basic colors are the starting point for her woven constructions. 

Another California artist, Sarah Rosalena Brady,  draws on her multiracial background as Huichol and Laguna Pueblo,  focusing her research on Indigenous scholarship and mentorship in STEAM. She describes her work as deconstructing technology with material interventions, creating new narratives for hybrid objects that speak on issues such as AI, aerospace technologies, and decolonial posthumanism. Her hybrid works operate between human/nonhuman, ancient/future, and handmade/autonomous principles to override power structures rooted in colonialism. Her solo exhibition at Blum & Poe, LA in 2021, https://contemporaryartreview.la/sarah-rosalena-brady-at-blum-and-poe/ featured AI-generated double-sided tapestries depicting satellite images of ice on Mars. 

Brady is Assistant Professor of Computational Craft and Haptic Media in the Department of Art at UC Santa Barbara. UCSB’s is just one of the labs and departments around the US exploring the links between art and science. Another is the recently opened International Arts + Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins Univeristy in Maryland, which studies neuroaesthetics, the scientific study of how the brain responds to the arts and aesthetic experiences, and undertakes this study for the purpose of improving biological, psychological, social/cultural or spiritual outcomes for individuals or populations. “We’re on a mission to amplify human potential,” the Lab declares on its website. The Los Angeles County Museum hosts the LACMA Art + Technology Lab which supports experiments in design, creative entrepreneurship, adventures in art and industry, collaboration, and interdisciplinary dialogue. Another nonprofit endeavor, the SciArt Initiative,  encourages the connectivity and cross-disciplinary approaches needed for the 21st century. The organization notes that artists and scientists seek answers to the same fundamental questions: who are we, why are we here, and where are we going? Both art and science build models of human experience in order to extend the boundaries of human capacity. Despite this common ground, artists and scientists are too often separate in their endeavors. Through exhibitions and micro-grants, the Initiative aims to create more scientific and artistic exchange. 

Exploration into the merger of art and technology, science and craft, is in its early days — watch for more experiments and innovative works.

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Heidrun Schimmel

Seven works by Heidrun Schimmel have been acquired since 2020. Two by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, two by Museum of Applied Art, Frankfurt and three by the Diocesan Musuem in Bamberg.

Kyoko Kumai

One work by Kyoko Kumai was acquired by the Angers Museums in Angers, France (Jean-Lurçat and the Museum of Contemporary Tapestry) and another by the Janina Monkute-Marks Art Museum in Kedainai, Lithuania.

Carolina Yrarrázaval

Two tapestries were selected on May of this year at Yrarrázaval’s exhibition in Kyoto by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyoto.

Åse Ljones

Åse Ljones‘ work, Atterskin, was purchased by Nordenfjeldske Art and Craft Museum in Trondheim , Norway in 2020 and Mylder was purchased The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, March 2021. 

Federica Luzzi

An encased textile, Shell-Omaggio a Costanino Dardi, by Federica Luzzi was acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Salerno, Italy for a collection curated by Fondazione Filiberto e Bianca Menna – Centro Studi D’Arte Contemporanea.

The textile object is suspended and anchored with nylon thread in a plexiglass box. Like a seed, with an aerodynamic shape that is structured for long movements and transport, it is closed in a box that prevents its natural and complete movement, it is trapped in it. “This work was done just before the outbreak of the pandemic,” Luzzi says. “So without knowing what would happen, but continuing my research on envelopes, I visualized even better the containment condition of a body.”

Simone Pheulpin

Two artworks by Simone Pheulpin have been acquired by the Musée des Arts Décoratifs i(MAD) inn Paris in December 2019: Jéromine, Série Eclipse (2019); Eclosion Epingles (2019). Another, Détail VII (2021), will be acquired by the same museum in 2021. The acquisitions were organized by the Galerie Maison Parisienne in Paris.

Wlodzimierz Cygan

In 2021, Organic (2018) by Wlodzimierz Cygan was acquired by the Musée de la Tapisserie et des Arts Textiles de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (TAMAT) in Tournai, Belgium.

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“In these long days I have worked so much,” writes Federica Luzzi from Rome.  “I’ve always thought being an artist is an existential condition and therefore it is impossible not to express myself creatively with a few improvised and casual things or just thinking, imagining something. In fact, one sleepless night, I made a very short video during weaving. I am aware that textile involves many hours of work in solitude, but certainly in this difficult situation my mood is unstable and I need great concentration and mind control.

Fortunately, at home, where I have two types of vertical looms, I had some materials (silk, rayon, cotton yarn, and other threads that I managed to get just in time before shutdown) that allowed me to work. So I’m making loom-woven works. Others that I called ‘domestic landscapes’ are photographs of elements that have aroused my interest and particularly stimulated me.

For example, while I was preparing lunch in the kitchen I noticed the pistils of the courgette flowers that look like small trees or a small snail I found among the green leaves of the broccoli; in their purity they seemed to tell to me about something else. These elements joined part of a set in my room (as background the blanket of my bed that found them on that position that accidentally seemed to be part of a mountainous cross in a silent landscape with a water mirror, or a volcanic landscape). Without any my intention these landscapes are born from everyday life.”

In Sweden, Jin-Sook So has stayed busy in her studio and reports that all is well.

“I think it is tough for most artists to stay focused because so much is out of our hands,” writes Polly Sutton from Seattle. “Walking with birds and the garden give me a good relief. It has taken a lot longer to finish a piece and the scattered frame of mind definitely shows in the results! That’s my assessment of whether it’s of value.”

“Restrictions are starting to lessen here in Montana” wrote Christine Joy in May, “but not so much with Al and myself. Being part of the more vulnerable population we are staying isolated.  My studio is in the backyard but my time there has not been very productive in a creative way. I feel compelled to clean and reorganize and burn things in a fire pit I acquired just for that purpose. Maybe after the fire a new creative spark will occur.” Christine is staying active, too. “When not cleaning I am cooking and online grocery shopping and walking, lots of walking. Also I have discovered I like Zoom yoga classes just as much as going to the gym for them.”

Stay Safe, Stay Separate, Stay Inspired!

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