Tag: Hisako Sekijima

Our 60-what? browngrotta arts’ latest publication

June 25, 2026 0 Comment
Catalog Cover: Transformations: dialogues in art and materials
Catalog Cover: Transformations: dialogues in art and materials

Another exhibition, time for another catalog. The volume for this Spring’s exhibition, Transformations: dialogues in art and materials, is our 63rd (57 catalogs, 6 monographs). With work by 79 artists highlighted in Transformations, the catalog was bound to be a big one. In fact it weighs in at 164 full-color pages. The works in Transformations were installed to illustrate the varying ways artists used the same material — whether traditional, silk, cotton, sisal or more unusual, feathers, horsehair, and jute. The catalog essay explores additional themes.

Hisako Sekijima catalog spread
Two different types of Bambo Baskets by Hisako Sekijima. Photo by Tom Grotta

Making and Meaning
Some artists in Transformations take their materials beyond physical characteristics— asking viewers to feel, remember, or reconsider. Stéphanie Jacques describes this approach with characteristic directness: “[P]lant matter is not the subject of my work. It is a means among others… But this means is not trivial. It connects me to what man has always done, shaping what he needs with his hands from what he sees around him. What matters to me is to talk about what is alive.” Jacques constructs sculptural forms that are humanoid but less than literal, using volume to give life to an unfilled interior space — speaking of the movements of the body, desire, intuitions, something that pushes from the inside and overflows. For Hisako Sekijima the subject is not the material alone; it is the dynamic interplay between what the material will and will not do, and what the maker can discover within that negotiation. 

Willow title page
willow works by Dail Behennah, Stéphanie Jacques and Esmé Hofman. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Material as Its Own Message
For some artists, the material does not carry meaning so much as it is the meaning. Sue Lawty and Yasuhisa Kohyama work at opposite ends of the material world —one with fiber and stone, the other with clay and fire — but they share a conviction that the deepest outcomes come not from overriding what a material wants to do, but from creating conditions for it to reveal itself.

Yasuhisa Kohyama and Sue Lawty catalog pages
Ceramic by Yasuhisa Kohyama and Indigo weaving by Sue Lawty. Photo by Tom Grotta

Material as Cultural Memory
James Bassler and Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila ask us to attend to where materials have been — to the long human histories encoded in fiber, dye, and weave structure. For these artists, meaning is inseparable from origin; the biography of a material is part of what the finished work contains. Bassler has spent decades drawing from Navajo wedge-weave, pre-Columbian scaffold weave, and Andean shibori, accumulating a global inventory of material knowledge. Portillo and Dávila traveled extensively in China and India to study indigo dye-making, silk sericulture, and handweaving, learning that fiber is a vehicle for understanding other cultures. Their Azul Indigo series emerged from looking for blue in their Venezuelan mountain landscape. 

James Bassler and Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila catalog pages
Indigo weavings by James Bassler and Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila. Photo by Tom Grotta

Between System and Surprise
One theme recurring in Transformations is the tension between system and discovery. Merja Keskinen describes this generative uncertainty: “I work to see. The joy of discovery and the delight of experiencing colors are essential to me.” Norie Hatakeyama works with factory-made paper-packing tape, an experimental material that enables her to break free from traditional limitations. By submitting an industrial material to the ancient technique of plaiting, she transforms both: the tape becomes sculpture, and the sculpture raises questions about what we mean by “natural.”

Norie Hatakeyama and Merja Keskinen cTALOG PAGES
Paper sculpture by Norie Hatakeyama and line weaving Merja Keskinen. By Tom Grotta

Drawing with Material, Drawing in Space
Several artists treat fiber not as the medium of weaving but as an instrument of drawing itself. “Instead of drawing on paper,” Marian Bijlenga says, “I draw in space by using textile as a material.”After rejecting weaving as too slow, she discovered horsehair as an element — stiff enough to stand on its own, allowing a new kind of freedom. Kyoko Kumai has spent decades achieving something similarly paradoxical with stainless steel. She has written of her chosen material with wonder: “Thin pieces of stainless steel wire create a richly expressive fabric that does not stand solidly, cleaving the air. It has its own language fluttering above the floor; breathing and melting into the air.” 

Kyoko Kumai Catalog spread
steel filament textiles by Kyoko Kumai. Photo by Tom Grotta

The works in Transformations demonstrate how material intelligence, at its highest level, transcends the categories of craft and fine art altogether.

In Memory: John McQueen

September 17, 2025 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hisako Sekijima on John McQueen’s Impact in Flexible Forms and Words 

September 3, 2025 1 Comment
Hisako Sekijima with John Mcqueen in 2011
Hisako Sekijima discussed her work with John Mcqueen in 2011 at browngrotta arts. Photo by Tom Grotta

The passing of John McQueen in midsummer 2025 made me look back over the strong impact he has had on me and other artists, an impact that has never weakened. In my early days, I learned a lot from both his art work and articulate statements in teaching. Writing this remembrance has replaced my grief with my refreshed excitement of those days. In it I also want to convey deep regret about his passing from other Japanese basketmakers who studied in his courses. 

As a tribute, I have included an illustration of his workshop at Peter’s Valley Craft Center in 1978, from my book Formula for Basketry. It was republished last year, 36 years after its original in which I discussed my 10-year artistic exploration, starting with problems thrown at basketmakers by McQueen.

John Mcqueen illustration

Twelve participants of his course, including myself, triumphantly carried a group project, a big basket like a geodesic dome, on the top of a car to the auction site of the Craft Center. Requiring us to put it upside down, I now realize, symbolized very well his intent to throw us all outside of the conventions of basketmaking. At that time I lived in suburban New York City and was anxious to take his course. His Untitled Basket overwhelmed me with beautiful forms made of low processed plant materials with totally original structural mechanisms. I had visited exhibitions to see his work at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and galleries including Hadler/Rodriguez, Florence Duhl, and Helen Drutt.

John Mcqueen Hadler Gallery Catalog

I never became a participant of one of his workshops again after Peter’s Valley, because while there, John McQueen gave me a basketful of homework that put me on a lifetime path of extremely experimental exploration. After returning to Japan in 1979, I enthusiastically set up his workshops as a planner, adviser, and assistant or interpret/moderator, in order to introduce a Japanese audience and my students to the fascinating gateway to the basket world that John McQueen was discovering.  

John Mcqueen harvesting willow
John Mcqueen harvesting willow. Photo by Tom Grotta

In 1978, John McQueen’s work was exhibited for the first time in Japan in a survey show of contemporary textile arts from Europe, America, and Japan (Part I: Fiber Works – Europe, Japan; Part II: Fiber Works – Americas, Japan). It was curated by Shigeki Fukunaga as a two-part series in 1977 and 1978 for the Museums of Modern Art in Kyoto and Tokyo. The next time McQueen’s work was exhibited in Japan was in 1989 in an exhibition of American contemporary crafts entitled The Eloquent Object which started at Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa Oklahoma and travelled to the Museums of Modern Art in New York, Kyoto, and Tokyo. In those years in Japan, contemporary basketmaking had just started attracting a few weavers’ attention. In narrower circles,  those who knew more about contemporary baskets as new art forms through slides or publications I brought back from America and through John McQueen’s early innovative work were intoxicated by the vast possibility of asserting modes of sculptural basketmaking. 

John McQueen installs Frieze
John McQueen installs Frieze made of willow. Photo by Tom Grotta

In the winter of 1997, I planned, with Kazue Homma, basketmaker and publisher of a mini-circulation for basketmakers, to invite John McQueen to Japan. We set up a series of events within his one-month stay: in Tokyo two-day workshop with a slide lecture, a slide lecture at Gallery Isogaya, and a joint lecture for three art schools. In Kyoto, he would conduct a 5-day workshop at Kawashima Textile School.

For Kyoto, I scheduled his course in place of a basketry course in the school’s “Hands Week” program that was scheduled annually. I had been teaching a one-week basketry course for 15 years before then. I intentionally planned his teaching to be not too conceptual but quite technical, in consideration of the preference of Japanese participants. Even so, McQueen’s method was so extraordinary and innovative that all were intrigued or taken out of their conventional thinking. For example, he taught how to transfer a vessel form step-by-step into a two-dimensional template, which was necessary for his signature method of “weaving a basket on the loom.” Just the idea shocked all in Japan, where good baskets ought to be made of stiff bamboo or akebia without any mold or shaping gears!! 

John McQueen teaching aside Hisako Sekijima in Japan
John McQueen teaching aside Hisako Sekijima in Japan. Photo courtesy of Hisako Sekijima

In Tokyo, McQueen’s course was filled instantly with 20 participants, mostly fellow artists and ex-students of mine. We financed his air fare by the admission costs paid a month ahead to reserve entry. When he showed how to join patches of tree bark, everyone was very pleased, as well as surprised, that he generously shared this technical secret. But, as Kazue Homma, wrote in her report of his workshop in Basketry News, “Being taught has two sides. A taught way would better be avoided, though the teacher said taking someone’s way is not always bad.”  She noted that he added “one’s own original [way] is much more difficult and so valuable.” One year after the workshops, participants of both venues had a group show John McQueen was there at Sembikiya Gallery in Tokyo to show each breakthrough.

John McQueen teaching in Japan
John McQueen teaching in Japan. Photo courtesy of Hisako Sekijima

In 1999, the Yokohama Art Museum presented Weaving the World: Contemporary Arts of Linear lConstruction. The curator, Hideko Numata, invited John McQueen and Margo Mensing for a joint workshop. (Hideko Numata’s recollection will appear in an upcoming arttextstyle.)  During that trip, I joined McQueen and Mensing for a three-day joint workshop at Sapporo Art Park in Hokkaido.  It was organized by the Art Park in collaboration with the Hokkaido branch of Kawashima Textile School’s alumni. Participants, mostly experienced weavers, had a choice of three projects: McQueen’s “stick project,” Mensing’s three-dimensional knitting, and my material transformation. Stick project, being well received in other workshops, was what can be called a portraying of a soft object in short, straight, linear materials: composing a free-standing new object with use of short sticks and other items in combination. What he explained to participants was that they should be conscious of portraying a certain aspect of the object, which he said was to be the subject of a new object. It was a very new experience to Japanese weavers. For them, making an object with a concrete subject was not familiar, because until then, more emotional or impressionistic expression had been preferred. This project, I think, reflected very well the new direction of his work which seemed getting more figurative and narrative year after year.        

Weaving the World catalog
Weaving the World catalog layout. Works by John McQueen. Photo by Tom Grotta

McQueen was a great educator in that he showed us “unlearning is a true learning.” I would like to say thank you and good bye to him with a following story. In the workshop at Kawashima Textile School I saw him teaching plaiting by aligning components on the edge at the beginning, but not on the bottom. He reversed the common procedure most basketry books take as basic. Everyone got “his new basic.” The reversed process made them give up the convention. I realized that John’s teaching skill had advanced since the time I studied with him at Peter’s Valley, in that he came to teach it from much more elemental point. He taught us in 1978 to start from the bottom, a conventional way. In due course, I got fixed in its convention. It took years to liberate myself from the basket “trap” until eventually I came to “discover” an approach based on reversed engineering on my own!!  Looking at this, I got another priceless lesson from McQueen: “Do not take for granted someone else’s basics.”

This is how I shall remember him always.  

Hisako Sekijima

Yokohama, Japan

Ways of Seeing: On Assembling

September 25, 2024 0 Comment

Ways of Seeing, our Fall art event, is mid-exhibition today. It’s a celebration of collecting and the myriad ways that people acquire and arrange art. We’ve put together some groupings within the show and thought of others. We’ll share some of them below for those of you who can’t attend in person. For example, collecting by material, even one as ubiquitous as paper, can result in a varied collection. We put together a wall of works on paper: a print using xerography by Katherine Westphal, a painting on paper by Claude Vermette, collages by Norma Minkowitz and Hideho Tanaka, an intricately folded paper work by Dail Behennah, a composition of twisted commercial paper by Wendy Wahl, and an assemblage of colored sandpaper by Marian Bijlenga.

Gallery Wall of paper works
left to right, top to bottom:
Katherine Westphal, 10w Amphora and Fern, 1993; Wendy Wahl, 2ww 7 by 7 and 22, 1999; Marian Bijlenga, 37mb Luitzen, 2019; Hideho Tanaka, 31ht Emerging 008, 2016; Norma Minkowitz, 114nm The Seeker, 2014; Claude Vermette, 126c Untitled, 1980; Dail Behennah, 56db Two Golds, 2019; Toshio Sekiji, 26ts Lacquered and Torn, 1998. Photo by Tom Grotta

A more unusual material choice — assembling items made of materials from the sea, will also result in a wildly diverse group of works. We’re showing baskets of seaweed, wall work of fish skin and fish scales, and works that incorporate sea sand and sea stones. 

Artwork with sea materials
12jle Bivalve, Jeannet Leendertse, 2023; 5ab Threading Fish, Annette Bellamy, 2023; 40mb Scale Flowers, Marian Bijlenga, 2019; 32kn Sazanami(Ripples), Keiji Nio , 2022; 35sl Coast, East Riding of Yorkshire 1-3, Sue Lawty, 2024. Photos by Tom Grotta

Collecting by artist can yield a broad mix of results. Choosing a category, like Polish, LQBTQ+ or self-taught artists, can result in considerable variation. Even a single artist, if it is one who experiments relentlessly like Jiro Yonezawa, can ground a surprising collection.

Bamboo works by Jiro Yonezawa
Jiro Yonezawa 109jy Yellow Lady Bug, 2021; 95jy Ecdysis , 2019; 64jy Ascension, 2006 92jy Orbit, 2019. Phots by Tom Grotta

There are four very different works by this artist in Ways of Seeing, and they don’t even include the wide bamboo spheres which he has created more recently. 

Works by Hisako Sekijima
Hisako Sekijima
650hs Suspended Decision, 2021; 620hs From 2 to 3 Dimensions V; 643-655hs A Line of Willow, 2020; 639-651hs Bound to Continue VII; 625hs Structural Discussion VI, 2016

Basketmaker Hisako Sekijima, who has worked in everything from cherry bark to kudzu is another example of someone who can be collected in multiples. Lia Cook is another — her practice has moved in several different and exciting ways through out her career.

Works by Lia Cook
Lia Cook 55lc Between Clouds , 1978; 4lc Crazy Quilt: Royal Remnants, 1988; 16lc Presence/Absence: Gather, 1998; 28lc Su Brain Tracts Renew, 2014. Photos by Tom Grotta

Then there are them groupings — we are showing art related to water, but even a color, like Picasso’s blue period, can be an energizing organizing principle. We’ve gathered weavings and objects that meet that criteria: 

Blue Textiles
12lt Cross, Laura Thomas, 2023; 25gs Blue Color Gradation, Grethe Sørensen, 2005; 14jle Blue Levels, Jeannet Leenderste, 2019. Photos by Tom Grotta

There are a few days to see our compilations in person. Or you can order the catalog: https://store.browngrotta.com/c-54-ways-of-seeing/

Happy Hunting!

Ways of Seeing: how individuals envision and curate their art collections

Through September 29, 2024
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Road
Wilton, CT 06897
https://browngrotta.com/exhibitions

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Monday, September 23rd through Saturday, September 28th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour) Sunday, September 29th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Safety protocols: 
Reservations strongly encouraged; No narrow heels please (barn floors)

Save the Date: Ways of Seeing, browngrotta arts’ Fall Art in the Barn exhibition Opens September 21st 

July 17, 2024 0 Comment
622mr Blue Water II, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, wool and aluminum tube tapestries, 3’ x 5’, 1998. Photo by Tom Grotta

This Fall, browngrotta arts at 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, Connecticut, will explore the many ways individuals envision and curate their contemporary art collections. From September 21st to the 29th the gallery’s Fall 2024 “Art in the Barn” exhibition, Ways of Seeing, will sample different types of art selection criteria — by theme, by artist, by size.

Marian Bijlenga Fish Scale Detail
40mb Scale Flowers, Marian Bijlenga, dyed Nile Perch fish scales, 22.375″ x 18.875″ x 2.5″, 2019. Photo by Tom Grotta

Each work in The Art Aquatic, a theme-related collection, exists at the intersection of the artist’s fascination with a variety of nautical themes and the artmaking process. In The Art Aquatic, viewers will find imaginative uses of water-related materials: baskets incorporating shells by Birgit Birkkjaer, kayak and paddle sculptures by Chris Drury wrapped in salmon skin, Marian Bijlenga’s composition of fish scales, and Jeannet Leenderste’s baskets made of seaweed. Other works in The Art Aquatic offer more abstract references to life in the deep, including Ulla-Maija Vikman’s “painting,” Biagga (Sea Wind), made of viscose threads painted in marine colors and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette’s Blue Water II, made of woven tubes of beachy blue, grey, white, and yellow. A third series of works in The Art Aquatic offer watery imagery, like Judy Mulford’s  Aging by the Sea, that features a conch shell and tiny boat, Ed Rossbach’s Fish Trap Basket, with a whimsical fish motif, and the mermaid in Norma Minkowitz’s sculpture, My Cup Runneth Over. 

Sue Lawty Stone Drawing , Baskets by Hisako Sekijima
15sl Calculus, Sue Lawty, natural stones on gesso, 78.75″ x 118″, 2010. Photo by Tom Grotta

Impact: 20 Women Artists to Collect, another of the exhibitions within Ways of Seeing, will examine collecting by specific artist. Impact will present sculptures, tapestries, and mixed media works made from 1976 to 2024 by artists of significance and renown, including Kay Sekimachi, Yeonsoon Chang, Simone Pheulpin, and Carolina Yrarrázaval. Each of these artists demonstrates a knowledge of traditional and experimental techniques, while redefining the perception of textiles as fine art.

Detail of Mia Olsson
11mo Together, Mia Olsson, relief, sisal fibers, acrylic, 2021 . Photo by Tom Grotta

A third exhibition within Ways of Seeing will be Right-Sized, which considers collecting within specified parameters. Diversity is the hallmark — in materials, techniques, and approaches. In Right-Sized, viewers will find embroidery by Diane Itter, sculpture in sisal, paper, and willow by Mia Olsson, Noriko Takamiya, and Lizzie Farey, ceramics by Claude Vermette, and spheres, boxes, and baskets by Hideho Tanaka, Polly Sutton, Naoko Serino, and others, worthy of collecting in multiples.

“Ways of Seeing will celebrate the passion and individuality that spark and shape collections,” says co-curator Tom Grotta, “while offering collectors at all levels a wide selection of works to appreciate and possibly acquire.”

A full-color catalog will accompany the exhibition.

Details:
Ways of Seeing
exploring ways individuals envision and curate art collections
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Road
Wilton, CT 06897

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Saturday, September 21st: 11am to 6pm [Opening & Artist Reception]
Sunday, September 22nd: 11am to 6pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, September 23rd through Saturday,September 28th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, September 29th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Schedule your visit on POSH.

browngrotta.com

Art Assembled – New This Week in June

June 26, 2024 0 Comment

Summer has brought sunshine, adventures, and an abundance of art to browngrotta arts! We’ve been immersed in exhibitions, shining a spotlight on our fabulous artists, and proudly launched our catalog for Discourse, art across generations and continents.

As June draws to a close, join us in recapping our featured artists from the New This Week series, including Norma Minkowitz, Rachel Max, Sue Lawty, and Hisako Sekijima. Let’s dive in!

Norma Minkowitz
105nm Swept Away, Norma Minkowitz, fiber and mixed media, 40″ x 40″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Starting off the month, we featured the work of artist Norma Minkowitz. Renowned sculptor Norma Minkowitz has dedicated years to exploring the potential of crocheted sculptures, intricately interlaced and hardened into mesh-like structures.

Her artworks seamlessly blend structure and surface, offering profound reflections on themes of enclosure and entrapment. Minkowitz frequently contemplates the cycles of life and renewal, leaving twigs and branches embedded within her sculptures. These elements peek through the exterior, evoking comparisons to human skeletal or circulatory systems.

We are lucky to be able to work with her, and we hope everyone else enjoyed her feature as much as we did!

Rachel Max
13rm Caesura, Rachel Max, woven cane sculpture, plaited and twined, dyed
11” x 16.5” x 8”, 2023-24. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Next, we featured the talented artist Rachel Max, known for her innovative approach to contemporary basketry from her London base. Max’s artistic journey explores the intricate interplay between lace and traditional basketmaking techniques, resulting in finely woven sculptural pieces designed for interior spaces.

Her creative process involves meticulous refinement, exploration, and development of delicate openwork structures, where the juxtaposition of precise patterns with more relaxed weaves emerges as a recurring motif. Throughout her work, color plays a pivotal role, serving as a unifying element essential to Max’s artistic expression.

Sue Lawty
33sl Juncture, Sue Lawty, lead, 15.25″ x 12.25″ x 1.5″, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

We then turned our spotlight to artist Sue Lawty; renowned for her extensive experience as an artist, designer, and educator, with works displayed in prestigious collections worldwide, including a notable residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Lawty’s creative practice delves deep into emotional, spiritual, and physical connections with the land. Through intuitive and meticulous exploration of materials and construction techniques, she constructs unique textual languages. It’s no surprise her contributions are revered across the art world.

Hisako Sekijima
668=680 Grasp V, Hisako Sekijima, walnut, black and kan-chiku bamboo, 9” x 11” x 5.5”, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

Last, but certainly not least, we featured the work of artist Hisako Sekijima. Sekijima is known in the art world for her sculptural baskets created with diverse materials including cherry, hibiscus and cedar bark, kudzu, and bamboo.

She describes herself as a perpetual experimenter, fascinated by concepts of order and disorder, connection and disconnection. Her artistic pursuits encompass a wide range of techniques and themes, from binding and wrapping space to exploring spheres, handles, and the interplay of materials.

We look forward to continuing this exploration with you in the months ahead. Stay tuned for more inspiring stories and artists featured in our upcoming series!

Opening in One Month – Discourse Offers Myriad Views of Contemporary Fiber Art

April 4, 2024 0 Comment

Fiber is having a moment — exhibitions of art textiles and fiber art are installed all over the world.  Having promoted this medium for more than 30 years, browngrotta arts couldn’t be more pleased. We represent the work of an extraordinary group of artists — from fiber art’s origins in the 50s and 60s, to those whose careers started many years later. Our Spring Art in the Barn exhibition, Discourse: art across generations and continents, is designed to celebrate this multiplicity of makers and methods. Open at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut, from Saturday, May 4th through Sunday, May 12, 2024, Discourse will assemble a large and eclectic group of artworks that celebrate artists from different countries, who work with varied materials, and represent distinct artistic approaches. More than 50 artists from 18 countries will be featured. Included will be current works from 60 years ago, current mixed media works and sculpture, and pieces created in the decades between — enabling an intriguing look at intergenerational differences, material breakthroughs, and historical significance in fiber art.

The comparisons and contrasts on view in Discourse involve differing approaches to structure, materials, abstraction, messaging, techniques and more. Viewers are encouraged to develop and refine their own perspectives of contemporary fiber’s evolution and energy.

Exploring Bamboo

Exploring Bamboo, Baskets by Nancy Moore Bess, Hisako Sekimachi, Noriko Tanikawa. photos by Tom Grotta

The artists in Discourse each possess “material intelligence,” what author and curator Glenn Adamson describes as “a deep understanding of the material world around us, an ability to read that material environment, and the know-how required to give it new form.” They take a disparate approach to materials such as bamboo, rendered differently by Hisako Sekijima (JP), Nancy Moore Bess (US), and Noriko Tanikawa (JP)

Exploring Horsehair
Exploring horsehair details of works by Adela Akers, Marian Bijlenga, Marianne Kemp. photos by Tom Grotta

Three artists, Marianne Kemp (NL), Adela Akers (US) and Marian Bijlenga (NL) work with horsehair, each with differing results.

Paperworks six ways
Paperworks six ways: Shoko Fukuda, Wendy Wahl, Patricia Campbell, Jane Balsgaard, Neda Al-Hilali, Mary Merkel-Hess. photos by Tom Grotta

Paper is perhaps the most mutable material in the exhibition. Paper cord, book pages, and rice paper used by Shoko Fukuda (JP), Mary Merkel-Hess (US), Naomi Kobayashi (JP), Pat Campbell (US), Eva Vargö (SE), Neda Al-Hilali (US), Jane Balsgaard (DE), and Wendy Wahl (US) are among the material variations found in Discourse.

Exploring Sculpture
Exploring structure, details of works by Norma Minkowitz, John McQueen, Norie Hatekayama. photos by Tom Grotta

Engaging structures are also featured in Discourse. Intricate sculptures of willow twigs by John McQueen, ethereal objects of jute by Naoko Serino, sinuous crocheted works by Norma Minkowitz (US), and Norie Hatekayama’s inexplicable forms of plaited paper tape illustrate the multiple ways in which artists continue to innovate in this medium.

Abstract tapestries
Abstraction, tapestries by Blair Tate, Gudrun Pagter, Warren Seelig. photos by Tom Grotta

Much has been made this year about the contributions of weaving and related techniques to abstraction, modernism’s preeminent art form. Witness Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and  Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, which aims to offer new insights into the emergence of abstract imagery. Specifically, the Met’s exhibition sets out to illustrate how the constructive nature of weavings, arising from the grid formed by the vertical and horizontal elements of the loom, prompted the formal investigation of geometric designs. There are several examples in Discourse, works by Warren Seelig from the 70s and 80s, and works from Blair Tate (US) and Gudrun Pagter (DK) created 50 years later.

Differing Sensibilities
Differing Sensibilities, tapestries by Zofia Butrymowicz, Michael Radyk, Lia Cook. photos by Tom Grotta

The evolution of contemporary fiber art can be seen in works from Eastern Europe and those from Western Europe and the US. One of the oldest works in the exhibition is a heavily textured wool-and-linen weaving, Słońce Szafirowe, (Sapphire Sun), by Polish weaver Zofia Butrymowicz from 1968 which was featured in Beyond Weaving: the art fabric, by Jack Lenor Larsen and Mildred Constantine which provides an interesting contrast to Jacquard tapestries of wool and cotton by Americans Lia Cook and Michael Radyk.

Messenging Four ways
Messenging Four ways, details of works by Irina Kolesnikova, Laura Foster Nicholson, Gyöngy Laky, James Bassler. photos by Tom Grotta

Some of the artists in Discourse, including Laura Foster Nicholson (US) Gyöngy Laky (US), James Bassler (US), and Irina Kolesnikova (RU/DE), use the medium of fiber art to make explicit statements about the modern world — about personal anxieties, human interaction and our impact on the environment. Gyöngy Laky’s (US) work, Anticipation, which spells out the word “Who?“ in applewood branches, presents a question. “Given the challenges, concerns, conflicts and other dangers we face today,” Laky says, “this question, underlies the search for a way forward to a better day.”  Laura Foster Nicholson’s (US) woven landscapes, idyllic at first glance reveal a concern with the natural world. “In recent years,” the artist says, “my work has moved toward recording the various ways humankind has interfered in the environment.” Through Spectator, Irina Kolesnikova (RU/DE) shares the anxiety of daily life. She presents a man, her alter ego, in a variety of discomfiting scenarios. In This Old House, Jim Bassler references the book Caste, which describes America as an old house, with the caste system wrought by slavery as central to its operation as are studs and joints. Bassler’s flag is patterned with wax resist and a multitude of woven elements “that could represent the textile talents of the Africans who arrived in Virginia in 1619 and who were forced into slavery thus giving up their identity and culture.”

In sum, Discourse offers no end of ideas and innovations. We invite you to draw comparisons and gain new perspectives of your own. See you in May!

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.

Art Assembled: New This Week in January

February 3, 2022 0 Comment

We’ve been kicking off the year at browngrotta arts with some impressive art, and we’re excited to keep it coming for the rest of the year! In January, we introduced our followers to art from Eva Vargö, Ane Henriksen, Hisako Sekijima, Gjertrud Hals, Blair Tate and so many more talented artists. Just in case you missed it, we’re recapping it here so you can view all of their impressive works in one place.

Eva Vargö 7ev Japandí, Japanese and Korean book papers 23.5” x 22.375” x 2.5”, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This art, Japandí, was created by Swedish artist, Eva Vargö. When creating this piece, Vargö used Japanese and Korean book papers collected throughout her travels across East Asia. Vargö integrated these materials through a complex process where she fused paper and linen-thread materials into her weaving technique. When asked about why she creates, she has said she often weaves to deals with life’s fast pace.

“The working process is often repetitive and so it becomes meditative,” said Eva Vargö. “Mostly it gives me some peace of mind and my aim is to work at a slow pace. To be able to do one thing at a time without rush and to let go – to meet the unforeseen. I want to trust my intuition and my inner voice.”

30ah Reserve, Ane Henriksen, linen, silk, acrylic painted rubber matting, oak frame, 93.75” x 127.625” x 2.5”, 2015. Photos by Tom Grotta.

This artwork, Reserve, was handwoven by Danish artist Ane Henriksen. This profound piece was created with the intention of highlighting some of the ecological peril that was see in our society today. When explaining this piece, Henriksen said:

“Nature is threatened,” said Ane Henriksen. “I hope this is expressed in my image, which at first glance can be seen as a peaceful, recognizable view of nature, but when you move closer and see the material, it might make you uneasy, and add thoughts of how human activity is a threat against nature. By framing the nature motif museum-like in a solid oak frame, I try to make you aware how we store small natural remains in reserves — in the same way as we store exquisite objects from our past history in our museums.”

650hs Suspended Decision, Hisako Sekijima, shuro-palm, walnut, ramie, twill-plaiting
and connected, 10.625″ x 15.75″ x 7.5″, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Suspended Decision was created by acclaimed Japanese artist Hisako Sekijima. In the art world, Sekijima has long been recognized as an artist whose innovation and artistry seem to know few bounds as her techniques and approaches extend well beyond traditional basketing making. 

“I call myself a basketmaker because I inform my work by thinking and processing the nature and history of basketry,” said Hisako Sekijima. “And also, because in order to realize the ideas, I choose to use materials and structural methods that have typically been used for basketmaking. It pleases me that my ideas and the final results of my work expand the boundary well beyond what I once thought of as the domain of basketry.”

6gh Terra 2021 series, Gjertrud Hals, silk thread, resin, 7″ x 13.5″ x 13.5″, 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta.

Norwegian artist, Gjertrud Hals, consistently pushes the envelope and impresses with her creative knitted vessels. Hals was born and raised on the northwestern coast Norway and has spent much of her time traveling and learning about various cultures, and she has discussed how these experiences largely influence her work today. More specifically, Hals has discussed how India, Jordan, Norway and Japan have had a significant impact on her artwork.

“As a seasoned traveler I have observed many different cultures,” said Gjertrud Hals. “Much of my artistic work is an attempt at expressing the connection between the islands micro-history and the world’s macro-history.”

15bt Pangaea, Blair Tate, linen, cotton rope and aluminum, 46″ x 29″ x 1.5″, 2021. Photos by Tom Grotta.

This piece comes from American artist, Blair Tate. Tate has been creating contemporary work since the 1970’s under the influence of the 60’s minimalism and modernist architecture and is known for exploring flat, woven grids in her work.

Pangaea was created last year amid the pandemic and was featured in our exhibition Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change. When creating this specific piece, Tate said she consciously wove to the very limits of her warp to minimize loom waste. Whereas in the past she said she may have incorporated interruptions in the strips while weaving, thereby wasting the unwoven warp; in Pangaea, the gaps emerge only in the rearranging.

Like what you see? We introduce new art every Monday! Follow us on social media to stay up-to-date with our latest works.

Elements of Japandi: Integrating Nature – materials and environment

August 18, 2021 0 Comment

The Fall 2021 exhibition at browngrotta arts,  Japandi: shared aesthetics and influences will celebrate affinities between Japan and the Nordic countries of Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark cultures through contemporary art. The show will feature 39 fiber and ceramic artists from Denmark, Finland, Japan, Norway, and Sweden. xJapandi is a hybrid union of Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetic approaches appreciated for its reverence for nature and natural, sustainable materials, exceptional craftsmanship, simplicity and minimalism, and the beauty of embracing imperfection. This union evokes a visual and physical sense of calm and tranquility. The exhibition will run from September 25 through October 3, 2021.

Left: Jane Balsgaard (Denmark), Right: Kiyomi Iwata (Japan)

While attention on Japandi style may be currently popular, the interest in this merge of aesthetics is far from new. Artists and designers from the Nordic countries and Japan have been observing the parallels in their work and cultures for decades. Cultural and geographic elements made the Japanese work particularly appealing to Scandinavian artisans when it was first introduced to artists in the region in the 1800s. Both Japan and Northern European countries are deeply wooded and both have developed acclaimed woodworking traditions — in Scandinavia, techniques used by the Vikings and to protect against brutal winters, writes Danielle Johnson (Japonisme and the Origin of Modern Scandinavian Design,” OOKKUU, November 04, 2016.) The Japanese introduced new techniques, simplified forms, and most importantly, an approach towards woodworking that the Scandinavians deeply appreciated. The Scandinavians witnessed the fine craftsmanship and the sense of the natural materials that Japanese artisans brought to their work — particularly the manner in which the Japanese explored the wood’s essence, using minimal, refined designs so as not to detract from the experience from the viewer’s engagment with the materials. 

“[B]oth cultures have developed in harsh natural environments that humans cannot control. I feel a common point for us is how to live comfortably with nature.” Kato Saeko, curator of The Shop at the cultural centre Japan House, London. (“The rise of ‘Japandi’ style,” Clare Dowdy, BBC Online, October 2019.) Finland’s Ambassador to Japan, Pekka Orpana, also acknowledged the respect for nature shared by the regions. “We come from different cultures and are very far apart, but it’s actually quite surprising how similarly [the Finnish and Japanese] visualize and see our way of life …. We have a lot of similarities that unite us … for instance, how we appreciate nature and design.”  

Left: Hisako Sekijima (Japan), Right: Gjertrud Halls (Denmark)

Hisako Sekijima, one of the artists in Japandi, has recognized, and embraced, the influences the cultures share. She sees a greater kinship in her approach to that taken by Nordic artisans than to the traditional aesthetics of her native Japan which are often ascribed to Zen spirit or a stylized empathy to nature in terms ofka-cho-fu-getsu (natural imageries of flower, bird, wind and the moon). Her explorations into the elegant or logical interplay between natural materials and structural methods have more to do with elemental processing of materials than emotional expressions. “When I use a branch of tree to make a basket, it becomes a kind of abstract component — a linear element with a certain role. For example, when a branch becomes a tool used to reach fruits on a high branch.” She sees a similar similar shifting of the materials’ nature in the Scandinavian object making. “Their manner is straightforward and elemental as well as universal.” 

Left: Jiro Yonezawa, Right: Eva Vargö

Paper is another natural material that Japanese and Nordic artists highlight in their work. “Simplicity, purity and a respect for materials is intrinsic to Japanese craft and their work links East and West by celebrating the inherent properties of paper (some areas are softly translucent, and overlaid areas exploit varying opacities) and accurately balancing material, technique and form, ” writes Sarah E. Braddock, textile lecturer, writer & curator (Project Papermoon catalog, Denmark, 2000) It was in Japan where  Swedish artist Eva Vargö first experience how Japanese washi paper, especially when produced in the traditional way, exhibits a unique quality. The most interesting, in her view, was to experience how light filters through papers from lamps, paper shoji screen doors and windows. Danish artist Jane Balsgaard spent time in Japan in 1993 and 1998, preparing for exhibits there. Works of paper and twigs were the result. In her work, white paper often contrasts the dark color of the willow twigs.  “Another element in her works that has connection to Japan,” writes Mirjam Golfer-Jørgensen, “is the skeleton, that partly  frames the paper, partly combines with the hollows in the constuction, and gives another character to the paper that with a lightness that creates a contrast towards to the hollows.” (Influences from Japan in Dansh Art and Design 1870 – 2010, Mirjam Golfer-Jørgensen, Danish Architectural Press, 2013.)

Join us at  Japandi: shared aesthetics and influences to see more ways in which these influences are exhanged and expressed. The hours of exhibtion are: Opening and Artist Reception: Saturday, September 25th: 11 to 6; Sunday, September 26th: 11 to 6; Monday, September 27th through Saturday October 2nd: 10 to 5; Sunday, October 3rd: 11 to 6; Advanced time reservations are mandatory; Appropriate Covid protocols will be followed. There will be a full-color catalog prepared for the exhibition available at browngrotta.com on September 24th.

Catalog Lookback: Fan Favorites, an online exhibition

July 8, 2020 0 Comment
Portraits of Hisako Sekijima, Gyöngy Laky, Mary Merkel-Hess and Kay Sekimachi
clockwise: Hisako Sekijima 1994 solo exhibition at browngrotta arts. Gyöngy Laky 1993 preparing on a piece for her two-person exhibition at browngrotta arts. Our first meeting with Mary Merkel-Hess 1990 at her exhibition at the NY Armory. Kay Sekimachi in her closet selecting works for her 1992 two-person exhibit with Bob Stocksdale at browngrotta arts. Photos by Tom Grotta

In our 50 catalogs, we have showcased the work of 172 different artists. Four of these artists, however — Mary Merkel-Hess, Kay Sekimachi, Hisako Sekijima and Gyöngy Laky —  we have repeatedly chosen as a focus. Each has been the subject of more than one catalog — solo or two-person or special grouping  — and each has been featured in several of our themed survey publications. These artists explore different materials or forms, creating objects and works for the wall.  That willingness to innovate and reinvent has made them continuously collectible for those who acquire works in breadth and for those who pursue the work of individual artists in depth as well.

Details of works by Mary Merkel-Hess
Details of Mary Merkel-Hess’ paper sculptures on and off the wall. Photos by Tom Grotta

Mary Merkel-Hess’s work was the subject of one of our first catalogs in 1992 (#2) Mary Merkel-Hess. The work in our first solo exhibition of her work was brilliantly colored — vessels of green, indigo, cornflower, red and bronze — but our catalog technology was strictly black and white. Despite the noncolor depiction in the small catalog, the lyrical works of papercord and reed were popular and sold out. Her work was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art that year — one of the first contemporary baskets to enter the Museum’s collection. The success of that exhibition spurred us to host a second show, work by Merkel-Hess and Leon Niehues, in 1996 (#15). Merkel-Hess threw us a curve, though, by skipping the color that we considered her hallmark and producing, instead, a show of work made of translucent white papers — gampi, kobo, abaca, flax — some of it tinged with gold.  These works turned out to be as popular as those in color. Since then, her works have become larger and more sculptural and her recognition has grown while her popularity with collectors has remained a constant.  Her work will be part of Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber Art for Three Decades (#50), in September of this year. 

Details of works by Kay Sekimachi
Details of baskets and sculptural weavings by Kay Sekimachi. Photos by Tom Grotta

In catalog (#3) Bob Stocksdale and Kay Sekimachi, also 1992 and still black and white, Kay Sekimachi’s work made its first appearance, coupled with wood bowls turned by her husband, Bob Stocksdale. Sekimachi has reinvented her practice several times in her lengthy career. She studied weaving with Trude Guermonprez in San Francisco and Jack Lenor Larsen at Haystack in Maine in the 50s. By the 60s she was working with complicated 12-harness looms to create ethereal hanging sculptures of monofilament, then a new material. They were featured in MoMA’s Wall Hangings exhibition in 1963, Deliberate Entanglements at UCLA in 1971 and the Lausanne Biennial in 1975 and 1983. Sekimachi was also part of the contemporary, nonfunctional basket movement with other California artists in the 1960s and 1970s.  This body of work included small woven baskets and woven paperfold-like boxes made of antique Japanese papers. For our exhibition in 1992, she created gossamer flax bowls and patched pots of linen warp ends and rice paper. For our our 1999 exhibition, (#24) Bob Stocksdale Kay Sekimachi: books, boxes and bowls, she created woven boxes and books, and bowls in typical Japanese ceramic shapes that she formed using Stocksdale’s turned bowls as molds. Still the subject of museum recognition and collector acclaim, Sekimachi continues to work at 94, weaving intimate, abstract weavings reminiscent of drawings in pen and ink. 

Details of works by Gyöngy Laky
Details of of sculptures on and off the wall by Gyöngy Laky. Photos by Tom Grotta

In 1993 we produced our first catalog featuring Gyöngy Laky’s work (#5) Leon Niehues and Gyöngy Laky. The exhibition included 13 vessel shapes and one wall work. In 1996, we visited Laky’s complex construction again (#16) Gyöngy Laky and Rebecca Medel. “I think of myself as a builder of sketches in three dimensions,” she said of her textile architecture. The 1996-1997 exhibition featured Laky’s three-dimensional words, an important aspect of her oeuvre. The two versions of the word “No” or “On” illustrated the myriad ways in which such themes are deftly articulated by Laky. Affirmative No. 1 was made of brightly colored, coated telephone wire, piled and sewn. Affirmative No. 2  was much larger — the “O” made of branches still covered with bark, the “N” made of pieces of stripped, unfinished wood. The catalog also contained an image of That Word.  Now in the collection of the federal court in San Francisco, it spells out “ART” in larger-than-life, 3-d letters made of orchard prunings that are seven feet tall. Laky has continued creating word sculptures that combine natural and manmade materials, as disparate as bleached cottonwood branches, plastic army men and construction bullets of metal. In 2008, The New York Times Magazine commissioned her to create titles for its environmental survey, “The Green Issue.” The works that resulted were awarded a Type Directors Club Award. Laky will have two works in Volume 50: a large vessel-shaped sculpture and a type-related, free-standing arrow.

Details of works by Hisako Sekijima
Details of Bark basket sculptures in varying materials by Hisako Sekijima. Photos by Tom Grotta

Last, but certainly not least is Hisako Sekijima, whose innovation and artistry seem to know few bounds. We have focused on her work in three catalogs — (#8) Hisako Sekijima/1994; (#19) Glen Kaufman and Hisako Sekijima/1998; (#30) Japan Under The Influence: Innovative basketmakers deconstruct Japanese tradition/2001. Bark and vine become fabric and thread, framing and nails as Sekijima conducts her experiments in volume and void. The first catalog of Sekijima’s work (#8) included works in wide variety of materials — cherry bark, kudzu vine, cedar, willow, hackberry, bamboo. We were particularly pleased when The New York Times made the 1994 exhibition and the variety of work included the subject of a full-page article in its Connecticut section. They turned to her work again in The New York Times Magazine, including a work of kudzu vine in an article on the uses of the invasive species. We visited Sekijima’s work again in 1998, pairing her pieces, this time of zelikova, apricot, hinoki, walnut and palm hemp bark, with jacquard weavings by Glen Kaufman featuring photographic images of Kyoto. In 2001, we combined works by seven basket artists in Japan: Under the Influence, Innovative basketmakers deconstruct Japanese tradition #30). Sekijima was included, as were four of her students from Japan — Norie Hatekeyama, Kazue Honma, Noriko Takamiya and Tsuroko Tanikawa— each of whom had, like their teacher, had mastered Japanese basketmaking tradition, only to give it a twist. Sekijima wrote in Japan Under the Influence, that Kay Sekimachi (also featured in the catalog) was one of the American artists whose “new notions of basketmaking” and “new forms” had a decisive impact on her as she studied basketmaking in the late 70s. “Since then,” she wrote, “Sekimachi has always been one of my teachers at a distance. Her work has always reminded me of a Japanese respectful expression orime tadashii, which literally means, ‘one’s kimono preserves neat lines of folding which connotes integrity of behavior.’” Sekijima’s work, A Line Willow IV is part of our September exhibition. Like the works these artists have produced over nearly three decades, A Line Willow IV,  represents a line innovative art making that is knotless, homogeneous and flexible. 

See more at our September exhibition, Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber Art for Three Decades (#50).