Tag: James Bassler

Summer Recap

August 12, 2026 0 Comment

Summertime and the living is easy … We’ve always loved that song by DuBose Heyward and George Gershwin. It’s not quite easier at browngrotta arts as we have lots of preparation to do for our upcoming fall exhibition and next year’s 40th anniversary celebration, but the pace is a little slower. We spend more time with family and friends and fishing in Maine with art projects in between.

Even if leisurely, life goes on, and we still have plenty of news to share.

Gjertrud Hals and Misako Nakahira
Works by Gjertrud Hals and Misako Nakahira. Photo by Tom Grotta.

The Loewe Craft Foundation Awards for 2026 were presented. Through its Craft Prize, the Loewe Foundation seeks to acknowledge and support international artisans over 18, of any gender who demonstrate an exceptional ability to create objects of superior aesthetic value. By identifying work that “reinterprets existing knowledge to make it relevant today while reflecting its maker’s personal language and distinct hand,” the Foundation aims to “highlight the continuing contribution of craft to the culture of our time.” Two of the artists that work with browngrotta arts were on the short list — Gjertrud Hals of Norway and Misako Nakahira of Japan. They join several other artists that browngrotta arts promotes who have made the shortlist in years past— Mercedes Vincente, Polly Adams Sutton, Yeonsoon Chang, Ferne Jacobs, and Simone Pheulpin, who was also awarded an honor prize. Separately, Loewe has worked with Jiro Yonezawa and Kay Sekimachi to create designs for products for the legendary leather goods retailer.

James Bassler, Dail Behennah, Lia Cook and Neha Puri Dhir
Works by James Bassler, Dail Behennah, Lia Cook and Neha Puri Dhir. Photo by Tom Grotta.

This summer saw Museum Acquisition action: This Old House by James Bassler will join the permanent collection at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. This Old House was featured in the Museum’s recent exhibition,  America 250: Common Threads. The adoption of a second work of art by another artist is in progress at a separate major US museum. The last 12 months have seen more acquisition activity. Last August,  Bowl with Black Centre, by Dail Behennah was acquired by the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts. In November, Lia Cook’s Su Series was acquired by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Neha Puri Dhir’s work Transition, was acquired by the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida. In January, four works of wearable art by Norma Minkowitz joined the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. 

Jane Balsgaard
Jane Balsgaard. Photo courtesy of Jane Balsgaard.

Artists who work with browngrotta arts are featured in a number of Exhibitions in Canada, China, Europe, and the US. Jane Balsgaard’s work is on exhibit at the Vrå Exhibition in the  Art Building-Engelund Museum in Vrå, Denmark (through August 30th). Jeannet Leendertse is part of Water Proof: Maine Artists Reflect on their  Environment, at the  Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, Maine (through August 22nd). In Montreal, Canada, Mariette-Rousseau Vermette’s, Micheline Beauchemin’s, and Young-Ok Shin’s works are featured in Plot at the Baie-Saint-Paul Museum of Contemporary Art (through September 6th). The work of Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila is included in See You Tomorrow Under Other Skies at the  Andrew Kreps Gallery in New York City (through September 12th, with a summer break in August. Check hours). Gjertrud Hals’s work is part of the 
Personal Structures exhibition at the Palazzo Mora in Venice, Italy (through November 22nd).  Simone Pheulpin’s work is in Intertwined Breath: Contemporary Fiber Narratives at the  Taoxichuan Gallery in Jingdexhen, China (through November 25th). And, opening on August 25th, is a retrospective of Mary Merkel-Hess’s work at the  Brunnier Art Museum, Ames, Iowa (through January 31, 2027).

Birth-Giulio-Ghirardi
Birth-Giulio-Ghirardi©Michelangelo-Foundation

The fourth edition of the Homo Faber Biennial is titled An Island of Light and runs from September 1 – 30, 2026 at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on San Giorgio Maggiore Island in Venice, Italy. Curated by the Michelangelo Foundation with artistic direction by Es Devlin, the event explores the relationship between light, materials, and the human hand. A number of artists who work with browngrotta arts will be part of the Biennial including Jiro Yonezawa, Christine Joy, Jennifer Zurick, Nancy Moore Bess, Simone Pheulpin, Polly Adams Sutton, and Gyöngy Laky. Homo Faber also maintains an online platform 
dedicated to craftsmanship that provides profiles of artisans worldwide.

Make/Shift
Make/Shift exhibition, through September 19th.

In June, we served as Jurors for Make/Shift, an exhibition at the  Crown Gallery, Metro Art Studios in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Artists were asked to submit work that “explores the space where material, process, and intention converge — grounded in techniques and materials traditionally associated with functional craft—ceramics, fiber, glass, wood, basketry, and other hand-based practices—reimagined through a fine art lens.” We reviewed more than 150 entries and selected over two dozen intriguing works — of glass, ceramics, jewelry, metal — but a preponderance of the entries were works of fiber. The exhibition will run from August 9th to September 19th.

Ferne Jacobs
Work by Ferne Jacobs. Photo by Tom Grotta

Much of our summer has been spent on October Exhibition Planning. In Continental Drift: Encounters, North and South (October 17 – 25), we will explore art from North and South America from two different vantage points. First, we are gathering works by significant artists from the US, Canada, Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia, including Sheila Hicks, Lenore Tawney, and Carolina Yrarrázaval) many of whom are not just representative of their own countries but have a connection to other regions as well. Second, we will include work by artists from in and outside North and South America who cite art, artists, or experiences from these continents as an influence. We’ve been receiving deliveries from new artists from Argentina and Mexico, and viewed compelling works that artists created after a pilgrimage to another country or a study of an artist from elsewhere. And we’ve been in correspondence with Sarah Parrish, Associate Professor of Art History at Plymouth University, who’ll be writing the catalog essay for Continental Drift.

Hope you, too, are having a great summer!

Color Stories

August 7, 2026 0 Comment
584mr Carter’s Color Lesson, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, wool and silk, 7′ x 2′ and 7′ x 4′ x 3″, 1993. Photo by Tom Grotta

Color is a constant in art, while its potential for new and unique applications is limitless. Artists at browngrotta arts have taken the challenge to heart — finding inspiration in the teachings of Josef Albers, the art of Color Fields painter Mark Rothko, and systems of their own design.

Detail: 37sl Dictionary – Light Indigo, Sue Lawty indigo-dyed, natural hemp, linen, 21.5 x 13, 2026. Photo by Tom Grotta
Detail: 1mkes Rhythm of Colors, Merja Keskinen, 80% linen, 20% cotton, 56″ x 62″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta
Detail: 22jbas The Yarns I Have Carried # 2, James Bassler, four selvaged weaving: left over warp and weft yarns from the past 65 years, including handspun and manufactured material, natural and synthetic dyed wool, silk, linen, cotton and ramie, 30″ x 31″ x 2.5″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

In Bauhaus artist and teacher Josef Albers’s universe, color seduced and beguiled (The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation: https://www.albersfoundation.org/alberses/teaching/interaction-of-color). “These characteristics made color the most fascinating of art’s formal elements. Albers’s passion for color prompted his decision to launch what was possibly the first full-blown course in color ever given anywhere, and certainly the first based exclusively on direct observation of color’s behavior. . . . Color behaved. Color was magic.”

At Black Mountain College in the 1930s he introduced a color course unique at the time, followed by courses at Yale University and the publication of Albers’s landmark Interaction of Color in 1963, which crowned 30 years of effort.  His exercises focused on color in specific contexts, showing that if you put color A next to color B, or these colors next to those, you could anticipate certain results. Moving from simple to complex, with many exercises exploring the ramifications of a previous one, the course awakened the students to the quirks and variables of color behavior. The course was not a fixed body of color wisdom, but rather an ongoing inquiry in which solutions were not conclusions, but steps on an endless path.

1mkes Rhythm of Colors, Merja Keskinen, 80% linen, 20% cotton, 56″ x 62″, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta

Merja Keskinen engages in color experiments of her own navigating between following a system, as Albers did, and making room for discovery. Keskinen describes this generative uncertainty: “I work to see. The joy of discovery and the delight of experiencing colors are essential to me. The unpredictability and always-surprising color tones captivate me. I interpret life and the surrounding world with colors and explore the factors that influence color perception.” In works like, Rhythm of Colors, Keskinen works with a self-developed weaving technique, combining different-colored threads according to her preselected system, creating geometric square and rectangular shapes in various sizes whose surfaces produce a pixel-like optical blending — distinguishable as individual threads up close, but merging into wholly unexpected color combinations from a distance. Her work demonstrates that even the most rigorously systematic approach — mathematics applied to thread — contains inevitable surprise. The material collaborates, producing results the artist could not fully predict.

22jbas The Yarns I Have Carried # 2, James Bassler, four selvaged weaving: left over warp and weft yarns from the past 65 years, including handspun and manufactured material, natural and synthetic dyed wool, silk, linen, cotton and ramie, 30″ x 31″ x 2.5″, 2025. Photo by Tom Grotta

In his Threads I’ve Carried series James Bassler takes Albers’s Color Theory as a literal influence. The works reflect what the artist learned in his first “Color” class at UCLA in1953 once he realized that there was an “Art Department.” The head counselor at Santa Monica HighSchool had refused to allow him to take a Ceramics class because his GPA was too high. He pursued art, despite that first obstacle, and later Bassler would teach Josef Albers’s Color Theory at UCLA for some 25 years. This work is made of left-over warp and weft yarns from the past 65 years, including handspun and manufactured material, natural and synthetic dyed wool, silk, linen, cotton, and ramie. The result, is a four-selvaged weaving, a color study using complementary colors, In works from the series, Bassler explored a new bag of saved yarns, which presented new thoughts. “How bright or dark can I go before it upsets the whole idea,” he asks. “In this piece I pushed the subtle to almost disappear and the bright to almost overwhelm.”

Chroma, Nancy Koenigsberg, coated copper wire 26 .5″ x 26.5″ x 2″, 2024. Photo courtesy of Nancy Koenigsberg

Nancy Koenigsberg’s Chroma is the artist’s version of a painter’s palette which took her more than six months. to complete. The sculptural artwork of coated, colored copper wire is comprised of four horizontal rows of small squares and four vertical rows, occupying an area 26 inches square. Each individual square is created by sewing and weaving coated copper wire and building layers of the color to a depth of 2.5 inches. The color combinations and contrasts challenge and engage the viewer both visually and conceptually.

37sl Dictionary – Light Indigo, Sue Lawty indigo-dyed, natural hemp, linen, 21.5 x 13, 2026. Photo by Tom Grotta

In her Indigo Cloth series, Sue Lawty explores the innumerable variations of blue. In one series, Notes on Blue, Lawty commissioned a range of linen and hemp hreads to be hand dyed with indigo by Jeanette Orrell in Wales. Lawty purposely requested a range of unevenly dyed shades across the tonal spectrum and then worked intuitively,  reading the weaving line by line as it progressed. In Dictionary – Light Indigo Woven Tapestry, she explores more gradations of blue. Lawty pursues the inherent qualities of any material with which she works, seeking “an understated restraint, balance, tension, rhythm: an essential stillness.”  In Lawty’s practice, color feels less applied than absorbed — as though the fiber had always held it within. 

Mariette Rousseau Vermette wool tapestry
613mr Si Rothko Métait Conté, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, wool, 94” x 80”, 1997. Photo by Tom Grotta

Experiments in color were the hallmark of members of the Color Fields movement of the 1950s and 60s.  Color Fields artists, among them Mark Rothko, created abstract paintings featuring large areas of solid color, flat surfaces, and a unified single-image field.  Rothko’s work with color was a potent influence for fiber artist Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. The Canadian artist saw an exhibition of the Rothko’s works in Italy in 1958. It was pivotal in inspiring her “to produce strictly artistic works in weaving,” Anne Newlands wrote in Weaving Modernist Art: The Life and Times of Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (Firefly Books, Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2023, p. 32). Throughout Rousseau-Vermette’s life, Newlands says, Rothko triggered “compositions with floating blocks of color, soft edges and her signature brushed wool technique to create a blending of colors and a sense of inner light.” Her interest in Rothko “marked her as a colorfield artist-weaver, fueling her ambition to create large-scale tapestries that would engulf the viewer and employ powerful chromatic contrasts of light and dark to evoke an emotional response.” 

Scott Rothstein stichöd weaving
26sr Untitled Red #71, Scott Rothstein hand stitched silk thread on silk ground, black frame with denglass
12.75″ x 14.75″, 2002

Scott Rothstein also works in fields of color in vivid embroideries of silk like Untitled #71. “I have felt compelled to explore the subtleties of basic visual elements for 20 years,” he explains. “I find the simplest elements to be the most profound. A line, created by twisting threads, can have infinite possibilities. Two areas of color, in equal amounts, placed consecutively, might suggest harmony or contradiction.” 

However articulated, these explorations of color and its potential intrigue and engage the viewer just as they the artist.

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 Print: Beauty is Resistance

November 19, 2025 0 Comment
Title Page Beauty is Resistance Catalog
Works by Abby Mackie and Randy Walker. Photo by Tom Grotta

If an exhibition takes place but there is no catalog to document it, did anyone see it? Certainly not enough people have seen it, as far as browngrotta arts is concerned.  That’s why we produce a catalog for nearly every exhibition we host.

Nnenna Okore spread

We had hundreds of people visit our Fall 2025 exhibition,  Beauty is Resistance: art as antidote. But we also cowry to share the remarkable works in Beauty with even more people through our installation video and Zoom talkthrough, both on our YouTube channel, and through the print version of the show, a catalog (our 61st), available on our website.

Yong Joo Kim Spread

The 132-page catalog contains 125 full-color images. There are full view and detail images of each of the featured works in the exhibition. There are statements about each work in the catalog. The works in the exhibition fell loosely into four subthemes: Reading Between the Lines, Threads of Memory, Radical Ornament, and Ritual and Reverence, and the catalog identifies the category that each work falls into.

Gizella Warburton Spread

Elizabeth Essner, Windgate Associate Curator at the Museum of Art, Houston contributed an insightful essay to the catalog, “Looking at Beauty.” Essner writes about the role of nature in many of the artists’ work — for materials, lessons, and poetic inspiration. She examines varying historic conceptions of beauty, subjective, objective, and embodied, and discusses the significance of prevailing cultural aesthetics. in summarizing beauty’s pivotal place in art, Essner quotes late art critic Peter Schjeldahl (1942 – 2022) who predicted that in the future, “beauty will be what it always has been and, despite everything, is now in furtive and inarticulate ways: an irrepressible, anarchic, healing human response without which life is a mistake.”

Lia Cook Spread

Order your copy on our website. If it’s a gift, let us know at art@browngrotta.com before December 15th and we will gift wrap your copy before we send it.

Kay Sekimachi Spread

Save the Date: Beauty is Resistance Opens at browngrotta arts on October 11th

August 20, 2025 0 Comment

We’ll be exploring Beauty as Resistance: art as antidote in our 2025 Fall “Art in the Barn” exhibition at browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut. The exhibition will explore how aesthetic creation—particularly within textile, fiber, and material-based practices—serves as a form of defiance, cultural preservation, and political voice. In an age of political polarization, ecological crisis, and rampant commodification, beauty might seem like a luxury—or a distraction. But the artists in this exhibition harness the power of beauty not as escape but as agency: to mourn, to protest, to remember, to heal, and to imagine

Beauty is Resistance by Norma Minkowitz
Frozen in Time by Norma Minkowitz. Photo by Tom Grotta

Beauty is Resistance will bring together more than two dozen artists, spanning generations, mediums, and geographies. The works fall loosely into four subthemes. Norma Minkowitz’s Frozen in Time reflects Threads of Memory, artworks in which fiber as a tool to archive personal, cultural, and collective memory and experience. Minkowitz’s work is about once-used personal items, perhaps ancient relics, in ominous black, showing every detail in time. A diary, combined with combs, various brushes, documenting a persons lived life, hidden messages inside a book that can’t be opened, are all frozen in time. These tell a story or trigger a question for the viewer.  

Reading Between the Lines
Fragments Of A Life Lived 3 by Aby Mackie. Photo courtesy of Aby Mackie

Reading Between the Lines includes works that subtly or explicitly engage with, politics, ecology, and resistance. Aby Mackie, an artist located in Spain, works with discarded historic textiles, deconstructing and reconfiguring them. “In reworking with what was cast aside,” Mackie says, “my practice becomes a form of quiet resistance—honoring forgotten stories and reasserting the enduring significance of craft in the face of environmental and cultural neglect.” In the 80s, Ed Rossbach created aseries of assemblages, titled El Salvador. In the series, Rossbach used camouflage cloth and sticks to protest US covert activity in that South American country. More personal is Yong Joo Kim’s Weight of Commitment: 4 Years Old. For Kim, making art is less a means of expression and more a residue of her efforts to sustain her life under pressure and weight. She creates art works she hopes are seen as symbols of resilience, beauty, and the transformation of struggle into creation. Weight of Commitment illustrates that approach. “As light and shadow played across the work,” Kim says, “the silhouette of a child appeared—seemingly around four years old—floating in mid-air. This moment was meaningful, because it was completely unintended, and I made it while I was going through IVF.”

Collider by Randy Walker
Collider by Randy Walker. Photo by Tom Grotta

Randy Walker’s Collider reflects another of Beauty’s subthemes, Radical Ornament, in which art reclaims ornamentation, surface and structure as valid forms of protest and joy. Trained as an architect, Walker’s work straddles several boundaries of craft, sculpture, and installation.His works create dialogues — solidity and transparency; structural stability and collapse; visibility and invisibility.

Donald and his Habsburg Empire by James Bassler
Donald and his Habsburg Empire by James Bassler. Photo by Tom Grotta

Finally, for Ritual and Reverence, the fourth subtheme, we’ll exhibit work grounded in indigenous craft and sacred traditions reimagined. James Bassler’s Donald and his Habsburg Empire, is a comment on both the historical and the contemporary attitude of arrogance and entitlement that has existed throughout history. Bassler references the Habsburgs, the ruling family of Austria, 1276-1918 and of Spain,1516-1700, that gave the world elitism through birthright, with no regard to proven achievement, noting that today in the US, the Kardashian and the Donald Trump model has made the acquisition of vast sums of money and profit an alarming societal objective, an elitism that values profits over people. In 2016, Bassler was invited to an exhibition at the Museo Textile de Oaxaca in Mexico that utilized feathered yarn, created of Canadian feathers, by spinners in Mexico who based the yarns on ones created in the 17th century. “After reviewing all of the material, I couldn’t help but notice that on many of the ancient textiles in which the feathers were used promoted the double-headed eagle of the Habsburg Empire, a reminder to those subjugated as to who was in charge,” Bassler says. “With that in mind and knowing that the feathers came from Canadian ducks, it was a logical step to create the double-headed ducks. The Donald Trump arrogance factor developed as the presidential debates materialized.”

Other artists whose work will be exhibited in Beauty is Resistance include: Kay Sekimachi (US), Neha Puri Dhir (IN), Karyl Sisson (US), Naoko Serino (JP), Laura Foster Nicholson (US), Jin-Sook So (KR), Irina Kolesnikova (DE), James Bassler (US), Gyöngy Laky (US), Lia Cook (US), and Eduardo Portillo and María Dávila (VE). 

Reserve a time to visit Beauty as Resistance: art as antidote : HERE

Beauty as Resistance: art as antidote
October 11 – 19, 2025

Location: 
browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897 

Times:
Saturday, October 11th: 11AM to 6PM [Opening & Artist Reception] 
Sunday,  October 12th: 11AM to 6PM
Monday, October 13th through  Saturday, October 18th: 10AM to 5PM
Sunday, October 19th: 11AM to 6PM [Final Day]

Safety Protocol:
No narrow heels please — barn floors.

We Get Great Press

February 19, 2025 0 Comment

We’ve been a bit lax at tooting our own horn this past year. Here’s a round-up of press mentions of artists that we work with and of browngrotta arts and our events — — digital and in print. 


We were thrilled in January when Artsy reported that fiber art is experiencing a resurgence, a trend Artsy expects ” to take hold across the contemporary art world in 2025.” In its “Trends to Watch” item Artsy featured several artists, including Lia Cook, Adela Akers, and Sheila Hicks.  

Artsy Trends to Watch

Shortly after that, American Craft Magazine asked to do a profile on Tom, Rhonda, and browngrotta arts. We are excited that the article, “A World of Fiber,” by Deborah Bishop — out now — gave us the chance to showcase so many of the artists that we promote. We appreciated the care that Deborah Bishop took with all the details and her writing that, “Among the few decades of global and multi-generational fiber arts, browngrotta arts is revered for its beautiful documentation of the craft.”

browngrotta arts American Craft Magazine feature

browngrotta arts got a nice listing in Museums1. 

Museums blog

Our recent exhibition, Japandí Revisited: shared influences and aesthetics, at the Wayne Art Center in Pennsylvania got a nice review in artblog  

artblog

A nice photo of works by Ulla-Maija Vikman and Mia Olsson that we loaned to the Garrido Gallery for their exhibition at the Salon Art + Design show in 2023, appeared in the Fall 2024 issue of Art & Object.

Art & Object covers Salon Art + Design

Meanwhile, artists we work with were getting good coverage for their artistic pursuits and more. Hali Magazine ran a detailed and beautifully photographed article about James Bassler, whose work will be included in our upcoming exhibition, Field Notes: an art survey. In “An artist’s life,” Elaine Phipps explores his work, “within the context of his time and place in the American cultural landscape of the 1950s to the present day.” Phipps tracks the nuances of his growth and development as an artist/weaver, and the expanded world view and deep appreciation of a wide range of historic and ethnographic textile traditions that “transformed his creative process into new working methods.”

Hali James Bassler feature article

In its Fall 2024 issue, Fiber Art Now ran an insightful profile of Dutch Artist Marianne Kemp, “Achieving the Perfect Balance,” by Noelle Foye. Kemp’s work will also be in Field Works at browngrotta arts in May. Foye writes that Kemp has two parts to her weaving process. “There is the creative, poetic side of weaving — the feel, the touch, the colors. Then there is the technical side, which involves the mechanical challenges of manipulating the loom to translate the creative vision into reality.”

Marianne Kemp Fiber Art Now feature

The magazine also headlined Nancy Koenigsberg’s work, Copper Patches, in its Summer 2024 issue.

Nancy Koenigsberg in Fiber Art Now

An article in the Fall 2024/Winter 2025 issue of basketry+ Magazine looked back at the first 10 years of the National Basketry Organization, illustrated with work by Jennifer Falck Linssen, Kari Lønning, and Nancy Moore Bess. Linssen’s work will be included in Field Notes.

basketry + Kari Lønning, Nancy Moore Bess, Jennifer Falck Linssen

Norma Minkowitz’s achievements as an athlete and an artist were described in “Runner’s World” by Sara Gaynes Levy, in the January 2025 issue of Westport Lifestyle. Levy writes, “The world-record mile time for a woman aged 85-89 is nine minutes, 45 seconds, 45 tenths of a second. And it belongs to Westport resident, Norma Minkowitz, 87.” The article notes that Minkowitz is a world-renowned artist as well whose work is in 35 museum collections worldwide. “There’s a connection between running and art the way I do it,” the article quotes Minkowitz as saying. “My work is in fiber, and the process is to do this crochet stitch over and over. It’s very repetitive, as is running.” Minkowitz’s work will be included in Field Notes at browngrotta arts.

Norma Minkowitz in Westport Magazine

Last, but not at all least, the passing of Hiroyuki Shindo, an exceptional indigo artist from Japan was noted by in the selvedge blog,”Lives Well-Lived: Horoyuki Shindo (1941-2024).” 

Selvedge obituary: Hiroyuki Shindo

He was also remembered in Text, the Textile Society Magazine. Both remembrances were written by Jenny Balfour-Paul and each featured images of Shindo and his work by Tom Grotta.  

Text Magazine Hiroyuki Shindo obituary cover article

Art Assembled – New This Week in August

August 28, 2024 0 Comment

August has been an exciting month at browngrotta arts as we edge closer to the launch of our highly anticipated Fall 2024 Art in the Barn exhibition, Ways of Seeing – exploring ways individuals envision and curate art collections. Our upcoming showcase, delves into the diverse ways individuals curate and experience art collections. Within this exhibition, we’ll present unique groupings, including The Art Aquatic, featuring works inspired by water; Impact: 20 Women Artists to Collect, spotlighting influential artists from both the US and abroad; and Right-Sized, which focuses on art created with specific constraints in mind. Mark your calendars for September 21-29 to join us for this compelling event!

Over the past month, our New This Week series has introduced an array of talented artists, including Gudrun Pagter, James Bassler, Noriko Takamiya, and Zofia Butrymowicz. We’re thrilled to showcase their remarkable contributions and offer you a glimpse into their extraordinary work.

Catch up on all our recent features and stay tuned for more exciting updates as we count down to our big exhibition!

Gudrun Pagter
18gp Red, Gudrun Pagter, sisal and flax , 67” x 94.5”, 2015. Photo by Tom Grotta

Kicking off the month, we had the pleasure of featuring the work of Gudrun Pagter. A distinguished Danish artist, Pagter is celebrated for her bold and graphic tapestries that engage deeply with themes of architecture and geometry.

Pagter’s artwork is characterized by narrow lines and shifts in color fields, demonstrating her commitment to exploring and refining artistic idioms. She describes her approach as a rigorous investigation into the picture plane, employing a disciplined structuring of geometric forms and a restricted color palette. Her work not only captures the essence of architectural forms but also invites viewers into a meticulously crafted world of design.

We’re thrilled to showcase Pagter’s captivating pieces and hope you found her feature as inspiring as we did!

James Bassler
19bas Tracking Nasca Patterns, James Bassler, indigo dyed ikat tapestry, 63″ x 32″, 2006; linen, both the warp and parts of the weft, natural dark brown cotton from Guatemala, lighter brown cotton from Oaxaca, Coyuchi, a white handspun silk from Oaxaca , the silk worms feed off of native oak trees, and perhaps the most special of the yarns is the purple-dyed, handspun cotton, Caracol. The Caracol dye comes from a sea snail that lives off the Pacific coast, on rocks, in Oaxaca. Photo by Tom Grotta

Next, we turned our spotlight to the remarkable James Bassler and his tapestry Tracking Nasca Patterns. Since 1980, Bassler has delved into various weaving traditions, including the wedge-weave structure of the Navajo, Japanese shibori, and pre-Columbian scaffold weave techniques. His work is a testament to his dedication to exploring and preserving these ancient textile practices.

This specific piece was crafted with linen for both the warp and parts of the weft, this tapestry incorporates natural dark brown cotton from Guatemala, lighter brown cotton from Oaxaca, and Coyuchi, a handspun silk from Oaxaca. The unique silk used in this work is produced by worms that feed on native oak trees, adding a special touch of nature’s elegance. The highlight of the tapestry is the striking purple-dyed handspun cotton called Caracol, derived from a traditional dyeing process involving sea snails found along the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. Local artisans collect the snails to extract the dye before returning them to their habitat, demonstrating a sustainable practice deeply rooted in tradition.

We’re honored to showcase Bassler’s intricate and culturally rich tapestry, and we hope you enjoy exploring the craftsmanship and historical significance embedded in this piece.

Noriko Takamiya
33nt Vision and Perception, Noriko Takamiya, bamboo stalks
5.5” x 7” x 7”, 2023. Photo by Tom Grotta

We then turned our spotlight to the innovative Noriko Takamiya, celebrated for her contemporary take on traditional Japanese basketmaking techniques. Takamiya’s practice is a captivating blend of experimentation and refinement, as she explores various weaving methods using an array of materials such as wood splint, ramie, rice straw, and paper.

Her work often features non-vessel forms that highlight the unique interplay between structure and material. Takamiya’s approach involves wrapping, tying, and plaiting techniques, resulting in intricate, sculptural pieces that showcase her mastery over both form and texture.

Takamiya is part of a distinguished group of basketmakers, inspired by Hisako Sekijima’s pioneering basket technology, which has evolved into a new method of three-dimensional modeling. Since 1986, this influential group has continued to push the boundaries of basketry, contributing significantly to the field.

Zofia Butrymowicz
8zb Słońce Szafirowe, (Sapphire Sun), Zofia Butrymowicz, linen, wool, 84″ x 78″, 1.5″, 1968. Photo by Tom Grotta

Last, but certainly not least, we honored the late artist Zofia Butrymowicz, a pioneering figure in East European textile art. Butrymowicz is remembered for her innovative approach to weaving, which she referred to as “loom thinking.” This technique involved working directly on the loom without a prepared cartoon, allowing for spontaneous and dynamic creations.

Butrymowicz excelled in the wool gobelin technique, utilizing handspun wools that were often rough and irregular to create striking and textured pieces. Her work frequently emphasized color, reflecting her deep interest in experimentation and new artistic expressions. Throughout her career, Butrymowicz’s contributions to the art world were celebrated globally, and her legacy continues to inspire.

Her unique approach and dedication to pushing the boundaries of textile art have left an indelible mark. We’re privileged to feature her remarkable work, celebrating her innovative spirit and enduring influence.

Thank you for following along with our latest features and updates. We’re excited to share more as we approach the launch of Ways of Seeing. Don’t forget to reserve your spot for the exhibition and stay tuned for further details!

Art Assembled – New This Week in July

August 1, 2024 0 Comment

July has been good to us here at browngrotta arts. We’ve started getting into our final planning phases for our  Fall 2024 “Art in the Barn” exhibition, Ways of Seeing – exploring ways individuals envision and curate art collections. The exhibition within the exhibition will feature distinct groupings: The Art Aquatic, art influenced by water; Impact: Women Artists to Collect, accomplished artists from the US and abroad; and Right-Sized, art compiled with specific parameters in mind. The exhibition will be open to the public September 21-29. We hope to see you there!

Outside of prepping for this exhibition, we’ve had the opportunity to introduce six artists in our New This Week series, including: James Bassler, Susie Gillespie, Eduardo and Mariá Eugenia Dávíla Portillo, Eva Vargo and Adela Akers.

Now, we’re recapping everything we covered so you don’t miss a thing! Read on for the full breakdown.

James Bassler
20jbas This Old House by James Bassler, multiple cotton and silk warps, patched together multiple sisal, silk, linen, agave, ramie wefts, synthetic and natural dyes. batik plain and wedge-weave construction, 27” x 42”, 2024. Photo by Tom Grotta.

We kicked off the month with a powerful feature on James Bassler‘s piece, This Old House. Timed with the 4th of July, this piece resonated deeply with the occasion. Since 1980, Bassler has been celebrated for his innovative textile work, drawing inspiration from diverse traditions such as the Navajo wedge-weave, Japanese shibori, and pre-Columbian scaffold weaves.

In “This Old House,” Bassler draws from Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, which likens America to an old house, with the caste system of slavery being as foundational as the studs and joints. The piece’s flag design, adorned with wax resist and a rich array of woven elements, pays homage to the African textile traditions brought to Virginia in 1619, symbolizing the loss of identity and culture imposed by slavery.

Not only is this work profound, but it also stands out for its stunning complexity.

Susie Gillespie
Evidence of Passing Time by Susie Gillespie, handspun, machine-spun linen, dyed, indigo, oak gall. gesso paint weaving, 15.75″ x 15.75″ x 2″, 2021. Photos by Tom Grotta.

Next up, we featured the talented artist Susie Gillespie and her captivating piece, Evidence of Passing Time. Gillespie draws inspiration from the beauty found in the remnants of what was once new: the patterns in damp, crumbling plaster; remnants of paint on decayed wood; rotting bark; and broken carvings. Her intricate techniques, such as broken borders, insets, twining, and weaves of herringbone and twill, bring these elements to life.

When asked about her work, Gillespie said: “Out of decay and disintegration I wish to express a sense of renewal.”

It’s no secret to us why this artist come so acclaimed, and we hope our readers feel the same.

Mariá Eugenia Dávíla Portillo
16pd Amarillo, Eduardo and Mariá Eugenia Dávíla Portillo, silk, alpaca, moriche fiber, cooper leaf, natural dyes, 82.25” x 24.6”, 2019. Photo by Tom Grotta.

The next duo we highlighted did not disappoint! Turning our spotlight to Eduardo and Mariá Eugenia Dávíla Portillo. Renowned for their experimental approach, this artistic pair has made significant strides across all facets of their practice.

Originating from Venezuela, they pioneered silk farming, utilizing local fibers and exploring natural indigo dyeing techniques inspired by their journeys through Orinoco and the Amazon. Extensive research in China and India further enriched their process, where they developed a comprehensive silk production cycle from mulberry tree cultivation to innovative textile design.

They make a spectacular duo, and we can’t wait to see more from them in the future!

Eva Vargo
8ev Paper Quilt 1, Eva Vargo, Japanese & Korean old book papers, handspun strings of old book papers, 23” x 23” x 2.25”, 2022. Photo by Tom Grotta.

We then turned our spotlight to artist Eva Vargö. With extensive travel experience, including time spent in Sweden, Japan, and Korea, Vargö has skillfully infused global influences into her practice.

Her current works are a fascinating blend of traditional weaving techniques and her own innovative paper-weaving methods. By integrating elements from Eastern philosophy, Vargö creates pieces that resonate with a deep sense of harmony and balance. Her unique approach not only reflects her diverse experiences but also continues to captivate audiences worldwide. It’s no wonder she’s earned such acclaim!

Adela Akers
53aa Five Windows, Adela Akers, linen and metal foil, 29” x 60”, 2005. Photo by Tom Grotta.

To close out the month, we are honored to highlight the work of the late, acclaimed artist Adela Akers. Her piece, Five Windows, created in 2005, showcases her masterful use of linen and metal foiling.

Born in Spain and later residing in the United States, Akers was a pivotal figure in the textile and fiber art world. Her career, which began in the 1950s, spanned the entire evolution of modern fiber art, leaving an indelible mark on the field.

We’re also thrilled to share that Akers’ work will be featured in Impact: 20 Women Artists to Collect, part of our upcoming Fall 2024 exhibition, Ways of Seeing. The exhibition will take place from September 21 to September 29, and we can’t wait for you to experience her remarkable artistry once again.

Thank you for joining us on this journey through July’s exciting features. We’re incredibly grateful for your continued support and enthusiasm for the artists and their remarkable work. Stay tuned for more updates and insights as we approach the unveiling of our upcoming Fall 2024 exhibition, Ways of Seeing. Don’t miss your chance to experience these stunning artworks in person—reserve your spot today! We look forward to seeing you there and sharing more artistic inspirations in the months ahead.

More Pop-Ups Please!

June 5, 2024 0 Comment
Space 67 - bogarts Pop-Up installation
From left to right: Repos + Paix-side by Mariette Rousseau-Vermette, Embarrilado Azul by Carolina Yrarrázaval, Fire Fright and Range Fire by Lewis Knauss, CMA-CGM by Laura Foster Nicholson, Arm & Hammer by John McQueen and Peninsula by Mary Merkel-Hess. Photo by Tom Grotta

We had a chance to do an expanded Pop-Up at Space67 in Norwalk, CT last month. We were first asked to curate an exhibition that would be enjoyed by individuals who attended The Supper Club. Then, with the exhibition in place, we decided to create a public Pop Up for one day and invite our fans, people in Norwalk, and those just walking by. 

Haiti inspired Chicken Tender
Haiti-inspired, Braised chicken tender in creole sauce – yuka – plantain crisp – cilantro avocado salsa verde was one of extraordinary seven courses served at The Supper Club. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Supper Club dinner was a project of the Kitchen Incubator at the Village Community Foundation in Stamford, CT. The Incubator Program at The Village is a nonprofit program that supports local, diverse entrepreneurs and startups in the food and beverage industry. 

Supper Club Chefs
Chefs Xavier Santiago, Marta Garcia, and Ivan Romero, their crew, and Village Community Foundation President, Jon Winkel, addressing diners. Photo by Tom Grotta

The Supper Club at Space67 involved three exceptional chefs — Chef Xavier Santiago, Chef Marta Garcia, and Chef Ivan Romero — who, with a talented crew, prepared a 7-course meal with offerings from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, and the Dominican Republican. 

Supper Club at Space 67
Between courses at Space 67. Photo by Tom Grotta

Sixty people were served, music was provided by The Briefly Educated & Friends and a great time was had by all!

browngrotta Pop-up Space 67 art exhibition
Falling Fruit by John McQueen, Cimbreante by Eduardo and María Eugenia Dávila Portillo and Pre-Columbian Meets Mid-Century Modern by James Bassler. Photo by Carter Grotta

In support of the South American food and drinks (Cuba Libre, Clarified Piña Colada, and Hibiscus Lemonade) that were served, we chose a Pan-American theme for the works we exhibited: Continental Divide: Fiber Art from North and South America included artists from Chile, Venezuela, Canada, and the US. Falling Fruit by John McQueen, Carolina Yrråzaval’s Embarrilado Azul, Cimbreante by Eduardo Portillo and María Davila and CMA-CGM by Laura Foster Nicholson were among the most-commented-upon works in the exhibition.

John McQueen and MAry Merkel-Hess
Arm & Hammer by John McQueen and Peninsula by Mary Merkel-Hess. Photo by Tom Grotta

For the public Pop-Up we added work by Mary Merkel-Hess and a large sculpture by John McQueen.

Claude Vermette by the vaults
Coq-de-Bruyere by Claude Vermette by the Vaults. Photo by Tom Grotta

Pop-Ups serve an important objective of ours at browngrotta arts — to bring fine fiber art to more and varied audiences. Watch for more!

Art and Design Trends: 2024

February 8, 2024 0 Comment

Still firmly in the start of the year, New Year’s resolutions not abandoned yet, it’s an ideal time to explore the design trends that will define the aesthetic landscape of 2024. From color palettes to furniture styles, this year’s design pundits predict an array of options for transforming your living spaces into stylish and on-trend havens. Art can be an essential part of that transformation. Here are some of the 2024 insights we’ve compiled:

Color: the eternal appeal of blue
“One trend in particular is emerging as clear as the sky is blue,” says The Spruce, an interior design blog(“The 2024 Colors of the Year Point to One Trend You Need to Know,” Megan McCarty, November 7, 2023). Each fall, paint brands unveil their colors of the year, and for 2024, many of them declared shades of blue as the color to consider, including Skipping Stones by Dunn-Edwards, Blue Nova 825 by Benjamin Moore, Renew Blue by Valspar, Thermal by C@ Paints, Bay Blue by Minwax, and Bluebird by Krylon. Blue, as any of you who followed our 2018 exhibition Blue/Green: color, code, context know,  is elemental…sky and sea, infinite in hue, tone, intensity and variation…indigo, azure, sapphire, ultramarine. As metaphor, it connotes integrity, tranquilty.  It’s no wonder that it never really falls out of favor. The designers interviewed by The Spruce gave a number of reasons for including the color in one’s space. It’s calming and relaxing, subtle and subdued, and has a connection to nature. The Spruce quotes Chelse Thowe, the lead designer of Forge & Bow, sees a common thread in the paint brands’ colors of the year:  each is reminiscent of clear skies and calm waters. “Blue is trending because it connects us with nature and feels rejuvenating,” Thowe says. “It brings a sense of stillness and creates a sanctuary from our busy lives.” 

Micheline Beauchemin tapestry
1mb Totem aux Millefleurs Bleues, Micheline Beauchemin, wool, 84″ x 42″, 1980

Many artists who work with browngrotta arts use indigo and other shades of blue to evince natural themes.  In Totem aux Millefleurs Bleues, Micheline Beauchemin chose blue, turquoise and green to create a calm atmosphere of forest and leaves. “…[T]he color, though dark,” she said, “will be brilliant and beautiful.” Still others, choose it for its metaphorical power.

Rachel Max basket
8rm Continuum, Rachel Max, dyed cane, plaited and twined, 15.5″x 17″ x 17″, 2018

Rachel Max’s work, Continuum, explores the artist’s ambivalence about blue. “It is cold yet often warm and comforting. It is a color of depth and distance, of darkness and light and dawn and dusk.” Blue is linked closely to the sea and sky, and Max says, like our lives, she says, they seem infinite yet each has a beginning and an end. Continuum is like a Mobius strip, illustrating the contrasts and opposites, the finite and infinite.

Biophilic Design/Return to Nature
Interior designers predict that homeowners will seek to create calming and harmonious environments in the coming year. Biophilic design, with its emphasis on incorporating natural elements into interiors, will continue to flourish, bringing the outdoors inside through the use of plants, natural materials, and organic textures, says ZDS, (“Exploring the biggest interior design trends 2024“). This trend is one also predicted to have a parallel in the art world. Artsy interviewed 15 curators on defining art themes for 2024 (“15 Leading Curators Predict the Defining Art Trends of 2024,” Artsy, Maxwell Rabb, January 12, 2024), including Amy Smith-Stewart, Chief Curator, at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut. Materials and methods carry meaning, Smith-Stewart told Artsy, “I predict we will see more artists incorporating organic materials or materials collected, grown, and harvested from the natural world into their work,” she said. Artists will seek to comment and address legacies of colonization, she predicts, as well as on issues of environmental justice and land use.

James Bassler weaving
16jb Things Past, James Bassler, single ply agave, 38.5” x 38.5” x 3.5”, 2021

At browngrotta, James Bassler’s use of agave in Things Past is part of a project to use the plant waste created by the making of tequila. Bassler’s friend, the artist Trine Ellitsgaard, organized an exhibition of works made from agave. She has worked with artisans in Oaxaca, Mexico to create fibers and spun thread from agave waste to spin into rugs and bags and art. 

Ane Henriksen tapestry
30ah Reserve, Ane Henriksen, linen, silk, acrylic painted rubber matting, oak frame, 93.75” x 127.625” x 2.5”, 201

In Reserve, Ane Henriksen used material covered with oil spots, found washed up on the west coast of Denmark. Fishermen use the material on the tables in the galley, so the plates don’t slide off when on the high seas. The work highlights ecological peril. “Nature is threatened,” Henriksen says. “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 stir thoughts of how human activity is a threat against nature.” John McQueen has created provocative sculptures from twigs, branches and bark for many years. More recently, he has begun to add recycled plastics to highlight humans’ tenuous connection to nature. He illustrates this conflicted relationship in Arm & Hammer with a man stepping precariously on a snake made from recycled plastic bottles of detergent.

John McQueen sculpture
79jm Arm & Hammer, John McQueen, twigs, twine, plastic from, Arm & Hammer detergient bottles, 56” x 31” x 30”, 2006

Celebrating the 70s and Icons
Each year, 1stDibs, the e-commerce interior design and fine art marketplace, aims to quantify subtle shifts in designers’ taste with its Designer Survey (“The 1stDibs Guide to 2024 Interior Design Trends,” Introspective, Cara Greenberg, December 19, 2023). This year’s survey drew responses from more than 600 industry professionals. The results report what excites designers at this point in time, “what they’ve had quite enough of and what they anticipate sourcing to conjure sublime living spaces in the months to come.” 1st Dibs reports a fresh enthusiasm for the 1970s, which 27 percent of designers in the US and 29 percent in the UK cited as the era they’ll draw upon for inspiration in 2024. “[E]expect to see an updated version of 1970: “a curated, earth-toned Laurel Canyon look, if you will — organic, relaxed, and comforting.” The survey also found that iconic design has lasting power. “Iconic designs are revered for a reason. Their forms are so pure, their function so unimpeachable that their lasting popularity should come as no surprise.”

Glen Kaufman tapestry
188gk Abbot’s Mantle, Glen Kaufman, wool, 74″ x 36″ x 1.5″, 1971

We find the same purity in works from the 1970s by the icons of art textiles. Abbot’s Mantle made in 1971 by Glen Kaufman, reflects the experience in rug making and design that he gained at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, during a Fulbright in Scandinavia, and while working at Dorothy Liebes’ New York Design Studio. 

Katherine Westphal quilt
47w The puzzle of Floating World #2, Katherine Westphal, transfer print and quilting on cotton, 85″ x 68″, 1976

Puzzle of the Floating World (1976), by Katherine Westphal, who authored The Surface Designer’s Art: Contemporary, Fabric, Printers, Painters and Dyers (Lark Books,1993, Asheville, NC) contemporizes quilting. 

Sherri Smith weaving
1ss/r Linde Star, Sherri Smith, plaiting, discharge; cotton webbing, 36″ x 33.75″, 1976

Sherri Smith’s Linde Star is an imaginative stitched-and-plaited work, that was included in the seminal 1970s book, Beyond Weaving: the art fabric. Ritzi Jacobi, who was also featured in Beyond Weaving, 

Ritzi and Peter Jacobi goat hair tapestry
10rj Exotica Series, Ritzi and Peter Jacobi, cotton, goat hair and sisal, 114″ x 60″ x 6″, 1975

was known her heavily textured works, like Exotica Series  made with Peter Jacobi in 1975, in which the couple used unusual materials such as sisal, coconut fibers, and goat hair. 

Ed Rossbach Peruvian tapestry
78r Peruvian Tapestry, Ed Rossbach, printed weft, 20″ x 21″, 1972

 In Peruvian Tapestry (1972), Ed Rossbach, an influential artist, author, and teacher, continued his experiments re-envisioning traditional techniques. Peter Collingwood, knighted by the Queen of England, developed a practice that he called shaft switching to create complex and elegant works.

Peter Collingwood textile
5pco Microgauze 84, Peter Collingwood, warp: Black and natural linen; Weft: natural linen, 72″ x 8.375″ x .125″, 1970

Conclusion:
The design and art trends of 2024 suggest ways to create spaces that are not only visually appealing but also deeply reflective of your personality and lifestyle. We are happy to help you source works from browngrotta arts to enable that process.