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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
Through February 7, 2026
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, New York
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5768

An expansive retrospective of the eloquent work of Ruth Asawa has traveled to New York from San Francisco MoMA. The exhibition coincides with the artist’s 100 birthday, the exhibition includes some 300 objects that highlight the core values of experimentation and interconnectedness pervading all dimensions of Asawa’s practice. The retrospective spans 60 years of Asawa’s ambitious career, presenting a range of her work across mediums, including wire sculptures, bronze casts, paper folds, paintings, and a comprehensive body of works on paper. The artworks are accompanied by a rich array of archival materials—photographs, documents, and ephemera—that illuminate her public commissions, art advocacy, and meaningful, lasting relationships with members of her community.

New Work: Sheila Hicks
Through August 9, 2026
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 3rd Street
San Francisco, California
https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/new-work-sheila-hicks/

Still at SFMoMA is Sheila Hicks’s first solo exhibition there, a site-specific installation in the museum’s New Work gallery. According to the museum, the works are inspired by objects, textures, and patterns observed in her adopted city or in her migratory life. Each draws from places with personal significance, from the cobblestones of her courtyard to the towering lighthouses of the rocky island of Ouessant, France and its treacherous and rugged landscape.

On Loss and Absence: Textiles of Mourning and Survival
Through March 15, 2026
Art Institute of Chicago
159 East Monroe Street
Chicago, Illinois
https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/9772/on-loss-and-absence-textiles-of-mourning-and-survival

In the center of the country is a themed exhibition at the Art Institute in Chicago. Drawn primarily from the museum’s collection, On Loss and Absence brings together over 100 objects from diverse cultures dating from antiquity to today to reveal the ways people use textiles to sustain spiritual beliefs, understand death, cope with grief, remember those who have passed, and heal from trauma, both personally and collectively.

Back on the East Coast, there are five exhibitions of interest — two in Connecticut, two in New York and one in New Jersey. 

Stitching Time: The Social Justice Collaboration Quilts Project 
Through December 13, 2025
Fairfield University Art Museum
1073 Benson Road
Fairfield, Connecticut
https://www.fairfield.edu/museum/exhibitions/current-exhibitions

At the Fairfield University Art Museum, Stitching Time features 12 quilts created by men who are incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola Prison. These works of art, and accompanying recorded interviews, tell the story of a unique inside-outside quilt collaboration. The exhibition focuses our attention on the quilt creators, people often forgotten by society when discussing the history of the US. criminal justice system. Also on view in the gallery will be Give Me Life, a selection of works from women artists presently or formerly incarcerated at York Correctional Institution, a maximum security state prison in Niantic, CT, courtesy of Community Partners in Action (CPA). 

Jeremy Frey: Woven
Through October 26, 2025
The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive
Greenwich, Connecticut
https://brucemuseum.org/exhibitions/jeremy-frey-woven/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19816342960&gbraid=0AAAAADFvx1CiuOUzWvTKKQPD8aRSirAut

You have just a few days to see the first major retrospective of Jeremy Frey’s work. Jeremy Frey: Woven presents a comprehensive survey — 50 baskets — from 20 years of Frey’s prolific career. A seventh-generation Passamaquoddy basket maker and one of the most celebrated Indigenous weavers in the country, Frey learned traditional Wabanaki weaving techniques from his mother and through apprenticeships at the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance. While Frey builds on these cultural foundations in his work, he also pushes the creative limits of his medium, producing conceptually ambitious and meticulously crafted baskets that reflect not only his technical skill as a weaver but also his profound ecological knowledge of and connection to the Passamaquoddy ancestral territory of the Northeastern Woodlands.

In New York City there are two opportunities to celebrate the work of remarkable artist Kay Sekimachi, who turned 99 last month. 

Kay Sekimachi: a personal archive
Through November 1, 2025
Andrew Kreps Gallery
394 Broadway
New York, New York
https://www.andrewkreps.com/exhibitions/kay-sekimachi2

This exhibition of works by the Berkeley-based artist Kay Sekimachi, was organized in collaboration with browngrotta arts. It includes rare, early works from Sekimachi’s personal archive — weavings and assemblages.  The exhibition is the first of the artist’s work in New York since 1970.

Sixties Surreal
Through January 19, 2026
Whitney Museum of Art
99 Gansevoort Street
New York, New York 
https://whitney.org/exhibitions/sixties-surreal

One of Kay Sekimachi’s innovative and celebrated monofilament weavings is included in Sixties Surreal at the Whitney. Sixties Surreal  is an ambitious, scholarly reappraisal of American art from 1958 to 1972, encompassing the work of more than 100 artists. This revisionist survey looks beyond now canonical movements to focus instead on the era’s most fundamental, if underrecognized, aesthetic current—an efflorescence of psychosexual, fantastical, and revolutionary tendencies, undergirded by the imprint of historical Surrealism and its broad dissemination. The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalog and a playlist.

And in New Jersey …

Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay
October 31, 2025 – July 5, 2026
Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton University Campus
Princeton, NJ
https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/exhibitions-events/exhibitions/toshiko-takaezu-dialogues-clay

The groundbreaking ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011), who taught at Princeton University for almost three decades will be celebrated in Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay beginning October 31st. Drawing from the Museum’s deep holdings of Takaezu’s ceramics, Dialogues in Clay explores the artist’s experimental practice, including her signature “closed” forms and painterly glazing. Placing Takaezu’s sculptures in conversation with the work of teachers and contemporaries who embarked on parallel pathways of innovation—including Helen Frankenthaler, Maija Grotell, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Lenore Tawney, and Peter Voulkos,— alongside reflections by her students, the exhibition positions Takaezu as one of the most important ceramic artists of the twentieth century.

Much to Enjoy!

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Kay Sekimachi has always had fans. She is known as a “weaver’s weaver” because of her technical mastery and extraordinary textile innovations. Her work has been recognized and exhibited widely since the 1960s, yet it has been 50 years since she has had a solo exhibition in New York. In 1969, Kay Sekimachi’s “‘sketchy’ and transparent” [ ] free-hanging, gossamer piece of nylon monofilament was included in the seminal Wall Hangings exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1970, there was a solo exhibition of Sekimachi’s monofilaments at the Lee Nordness Gallery in New York.

Fast forward to 2025, and Kay Sekimachi’s work is featured in a solo exhibition Kay Sekimachi: a personal archive at the Andrew Kreps Gallery (394 Broadway, New York, NY, through November 1, 2025, in conjunction with browngrotta arts). Kay’s work is also on exhibit at MoMA in Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction (through September 13, 2025). And, as of September 24th, Sekimachi’s remarkable monofilament weavings are a part of Sixties Surreal, an ambitious, scholarly reappraisal of American art from 1958 to 1972 (through January 19, 2026), at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York. 

It’s official — September 2025 is Kay Sekimachi month — feted in New York and in California where she will turn 99 years old!

It’s a fitting capstone to Kay’s string of one-person exhibitions in other locales. 2001 saw Intimate Eye: Paper & Fiber Forms of Kay Sekimachi at the Mingei Museum in San Diego. In 2002, it was Kay Sekimachi: Fiberworks at the Craft and Folk Museum in Los Angeles. In 2009, Kay Sekimachi: Fiber Artist opened at the Sonoma Art Museum. In 2016, the year of Kay’s 90th birthday, the Craft and Folk Art Museum presented Kay Sekimachi: Simple Complexity and the de Young Museum in San Francisco presented Kay Sekimachi: Student, Teacher, Artist. 2018 saw the opening of Kay Sekimachi, Master Weaver: Innovations in Forms and Materials at the Fresno Art Museum in California. In 2021, BAMPFA in Berkeley, California opened Kay Sekimachi: Geometries. In 2023 and 2024, a comprehensive survey of her work titled Kay Sekimachi: Weaving Traditions was presented at the SFO Museum. And right now, Kay Sekimachi: Ingenuity and Imagination is on exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.

In between, there were significant group and two-person exhibitions. In 1969, her work appeared alongside Anni Albers, Sheila Hicks, Doyle Lane, Lenore Tawney, Peter Voulkos, and others in Objects: USA, which traveled after opening at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C. In 1971, there was Deliberate Entanglements at UCLA. In 1973, the 6th International Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1986, FibeR/Evolution, Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin. Then in 1993, the two-person exhibition, Marriage in Form: Bob Stocksdale and Kay Sekimachi  traveled from California to Arkansas, Missouri, Florida, DC, New York, and Rhode Island followed by In the Realm of Nature: Kay Sekimachi & Bob Stocksdale at the Mingei Museum in 2015. Then Woven Histories debuted in Los Angeles in 2023, traveling to Ottawa, Canada, Washington, D.C. and now New York, New York followed by Skilled, Subversive, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in DC in 2024.

There is more well-deserved recognition to come — a major retrospective on Kay Sekimachi will open in the Summer of 2028 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. 

Watch for it and in the meantime visit Kay Sekimachi: a personal archive in New York if you can. (Here’s a short video to pique your interest.)

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Acknowledging Asawa’s attraction, Artsy recently complied 6 Artists to Follow If You Like Ruth Asawa (Artsy, Tara Anne Dalbow, Apr 2, 2025). The list includes Chiaru Shiota, Naomi Wanjiku Gakunga, Gertrud Hals, Marci Chevali, Nnenna Okore, and Mari Andrews. Like Asawa’s, these artists’ work reflect natural forms like snail shells, insect wings, and spider webs, and is “characterized by a sense of levity that defies common perceptions of weight and gravity.”

Not surprisingly. browngrotta arts has its own list — four more artists to follow if you admire Asawa:

First, Asawa’s contemporary, Kay Sekimachi (b. 1926). Kay Sekimachi is best known for her ethereal monofilament sculptures. The series began in 1963 as an experiment to weave a wall hanging in multiple, translucent layers. After weaving a linen sample, Sekimachi realized she could produce three-dimensional forms using Dupont’s recently introduced nylon monofilament material. Sekimachi wove her monofilament sculptures as flat, interlocking layers that when suspended, folded-out into organic forms that she named after natural phenomena. Ogawa II, on display here, translates from Japanese to “little river” or “stream.”

Similarly evocative, though differently executed, are Shoko Fukuda’s undulating sculptures of white ramie. Shoko Fukuda is a basketmaker and Japanese artist who has exhibited her work internationally for the past 10 years. Fukuda currently works as an instructor at Kobe Design University in the Fashion Design department. Fukuda is interested in “distortion” as a characteristic of basket weaving. “As I coil the thread around the core and shape it while holding the layers together, I look for the cause of distortion in the nature of the material, the direction of work and the angle of layers to effectively incorporate these elements into my work. The elasticity and shape of the core significantly affect the weaving process, as the thread constantly holds back the force of the core trying to bounce back outward.” By selecting materials and methods for weaving with the natural distortion in mind, Fukuda saw the possibility of developing twists and turns. “I find it interesting to see my intentions and the laws of nature influencing each other to create forms.”  Connected Contours VII evokes forms from nature. Fukuda imagined a structure resembling a bird spreading its wings and constructed the form based on this concept. By connecting parts of the contours, she says, “the individual shapes retain their inherent twisted forms and natural movement, while the overall structure is designed to achieve harmony.”

Working in metal, like Asawa, is Kyoko Kumai. She weaves thin metal wires together to make a textile which she uses as a means of expression to explore various aspects of wind, air, and light. The walls, or carpets, or rooms of shimmery filaments she creates are revelatory. Kumai has had 67 solo exhibitions since 1983, including exhibiting Air at the Museum of Modern Art’s Project Space in 1991. Roberta Smith wrote in The New York Times that the stainless steel Kumai used in Air “is eminently industrial” … “Yet the same qualities that make Miss Kumai’s work seem contemporary and Western are also quintessentially Japanese: foremost is its obvious faith in the power of beautiful materials handled simply but creatively and in unexpected ways.” Smith concluded that Kumai’s work was one of the strongest works of Japanese art to be shown in New York in some time.”  (Roberta Smith, “Review/Art; A Weaving of Stainless-Steel Thread,” The New York Times, May 10, 1991.)

Working in monofilament, like Kay Sekimachi, but with differing results, was Yvonne Pacanovsky Bobrowicz (1928 – 2022).  An awarding-winning artist, Bobrowicz was known for her cascading, light-transmitting sculptures made of synthetic monofilament. Bobrowicz was concerned with interconnections — interconnectedness and continuum. The artist told the Senior Artists Initiative in Philadelphia in 2003, “My work has been combining natural materials with synthetics, relating opposites, randomness and order — dark, light, reflective, opaque, and light absorbent, incorporating gold leaf, reflecting sculptures of monofilament, reflective and alchemically symbolic — unifying them in a variety of densities, scale, and configurations.” Bobrowicz studied with Marianne Strengell at the Cranbook Academy of Art and with Anni Albers at the Philadelphia Museum and School of Industrial Art, now University of the Arts. In the 1980s, she collaborated with renowned architect Louis Kahn. Like Sekimachi, Bobrowicz’s mesmerizing work captivated audiences with its light-transmitting qualities. Images of several of her works can be found online at the Sapir Contemporary Gallery website.

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Some 60 years ago, artists begn making works that transcended our existing concept of textiles. While based on traditional techniques, these works, collectively known as fiber art, incorporated metals, minerals, and many other materials in addition to natural and synthetic fibers. For the first time, textiles came off the wall, expanded from two to three dimensions and into the surrounding space. The five artists we will include in Field Works, were not just pivotal in the emergence of contemporary fiber art in the  60s and 70s, but significant contributors to the art form’s current popularity. 

Kobayashi’s work was the subject of a major retropsective at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan in 2024 and Hicks’s work was, most recently, featured in a major exhibition in two German museums, Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, earlier this year. Rousseau-Vermette’s work will be the subject of major retrospective at the Musée National des Beaux Arts du Québec (MNBAQ)  in Canada in 2026. And, you can see works by Hicks, Rosshbach, and Sekimachi in Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at the Museum of Modern Art in New York beginning next week and work by all five in Field Notes: an art survey, at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT, May 3rd through the 11th.

Renowned fiber sculptor Sheila Hicks began creating innovative textile works in the 1950s. She studied painting with Josef Albers at Yale, and studied weaving in Mexico and Chile. Ball-like forms and “boules” are a motif to which Hicks repeatedly returns. The core of these forms, as in the case of Family Evolution, featured in Field Notes is often formed from garments that have previously belonged to the artist’s friends or family. They hold memories for Hicks, who refers to them as her memory balls. The personal aspect is intentional. 

Masakazu Kobayashi, (1944-2004) was an early actor in contemporary fiber art.  He first studied lacquerware at Kyoto City University of Fine Arts (later Kyoto City University of Arts) but, according to the Kyoto Musuem of Modern Art,  “it was “Encounter with a Single Thread,” which he made while working at Kawashima Textiles Company, that spearheaded a series of works in which he dangled, stretched and unravelled yarn to create three-dimensional pieces.”  Bow ’86 is featured in Field Notes. Made of silk, rayon, aluminum, and wooden thread spools, the work continues the artist’s exploration of the bow — a shape he created by bending aluminum bow space wilth tension held  with silken thread. The bow explorations embody the equilibrium he sought in his work between his capacity as a creator and the energy of the world around him.

Born in Trois-Pistoles, Québec, Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (1926 – 2006) received her training at both the École des beaux-arts du Québec and at the Oakland College of Arts and Crafts, in California where she worked in Dorothy Liebes’s studio in San Francisco. She married Claude Vermette in 1952. The couple travelled extensively in Europe and Asia, allowing Rousseau-Vermette to broaden and deepen her understanding of different tapestry techniques. For four decades, she created luminous tapestries and sculptures for collectors and commissions throughout Canada and the US, including for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Chancery, Exxon Corporation and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (a curtain gifted by the Canadian Government). Reflets de Montréal, included in Field Notes, is a sumptuous early work from 1968 made of wool that Rousseau-Vermette sourced for its lustrous qualities. 

All three of these artists, Hicks, Kobayashi, and Rousseau-Vermette, exhibited works at several of the prestigious International Tapestry Biennials in Lausanne, Switzerland which were organized from 1962 to 1995.

Ed Rossbach and Kay Sekimachi were both living in Berkeley, California in the 60s and 70s, which was an incubator for contemporary fiber arts. As a faculty member at the University of California, Ed Rossbach (1914 – 2002) was a major force spurring these explorations. The Museum of Arts and Design in New York, New York described Ed Rossbach’s importance: “Rossbach was an imaginative and adept weaver, mastering ancient techniques and innovating with new and unorthodox materials, such as plastics and newspaper. He is considered by many to be the pre-eminent influence in the rise of basketry as a sculptural art form. In addition, Rossbach is known for incorporating unconventional imagery, including pop culture references.” Numerous artists from Diedrick Brackins to Marvin Lipofsky to Gyöngy Laky claim him as an influence. In Field Notes, Punt, one of Rossbach’s pop culture-inspired works will be exhibited. A resale work, Punt features a football kicker in bright colors. The other works included, Poncho and  Wyoming, also feature intriguing — South American textile patterning and an image of gravel from the West.

Kay Sekimachi is recognized as a leader in the resurrection of fiber and weaving as a legitimate means of artistic expression. She is known as a “weaver’s weaver” for her unusual use of a 16-harness loom in constructing three-dimensional sculptural pieces. In the early 1970s she used nylon monofilament to create hanging quadruple tubular woven forms in an exploration of space, transparency, and movement. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (CA), where she studied with Trude Guermonprez, and at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (ME), where she studied with Jack Lenor Larsen. In Field Notes, very significant early works that Sekimachi made in the 1950s while studying with Trude Guermonprez, Samples: Summer Session with Trude Guermonprez, will be on view. Sekimachi credits Guermonprez with empowering her through her style of teaching, which emphasized individual creativity and curiosity. 

As Aby Mackie, another artist in Field Notes, observes: “The field of fiber art is currently experiencing a profound shift, gaining recognition as a respected medium within contemporary art. This growing appreciation affirms textiles’ versatility and expressive potential, establishing it as a powerful medium for storytelling and innovation in the current art world.”

Join us May to explore that potential!
SCHEDULE YOUR VISIT 

Exhibition Details:
Field Notes: an art survey
browngrotta arts
276 Ridgefield Rd
Wilton, CT 06897
May 3 – 11, 2025

Gallery Dates/Hours:
Saturday, May 3rd: 11am to 6pm [Opening & Artist Reception]
Sunday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, May 5th through Saturday, May 10th: 10am to 5pm (40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 11th: 11am to 6pm [Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

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

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Fiber art is having a moment. It’s “the new painting” according to Art in America and a trend that Artsy says will “take hold across the contemporary art world in 2025.”  Exhibitions of art textiles are on view across the US and Europe, including Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction which will open at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in April. 

In Field Notes: an art survey (May 3rd -11th), browngrotta arts will provide a high-level view of the fiber medium, informed by the gallery’s 30+ years specializing in the promotion of art textiles and fiber sculpture. 

In art and science, field notes generally consist of a descriptive element, in which the observer creates a word picture of what they are seeing — the setting, actions, and conversations; combined with a reflective portion, in which one records thoughts, ideas, and concerns based on their observations. In Field Notes, viewers will be able to observe a varied group of art works, reflect on the creators’ thoughts about their art practice, and generate their own questions and conclusions.

More than two dozen accomplished international artists will share what’s on their minds, what’s on their looms, and what’s inspiring their art process, just as the art form’s popularity crests, including Sung Rim Park, and a few other artists whose work we have not shown before. Works by fiber art pioneers, Kay Sekimachi (US), Sheila Hicks (US), and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette (CA), will also be part of the exhibition, providing insights about the medium’s evolution.

“Textile art is strong in Norway today,” says Åse Ljones. “It has gained a higher status, and is often purchased for public decoration.” In her work, she is “looking for the shine, the light and the stillness in the movement that occurs in the composition of my pictures,” she says. “I embroider by hand on linen fabric.” The viscose thread she uses adds glow and shine in the composition. “With different light sources,” she says, “the image changes all the time. As a viewer, one must be in motion to see and experience the changes.” 

Aby Mackie, who works in Spain, combines existing materials with the tactile intimacy of textile techniques. “By blending these elements,” she says, “my work challenges perceptions of craft and sustainability, offering new ways to perceive the familiar and celebrating the beauty of reinvention.” Mackie agrees with Ljones about the evolving role of fiber. “The field of fiber art is currently experiencing a profound shift,” says Mackie, “gaining recognition as a respected medium within contemporary art.” 

Fiber is “a powerful medium for storytelling and innovation in the current art world,” Mackie concludes. Join us in May as we highlight those stories and celebrate fiber art’s resurgence!

Exhibition Details:
Visit Field Notes: an art survey at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897 from May 3 – May 11, 2025. 

Gallery Dates/Hours:
276 Ridgefield Road Wilton, CT 06897

Opening & Artist Reception
Saturday, May 3rd: 11am to 6pm
Sunday, May 4th: 11am to 6pm
(40 visitors/ hour)
Monday, May 5th – Saturday, May 10th: 10am to 5pm
(40 visitors/ hour)
Sunday, May 11th: 11am to 6pm
[Final Day] (40 visitors/ hour)

Safety Protocols: 
• No narrow heels please (barn floors)

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We’ve already told you about the Sheila Hicks’ exhibition in Germany, Olga D’Amaral’s in France and Japandí Revisited: shared aesthetics and influences, in Wayne, Pennsylvania, which closes this weekend on January 25th at 4 pm after a lecture and reception. Below some notes from the US and abroad:

California
Cut from the Same Cloth: Textiles and Technology
Palo Alto Art Center 
through April 6, 2025
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301

As the Cultural Center observes, “textiles have not only fueled the creative inspiration of artists throughout history, they also have provided the catalyst for technological innovation. Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French merchant, invented the ‘jacquard machine’ in 1801, which simplified the manufacture of textiles and later became the inspiration for IBM’s first computer introduced in the 1940s and 1950s. This exhibition,” which includes Lia Cook, “investigates the many unexplored relationships between craft and technology and demonstrates, through the work of a group of artists, how contemporary art practice has seamlessly embraced both.”

9 x 9: Contemporary Quilts & Containers
Palo Verdes Art Center 
January 25 – April 12, 2025
Opening Reception: February 1, 2025, 6 – 9 pm
5504 Crestridge Road 
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275

Beginning on the 25th, the Palo Verdes Art Center will showcase artworks by 18 distinguished artists from California’s established fiber art community. The artists, who include Karyl Sisson, Kay Sekimachi, and Carol Shaw-Sutton, will present innovative interpretations of traditional craft forms. “These dynamic quilted, woven, plaited, and twined works investigate the purposes and potential of cross-cultural narratives and techniques through diverse media,” says the Center, “expanding our understanding of visual culture. Material-based, conceptually engaged, and skillfully executed, these artists transform conventional quilting and container-making practices into sophisticated contemporary expressions.”

Denmark
Artapestry7, International Triennial
Kunst Centret Silkeborg Bad 
January 25 to  April 21, 2025
Gjessøvej 40
8600 Silkeborg, Denmark

This is the seventh time that the organization European Tapestry Forum has sent a juried exhibition of woven tapestries on tour in Europe, and the fourth time that the triennial has been exhibited in Silkeborg. The triennial, which includes work by Gudrun Pagter, Irina Kolesnikova, and Lija Rage, gives the audience a good insight into the current trends among weaving artists. The jury has selected the 37 most beautiful, skillfully executed and most creative tapestries from more than 100 submissions.

Washington, DC
We Gather at the Edge: Contemporary Quilts by Black Women Artists
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
February 21, 2025 – June 22, 2025
1661 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC

In 1981, the Smithsonian acquired 35 qulits collected by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering, is a prolific artist, curator, and scholar.  Dr. Mazloomi founded the African American Quilt Guild of Los Angeles, and then, in 1985, she founded the Women of Color Quilters Network, fulfilling the desire of isolated makers to connect and continue Black textile traditions. The quilts in this exhibition are remarkable in scope and groundbreaking in their representation of Black history and culture as told with needle and thread. “Sometimes the weight of living on this planet as a woman, we have to be reminded of who we are,” Dr. Mazloomi has said. “Quilts help to serve that purpose of reminding women about their power.”

New York
Anne Wilson: The MAD Drawing Room and Errant Behaviors
through May 11, 2025
Museum of Arts and Design
Jerome and Simona Chazen Building
2 Columbus Circle,
New York, New York 10019

Chicago artist, Anne Wilson has created the MAD Drawing Room, where visitors can engage in the beauty and complexity of the artist’s personal archives of lace and openwork textiles through close looking, drawing, or writing. The Drawing Room is inspired by the Davis Street Drawing Room, Wilson’s experimental and participatory art project in Evanston, Ilinois. Within the space, visitors are invited to explore Wilson’s library of art and fiber texts, listen to the playlist of sound sources for her video installation, and draw or write using the materials provided. Wilson’s sound-and-video installation, Errant Behaviors, newly acquired by MAD, plays in the gallery. Its source material of lace and openwork fragments are also on view in The MAD Drawing Room. You can see multiple images and learn more about the MAD Drawing Room on Wilson’s website.

Canada
Dawn MacNutt: Timeless Forms
through April 18, 2025
Mount St. Vincent’s University Gallery 
Mount Saint Vincent University
166 Bedford Highway
Halifax, NS
B3M 2J6

This comprehensive retrospective exhibition celebrates Nova Scotia artist Dawn MacNutt. Co-curated by Melanie Colosimo and Emily Falvey, this exhibition showcases MacNutt’s unique approach to weaving, which she transforms into large-scale figurative sculptures that explore themes of human fragility. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalogue featuring essays by the artist herself. Spanning four decades, the exhibition moves from delicate miniatures crafted in silver and copper wire to monumental bronze sculptures cast from woven, local willow branches. Together, these works link traditional craft practices to modern and conceptual sculpture and enrich contemporary perspectives on care and the handmade. Accompanying the exhibition is a book, Timeless Forms, that features essays by the artist herself.

Korea
In the art news department: The Korean Craft and Design Foundation selected Yeonsoon Chang as the winner of its 2024 Creation Division Prize. The artwork in the photo was showcased at this year’s Craft Trend Fair in Seoul in December 2024. It is made of Teflon mesh, pure gold leaf, and eco-resin. “The artist Yeonsoon Chang continues to create works that visualize a unique aesthetic through a Korean sense of beauty, transcending the boundaries of tradition and modernity, time and space, using the properties and structure of textiles,” the Foundation wrote. “Her ongoing dedication has set an example in the craft community and garnered international recognition for the excellence of Korean craftsmanship.”

Receiving the prize has energized and inspired Chang. “For the past nine and a half years since my retirement, I have immersed myself in the study of Eastern classics and the creation of my work,” she wrote on Instagram. “Through this journey, the once-abstract concepts of 空 (Emptiness) and 虛 (Void) have taken on a tangible and experiential reality. I believe the endurance of Korean craft over thousands of years is not solely due to its techniques but to the profound spirit that lies beyond them, deeply woven into its essence. Just days ago, I envisioned slowing the pace of my life to delve deeper into this path, yet now I find myself aboard a high-speed train, unable to control its momentum. Looking ahead, I see my calling as bringing to life the spirit of Korean craft, allowing it to breathe and resonate through my work.”

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Five decades ago, Fiberworks in Berkeley, California, was a vibrant cultural hub that played a significant role in the burgeoning arts scene of the early 1970s. Situated in the heart of one of the nation’s most politically and artistically dynamic cities, Fiberworks became a space where fiber art, design, and social change intersected. 

Founded in 1973 by Hungarian-born environmental sculptor, Gyöngy Laky, who served as its Director through 1977, Fiberworks was an internationally recognized art center, instrumental in redefining textile arts through the late 80s. The Fiberworks Gallery showcased textile art at a time when commercial galleries and museums gave it scant exposure. In 1975, the name was changed to Fiberworks Center for the Textile Arts, reflecting the increasing range of activities that included lectures, special events, international bazaars, and services for artists, together with a sweeping array of classes. The dynamism of creativity in Berkeley prompted internationally known textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen to refer to the Bay Area as “The Vatican” of this new movement in the arts. 

Mija Riedel, who has researched Fiberworks’ history, notes that the nonprofit organization’s influence during its 15-year existence far exceeded its modest means. By the early 70s, Riedel explains, the San Francisco Bay Area was a rich and established focal point for textile art. Trude Guermonprez, a transplant from Black Mountain College, headed the Crafts department at California College of the Arts in Oakland. Kay Sekimachi, a student of Guermonprez, had gained recognition for her series of complex three-dimensional monofilament hangings. Katherine Westphal was a professor at UC in Davis. Ruth Asawa’s iconic wire sculptures – made with a technique learned from basket weavers in Toluca, Mexico – were the subject of a 1973 retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Ed Rossbach’s teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, had influenced Laky and other Fiberworks’ artists. His experimental approach inspired a new generation of artists to explore new ways of working with what, up to that time, had been utilitarian materials. Artists explored unconventional uses of fibers like synthetic materials, found objects, and even recycled textiles, challenging the boundaries between art and craft. As Riedel observes, Fiberworks drew on this community of artists and their energy, ingenuity and inventiveness. (Mija Riedel, unpublished research, cited in Gyöngy Laky: Screwing With Order, assembled art, actions and creative practice, 2022, pp. 32.) In our research at the Archives of American Art in DC in May, we were stuck by the long list of artists who taught at Fiberworks including Kay Sekimachi, Adela Akers, Daniel Graffin, and Katherine Westphal. The Center became accredited and eventually offered degree programs.

Fiberworks’ reputation extended well beyond California and the US, notes Riedel. Some of the world’s most-celebrated fiber artists, including Sheila Hicks, Ritzi and Peter Jacobi, and Magdelena Abakanowicz, participated in Fiberworks’ programs. The Center’s international impact was affirmed when Fiberworks organized and hosted the Symposium on Contemporary Textile Art in 1978 and 500 participants from eight countries participated. The Symposium’s broad attendance, which included Helena Hernmarck, Walter Nottingham, and Nance O’Banion, “[bore] witness to the widespread interest in the new textile art.” (Giselle Eberhard Cotton and Magali Junet, From Tapestry to Fiber Art: Lausanne Biennials 1962-95, (Skira, Milan, Italy, 2017), p. 78.) Recognition and visibility for Fiberworks’ faculty, lecturers, exhibitors, and students also grew. In 1975, both Laky and Lia Cook would be selected to produce large, commissioned works for the federal Art-in-Architecture Program. (Riedel, pp. 33-34.)

“Fiberworks had a major impact on me, my art, and my life, and I think maybe on the teacher I am today,” Laky told interviewer Harriet Nathan in 1998(Gyöngy Laky: Fiber Art: Visual Thinking and the Intelligent Hand, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, California, 2003. An oral history conducted by Harriet Nathan, University of California. Interviews conducted in 1998–1999 (Bancroft Library Oral History), pp. 116-117). “There was a lot of exchange and learning. One of the things that I got from that experience, that early experience, was to give openly, not to secretly guard my ideas. People did not secretly guard their ideas, they didn t think, ‘Oh, this is my special way of working, I m not going to show it to anyone.’ The moment somebody came up with something that was working and exciting, that artist could hardly wait to do a class or demonstration to show everyone: ‘Here I just invented something, come look, let me teach you, let me show you.’ Wonderful spirit in that regard …. The moment people figured out some strange way of braiding or a different way of presenting a performance, whatever it was, it was given and out. The feeling was that there were so many ideas following behind that you didn’t have to guard your precious inventions or discoveries, that good ideas, creative ideas were limitless and there would be many more to come.”

The experimentation Rossbach encouraged in his classes at UC Berkeley evolved at the Center, into a wide-ranging exploration of site-specific, installation, performative, and non-traditional approaches, according to Riedel. Chere Lai Mah, a key member of Fiberworks’ nucleus, characterized that spirit of inventiveness as it had influenced her artwork in a statement for the exhibition, FIBERWORKS 1976, as “spontaneity, flexibility, spaces, change, impermanence, simplicity, actions, shadows, lines, throwaways, and the relationship of ideas and forms to their beginnings, becomings and endings.”(FIBERWORKS 1976 exhibition at the Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco, California, coordinated by Louise Allrich.) In reviewing the FIBERWORKS 1976 exhibition, critic Alan Meisel noted, “The explosive newness of the works… sparkles….” (Alan Meisel, “Bay Area Fiber Art,” Artweek, October 9, 1976.)

In 2023, to celebrate Fiberworks’ illustrious 50-year anniversary, a group of former students and staff, including Julie Anixter, Gyongy Laky, Lia Cook, Donna Larsen, Janet Boguch, Chere Lai Mah, Susan Wick, Pat Hickman, and Debra Rapoport intiated a series of commemorative activities. There is a Wikipedia page, a Berkeley Historical site, records in the Archives of American Art. There have also been virtual presentations discussing Fiberworks and its influence, and the influence of Katherine Westphal and Ed Rossbach. The presentation about Ed Rossbach can be viewed online. It includes Tom Grotta’s images and commentary about Rossbach’s long association with browngrotta arts. More of the presentations will be made available online at a later date.

Enjoy!

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Too often we hear about corporations that are using creators’ works — art and music — without permission (https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-graffiti-artists-fighting-brands-steal-work). Many raise concerns about AI borrowing and boosting artwork without attribution or compensation (https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/is-ai-art-stealing-from-artists). So it’s gratifying to learn about the efforts of Loewe, a corporation that celebrates and collaborates with artists rather than cannibalizing their work. 

Loewe is a luxury fashion house founded in 1846 by a group of Spanish leather craftsmen. Loewe’s efforts to support the arts are severalfold — it organizes exhibitions, promotes a prestigious international art competition, and creates artist-inspired capsule collections. It created a foundation in 1988, which supports international prizes for craft and poetry, collaborates with major arts festivals, and also supports other art, photography, and dance. The Foundation sponsors the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, an international award celebrating exceptional craftsmanship. Through the Prize, the Foundation aims to discover uniquely talented artisans with the vision and innovative drive to set new standards for the future of craft. The Prize ecognizes those who combine tradition, modernity, and a unique artistic concept. Like browngrotta arts aims to do, the Loewe Prize elevates artists who contribute continuously to contemporary culture through a contemporary reinterpretation of tradition. 

In 2019, for example, as part of Milan Design Week, Loewe installed an exhibition that placed a spotlight on basketmaking, divided into two installments — inspiration and collection. As part of that project, Loewe’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson, invited Japanese artist Jiro Yonezawa to creaft one off pieces in which he swapped the strips of bamboo, with which he usually works, for naturally dyed Loewe leather.

Several of the artists that work with browngrotta arts have made the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize short list, including Mercedes Vicente, Yeonsoon Chang, Ferne Jacobs, and Simone Pheulpin, who was awarded the Honor Prize in 2018. Finalists are brought to Europe for the award presentation. For Polly Adams Sutton, who made the short list in 2024, that meant a trip to Paris to see her work installed. “What an amazing privilege it was!” she says of the competition. “By providing a means for craft artists of all mediums to be recognized as Art, Loewe elevates the crafts as legitimate forms of art. Loewe creations may use craft as inspiration for their work but the craft prize has been created solely for the artists to be honored and to give craft its place in the art world.”

Loewe also works with artists to create specially curated collections, inspired by the artists’ work. This year, Loewe partnered with Kay Sekimachi to create a limited-edition collection of handbags that showcase her pioneering work in loom weaving and draw upon Sekimachi’s 1999 “Takarabako” series. The Puzzle Fold Tote and Bucket Bag are crafted in cotton jacquard with a calfskin base and details, and feature a gold embossed motif with Sekimachi’s name. The project was licensed by Artists Rights Society.

Kudos to the artists honored and to Loewe and its commitment to craft.

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We are on vacation and Maine and rather than post a “Gone Fishing” sign this week (only one of us fishes anyway) we decided to explore some pieced, patchworked, and appliquéd works made by artists who have worked with browngrotta arts. They include this striking patched pot by Kay Sekimachi and Resound, a large appliqué by Ase Ljones. Work by both artists will be featured in browngrotta arts’ fall exhibition, Ways of Seeing (September 20 – 29, 2024).

Patchwork and appliqué have been integral to textile arts for centuries. Originating from the need to reuse and repurpose worn-out fabrics, patchwork involved stitching together various fabric pieces to create a larger, functional piece, often a quilt. Appliqué, on the other hand, involves sewing smaller pieces of fabric onto a larger base fabric to create decorative designs. Both techniques have roots in diverse cultures, from the elaborate quilts of 19th-century America to the intricate Indian patchwork and Japanese boro textiles.

The techniques have continued relevance. They are used in mixed media works and in upcycling recycled fabrics, leather, and plastic, reflecting a broader cultural shift towards sustainability. Contemporary patchwork and appliqué often intersect with other art forms, including modern art, graphic design, and even digital art. This cross-disciplinary approach results in innovative works that challenge traditional boundaries and invite viewers to see these techniques in a new light. Noted surface designer Katherine Westphal, created a kimono by combining Japanese subway tickets and fabric. In another, October: A Walk with Monet, she patched together images she created using paper and heat transfer. Westphal is one of the artists in the upcoming exhibition Impact: 20 Women Artists to Collect (September 21-29, 2024), one part of Ways of Seeing.

Contemporary artists use patchwork and appliqué as a medium for personal storytelling. Annette Bellamy is a commercial fisherwoman in Alaska part of the year, a part of her life that is reflected in works like Food Chain, made of pieced fishskins from a variety of fish. Neha Puri Dhir’s Farmer’s Jacket reflects a interest in upcycling and Japanese stitching techniques.

Patchwork and appliqué techniques are powerful tools for expressing individuality. In Aphelion, the late Lena McGrath Welker merged drawings and monotypes of Ptolomy’s diagrams, constellations, plus legible and illegible writing, and blackened copper prayer tabs in a statement about the universe and our role in it. The techniques may also be used to address contemporary issues, pieced works and intricate quilts that make social and political statements. Mia Olsson’s Map of a Warm Place, for example, uses pieces of sisal to make an environmental statement.

For more contemporary patchwork and appliqué, checkout contemporary boro: https://upcyclestitches.com/contemporary-boro/, Yoshiko Jinzenji, and Natalie Chanin.

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