Kay Sekimachi Archives - Page 4 of 4

November 26th: Our Online Exhibition Opens With an Offer for CyberMonday

November 26, 2012 arttextstyle0 Comment

On Monday, November 26th, browngrotta arts will present an online version of our 25th anniversary exhibition,Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture at browngrotta.com. The comprehensive exhibition highlights browngrotta arts’ 25 years promoting international contemporary art. Viewers can click on any image in the online exhibition to reach a page with more information about the artists and their work.

“Some works in Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture reflect the early days of contemporary textile art and sculpture movement,” says Tom Grotta, founder and co-curator at browngrotta arts. “There are also current works by both established and emerging artists, which provide an indication of where the movement is now and where it may be headed.”

Since Monday the 26th is CyberMonday this year, sales of art, books, catalogs, videos or dvds placed online or by telephone that day will be discounted 10% (excluding tax and shipping). In addition, bga will make a donation to the International Child Art Foundation for each sale made from November 24th through December 31, 2012. Visit browngrotta.com. For more information call Tom at 203.834.0623 or email us at art@browngrotta.com.

The Next Big Thing: Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers

November 17, 2011 arttextstyle0 Comment

Jiro Yonezawa bamboo Bridge and Kay Sekimachi Leaf bowl. photo by Tom Grotta

We’ve had a busy fall season at browngrotta arts. First was Stimulus: art and its inception, which you can still see in the catalog http://www.
browngrotta.com/Pages/c36.php and online through the end of the month http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/StimulusOnlineExhibit.php. Next up, is Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers at the Wayne Art Center, Pennsylvania http://www.
wayneart.org/exhibition/green-from-the-get-go-international-contemporary-basketmakers which runs from December 2, 2011 to January 21, 2012. Green from the Get Go is curated by Jane Milosch, former curator of the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum in collaboration with browngrotta arts. The exhibition features an exciting compilation of more than 40 works by artists who take inspiration from nature and the history of basketry. Since prehistoric times artists and craftspeople have been highly attuned to the beauty and resources of the natural world, whether depicting a pristine landscape, untouched by man, or harvesting plants and minerals for pigments and brushes. Sustainability is part of the design and craft process, which requires a heightened sensitivity to materials, one that honors the caring for, replenishing and repurposing of materials. Artist Dorothy Gill Barnes captures this eco-friendly position well when she explains, “my intent is to construct a vessel or related object using materials respectfully harvested from nature.”

CROSSING OVER Dona Anderson bamboo kendo (martial art sticks), patterned paper, thread 15″ x 94″ x 30″ 2008. photo by Richard Nicol

Some of the sculptural baskets in Green from the Get Go are made from both flora and fauna, from bamboo, pine, sea grass, and willow to emu feathers and bayberry thorns. The tactile nature of these fiberous works stimulates all of the senses—sight, smell, touch and even sound. Each maker brings his or her own conceptual approach and expression to the design and fabrication process. Some works are small enough to nestle in the hand or rest table-top, while others are monumental or hang on the wall. Green from the Get Go stretches our imagination in terms of what materials and forms constitute a basket and how art bespeaks the interconnected relationship of man and nature.

The exhibition includes artists from Australia, Canada, Japan, the UK, Scandinavia and the US, featuring innovators in the genre of 20th-century art basketry as well as emerging talent: Dona Anderson, Jane Balsgaard, Dorothy Gill Barnes,Dail Behennah. Nancy Moore Bess, Birgit Birkkjaer, Jan Buckman, Chris Drury, Lizzie Farey, Ceca Georgieva, Marion Hildebrandt, Kiyomi Iwata, Christine Joy, Virginia Kaiser, Markku Kosonen, Gyöngy Laky, Dawn MacNutt, John McQueen, Mary Merkel-Hess, Norma Minkowitz, Valerie Pragnell, Ed Rossbach, Hisako Sekijima, Kay Sekimachi, Naoko Serino, Klaus Titze, Jiro Yonezawa and Masako Yoshido.

PILLOW, Norma Minkowitz, fiber, wood, paint, 2011

The preview party for Green from the Get Go: International Contemporary Basketmakers and Craftforms 2011, juried by Elisabeth Agros of the Philadelphia Art Museum, takes place on the evening of December 2nd and we’ll be there. For more in formation, contact the Wayne Art Center: http://www.wayneart.org/events/?id=48.

Spinning Straw Into Gold: ACC Gold Medalists and Fellows at SOFA Chicago and Online

October 30, 2011 arttextstyle0 Comment

5R CEDAR EXPORT BUNDLE. Ed Rossbach, plaited cedar bark from Washington state with heat transfer drawing, waxed linen, rayon and rags, 5.5″ x 11″ x 9″, 1993, ©Tom Grotta, 2011

This year at SOFA Chicago (November 4-6) the American Craft Council (ACC) will recognize 28 artists who have been awarded an ACC Gold Medal between 1994 and 2010 in a display at the Navy Pier, curated by Michael Monroe. The ACC awards recognize those who have demonstrated outstanding artistic achievement and leadership in the field for 25 years or more. Since 1981, the ACC has selected just under four dozen artists working in Fiber to receive a Gold Medal for consummate craftsmanship and/or join its College of Fellows. We’ve mounted an online exhibition of 21 these artists on our website, browngrotta.com, under Awards. Many of these artists are featured in the catalogs published by browngrotta arts and in the videos and other publications we offer. http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/catalogs.php Works by Fellows and Medalists Adela Akers, Dorothy Gill Barnes , Lia Cook, Helena Hernmarck, Gyöngy Laky, John McQueen and Norma Minkowitz are featured in our current exhibition, Stimulus: art and its inception. Enjoy the show.

Dispatches: All Things Considered IV and More at the Fuller Craft Museum

August 4, 2011 arttextstyle0 Comment

We traveled to Brockton, Massachusetts this weekend to see juried works by members of the National Basketry Organization at the Fuller Craft Museum http://www.fullercraft.org/exhibitions.html#Basketry.

Sunrise Artifact by Mary Giles

Woven Vessel by Jonathan Kline

Marked by a Sapsucker by Dorothy Gill Barnes

Among the highlights in our view: Sunrise Artifact by Mary Giles; Woven Vessel by Jonathan Kline; Marked by a Sapsucker by Dorothy Gill Barnes; Tipped by Nancy Koenigsberg a Basket Book #5 by Arlene McGonagle (of course, we’re suckers for anything related to books). Most impressive, however, were works that appeared to be diptychs. First, was a pair of large works, Cave and Snag by Linda Bills, made a year apart, but seamlessly echoing each other in shape and offering an intriguing contrast in volume.

Tipped by Nancy Koenigsberg

Basket Book #5 by Arlene McGonagle

Cave and Snag by Linda Bills

Second was a single piece, Wait, Weight by Jo Stealey, that seems to be two, interlocking basket/bowls of letters (yes, she had us at “A”). The show, which runs through December 11th, is worth seeing — with 85 pieces there is considerable variety in materials, technique and aesthetic. The exhibition would have benefited from more white space, however. The works are placed so close to one another it requires a second walkthrough to really focus on individual pieces.

Union by Christine Joy

Memories by Judy Mulford

Sidestep by Dona Anderson

Untitled 1985 by Kay Sekimachi

Kibiso III by Kiyomi Iwata

Wait Weight by Jo Sealey

CHAT by Jiro Yonezawa

Cradle to Cradle by Gyongy Laky

Calycanthus by Marion Hildebrandt

If you can get there before Loom and Lathe: The Art of Kay Sekimachi and Bob Stocksdale closes on September 11, 2011, do. There are interesting works by Kay Sekimachi in this show that did not appear in previous exhibitions of these artists’ work. Although this exhibition also features a large number of pieces in a limited space, as a result of Stocksdale’s and Sekimachi’s minimalist aesthetic and muted color palette, the installation is more successful.

We missed Fold It: Deena Schnitman, an installation of cookbooks which is on view in the café because we didn’t know it was there. We didn’t miss the Flint Farm Stand, though, just down the road in Mansfield. Great fresh corn and ice cream that has people standing in line.

Dusk by Norma Minkowitz

All Things Considered IV includes 12 artists whose work is represented by browngrotta arts. Click any image to see more examples of these artists’ work.

Fuller Craft Museum
455 Oak Street
Brockton, MA 02301
508-588-6000
http://www.fullercraft.org/home.html.

Summer Site-ings: Exhibitions from Coast to Coast

July 12, 2011 arttextstyle0 Comment

If you vacation in the East, Midwest or West this summer, you can see work by artists represented by browngrotta arts. In Washington, D.C, at the Textile Museum, is Gyöngy Laky’s work is included in Green: the color and the cause through September 11, 2011.

At the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, you can see Loom and Lathe: The Art of Kay Sekimachi and Bob Stocksdale, through August 11th and All Things Considered IV, the National Basketry Organization’s biennial exhibition from July 30 to December 4th, which includes work by Kiyomi Iwata, Norma Minkowitz and Gyöngy Laky.

In Pittsburgh, Lia Cook is one of three female artists exploring race gender and culture in contemporary art production in Bridge 11, at the Society for Contemporary Craft through October 22nd.

Well represented in the Midwest, work by Mary Giles is included in Field of Vision: Artists Explore Place, at the Racine Art Museum in Wisconsin, through October 2nd and in Basins, Baskets and Bowls: Women Explore the Vessel at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts through October 23rd.

Legs, Norma Minkowitz, 6″x7″, 1974, Neusteter Textile Collection, photo by Bobby Hansson

In Colorado, at the Denver Art Museum, Norma Minkowitz and Lia Cook are among 14 artists included in Sleight of Hand, through December 31st.

TIMELINE, Lawrence LaBianca, photo by Lawrence LaBianca

Two stops in California: At the Bolinas Museum you’ll find Lawrence LaBianca & Wolfgang Bloch: Tracking Nature, through July 31st and at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco, you’ll find

Chang Yeonsoon’s work included in Wrapping Tradition: Korean Textiles Now, through October 22nd.

Art into Type: Books We Talked Up in 2010

February 6, 2011 arttextstyle0 Comment

Last year saw several books published that we recommended to clients and purchased for family and friends. Among these were Handcrafted Modern: At Home with Mid-century Designers by Leslie Williamson, a collection of photographs of beautiful, iconic, and undiscovered mid-century interiors, including the homes of Russel Wright, George Nakashima, Harry Bertoia, Charles and Ray Eames, and Eva Zeisel, among others. Williamson’s photographs show these creative homes as they were lived in by their designers: Walter Gropius’ historic Bauhaus home in Massachusetts; Albert Frey’s floating modernist aerie on a Palm Springs rock outcropping; and Wharton Esherick’s completely handmade Pennsylvania house, from the organic hand-carved staircase to the iconic furniture.

Another favorite volume of ours was 3-D Typography. We added “text” to the title of this blog so that we could cover two things we are passionate about: art that involves text and interesting books. 3-D Typography, which includes work by Gyöngy Laky and dozens of other artists who have created lettering out of everything from shopping carts and toilet paper to toothpaste and pinched flesh, fits both criteria. The book’s creation was serendipitous. The authors, Jeanne Abbink and Emily CM Anderson looked at three-dimensional type in the course on a redesign of American Craft magazine in 2007.

Long overdue was the first comprehensive survey of modern craft in the United States, Makers: A History of American Studio Craft, by Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf. Makers follows the development of studio craft–objects in fiber, clay, glass, wood, and metal–from its roots in 19th-century reform movements to the rich diversity of expression at the end of the 20th century. More than 400 illustrations — including two photographs by Tom — complement this chronological exploration of the American craft tradition. Keeping as their main focus the objects and the makers — including Lenore Tawney, Ed Rossbach, Kay Sekimachi, Katherine Westphal, François Grossen, Lia Cook, Warren Seelig, Arturo Sandoval, Gyöngy Laky, Dorothy Gill Barnes, Clare Zeisler, Anni Albers, Lillian Elliott, Helena Hernmarck, Norma Minkowitz and Trude Guermonprez — the authors offer a detailed analysis of major works and discuss education, institutional support and the philosophical underpinnings of craft.

Another very special volume from 2010 is Written Weed, by Marian Bijlenga, published by Hein Elferink. This exquisite book includes 111 paste-ups / collages by the artist made of dried leaves, grasses and seeds. The images are like handwriting, Chinese characters, the letters of an alphabet. In order to emphasize the graphic quality of these works, the book is published in black/white. Only 400 copies were produced; each is numbered and signed. You can order it from browngrotta arts for $185.00

Though it was written in 2009, I didn’t discover The Bird Catcher, by Laura Jacobs, until last year. I loved it and ordered copies for several friends. It’s a tender story of grief and healing in the big city. But it was the detailed description of the protagonist’s window displays for a high-end department store and the evolution of her closest friend’s craft gallery — including a display of elegantly crafted goblets — that I most appreciated.

Exhibit News: Contained Excitement – Pleasures of the Void

December 19, 2010 arttextstyle0 Comment

Jiro Yonezawa, Nancy Moore Bess, Hisako Sekijima at Cavin-Morris Gallery Exhibit photo courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery

Through January 22, 2011, the Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York is exhibiting a remarkable grouping of eclectic cross-cultural, multi-genre objects. The exhibition, entitled, Contained Excitement – Pleasures of the Void, includes work by several artists represented by browngrotta arts, including Dorothy Gill Barnes, Nancy Moore Bess, Lizzy Farey, Mutsumi Iwasaki, Jennifer Falck Linssen, Hisako Sekijima, Kay Sekimachi, Jiro Yonezawa and Masako Yoshida, deftly combined with ceramics, boxes, bowls, books and furniture and more.

Hisako Sekijima and Jiro Yonezawa at Cavin-Morris Gallery Exhibit photo courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery

Mutsumi Iwasaki at Cavin-Morris Gallery Exhibit photo courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery

photo courtesy of Cavin-Morris Gallery

The exhibition focuses on the way the artists control the sensual expectations of space in an object, which may or may not take leave of its utilitarian purpose. The exhibition features Art Brut, ancient and contemporary ceramics, New Basketry, and other media. Included are Chinese ceramic reliquaries for keeping wrapped sutr as, the transformation of Native American Sweetgrass into deconstructions of molecular perfection in Debora Muhl’s work; the nervous and dark recycling in the forms made by Jerry Bleem and John Garrett; the beckoning toward initiatory revelation in Susan Kavicky and Lissa Hunter; the brooding presence in the lithops-like ceramic sculptures of Kenji Gomi; the Zen poems inscribed in the early ceramics of the Buddhist nun Rengetsu; hidden books of healing and magic from the tribal peoples in Southern China; the incredible repression and resultant freedom in the ceramics boxes of Shuji Ikeda where the clay is woven like bamboo; the opening of soul to the elements of wind and light in the sweeping bamboo constructions of Charissa Brock met by the dark compression of clay into Place and Mortality in the ceramics of Tim Rowan; the erotic beckoning of release through restraint and role-play in the bondage bed made by Sullivan Walsh; the New Baskets of JoAnne Russo and Nancy Moore Bess; and the ancient feminism of the ceramics of Avital Sheffer. A special inclusion will be an installation of Choson-period tea bowls from Korea and two intricate and rare woven rattan shields from early Kongo.

Also included are: Emogayu, Jill Bonovitz, Polly Jacobs Giacchina, Deirdre Hawthorne, Mei-Ling Hom, Kentaro Kawabata, Gerri Johnson-McMillin, Shozo Michikawa, Drew Nichols, Akira Satake, Hyungsub Shin, Polly Adams Sutton, Akiko Tanaka, Tyrome Tripoli, and Shannon Weber. The Gallery is at 210 Eleventh Avenue, Suite 201, between 24th and 25th, For more information contact: Shari Cavin, Randall Morris, or Mariko Tanaka: 212-226-3768 or email: mtanaka@cavinmorris.com; www.cavinmorris.com.

Books Make Great Gifts, Part I Artist Recommendations

December 19, 2009 arttextstyle0 Comment

My day job is in publishing, and thanks to browngrotta arts’ catalog publishing program, my night job is too. We’ve got books and papers everywhere. My rules for 2010: No pile of papers, books or magazines may grow taller than two feet and there may not be more than six piles (that are mine) in the house at one time. That’s 12 feet of reading for next year. You’d think that would be enough, but maybe not. So, I asked artists whose work browngrotta arts represents for book recommendations. Specifically: “Is there a book that has had a particular influence on your work or decision to pursue art as a career?” Here’s the first installment of their thoughtful replies: Gyöngy Laky: It is difficult for me to think of a particular book that launched me into what I am doing today…there have been many and it was long ago that I set out on this path in art! But, there is one general art history book that I bought as a young person when I spent a year studying art and French in Paris in 1963-64! And, funny enough… it was titled The Loom of Art by Germain Bazin, curator of the Louvre (Simon Schuster, NY, 1962) probably way out of print! The book is beautiful and I have it and love it still. More recently my friend, who is a builder, designer, wood collector extraordinaire, Paul Discoe, put out a book on his work, Zen Architecture: The Building Process as Practice (with Alexandra Quinn, Gibbs Smith, 2008). It is a wonderful book. He collects street trees and mills them and uses them in his work so he is dear to my heart. Another book, for children, but adults love it too is If… (Getty Trust Publications : J. Paul Getty Museum) IF (Getty Publications; J. Paul Getty Museum; First Edition edition 1995) by another artist friend of mine, Sarah Perry. And, of course, I love and am inspired by Martin Puryear (The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2007) by John Elderfield, Elizabeth Reede, Richard Powell, Michael Auping, Martin Puryear. Scott Rothstein: Here is one I love: Lucie Rie by Tony Birks (Marston House 1994). I feel this book documents her work very well. I am always amazed at the “drawing” she could do with glaze. Kay Sekimachi: Yes, there is a book. Anni Albers: On Designing (Wesleyan 1971). It was my weaving “Bible”. In fact everything she wrote makes so much sense to me. Nancy Koenigsberg: I have worked as an artist – painter, rug designer, knitter – for many years, but when I read Beyond Craft: The Art Fabric: Mainstream by Mildred Constantine/Jack Larsen (Van Nostrand Reinhold 1972) it just turned my ideas and work upside down. I saw what was possible with the materials I was using and what else was out there. That book opened up a whole new world to me. Mary Merkel-Hess: Your question has set me thinking about exactly why I did choose art as a career. I think, actually, the desire originated in the ethnographic collection of the Milwaukee Public Museum where I whiled away hours between classes looking at objects from South America, Africa and Europe. But, back to your question. A book that is much on my mind just recently is The Unknown Craftsman: A Japanese Insight into Beauty by Soetsu Yanagi (Kodansha International, Revised edition, 1990). One of my first trips after arriving in Tokyo three weeks ago was to the Mingeikan, Yanagi’s museum and home. It was a delight, after so many years, to see some of the work pictured in the book. Yanagi’s theory that hard, repetitive practice resulted eventually in the disengagement of self and led to work of merit produced with ease was an inspiration to me. I was a young grad student when I first read the book and at the time every day was a struggle. Kate Hunt: The Savage Mind (Nature of Human Society) by Claude Levi-Strauss (University Of Chicago Press, 1968). The introduction made me think about the role of an artist and about materials.