Tag: Sara Brennan

Noteworthy: Scottish Tapestry by Jo Barker and Sara Brennan

Sara Brennan and Jo Barker portraits by Tom Grotta

Welcome to Noteworthy, the first in an occasional series on topics we think are worth a closer look. In number one, our focus is on Jo Barker and Sara Brennan, two contemporary tapestry artists from Scotland.

Sara Brennan, Journey Trees III and IV, linens and swing threads, 8″ x 8″ x 1″ (each), 2021. Photo by Tom Grotta

Scotland has a storied tapestry tradition, from the well-regarded Dovecot Tapestry Studio, founded in 1912, to the program at the College of Art at the University of Edinburgh. The country’s most ambitious entry is the Great Tapestry of Scotland (though technically an embroidery). It was hand stitched on linen woven by Peter Greig & Co in Kirkaldy, who have been at it since 1825. It involved 1000 people from across the country, 160 linen panels, and 300 miles of wool – enough to stretch the entire length of Scotland. 

11jb Flow, Jo Barker
cotton, wool, woven, linen, silk and embroidery threads, 28.5” x 54”, 2015, photo by Tom Grotta

Two of the artists that work with browngrotta artists, Jo Barker and Sara Brennan, studied together at the College of Art in Edinburgh where the basic assumption is that tapestry can be used as a visually rich and dynamic medium in contemporary art practice. 

38b Broken White band with Pale Blue II, Sara Brennan, linen, wool and cotton, 30″ x 30″ x 2″, 2012. Photo by Tom Grotta

Barker and Brennan were born in the same year and their studios are in the same building in Edinburgh now. They exhibited together in A Considered Place at Drum Castle in Aberdeenshire a few years ago. Both artists are accomplished and well recognized — Barker is a recipient of the Cordis Prize for Tapestry. Each creates elegant, evocative works that provide a painterly experience from a distance and a remarkably tactile encounter up close. Their approaches to tapestry, however, vary, particularly their use of color. 

9jb Resonance, Jo Barker, woven on cotton warp using wool, cotton, linen, silk and embroidery threads, 41″ x 67.25″, 2009. Photo by Tom Grotta

Jo Barker begins by taking photographs and drawing designs — often influenced by the Scottish countryside where she likes to walk. She builds collages with her images, manipulating them online and capturing gestural movement and deep color. The artist is interested in qualities and patterns of light: transient and ephemeral starting points translated slowly into woven form. She sees contradictions between the flowing nature of ink and paint and the illusion of fluidity translated into soft, richly colored yarns. “The finished images are consciously abstract and ambiguous. I want to create a sense of something as opposed to an identifiable object or picture,” she says. 

40sb Old Blue and Brown Bands – Series I , Sara Brennan, wools, linens and silk, 14” x 35” x 1.25”, 2020. Photo by Tom Grotta

Sara Brennan is also inspired by landscape, responding with a very simplified and reduced use of form. “My work has vertical and horizontal blocks,” she says, “lines and areas that can be traced back through all my work. There is also a consistent color palette. One or two predominant colors, a slight twist to some of the lines, a hidden line of red and yellow giving a subtle definition. I use different whites to change the planes ,..” Brennan weaves from her own drawings, no digital manipulation is involved. “Choosing each yarn is as important to me and the tapestry as making the original drawing,” she explains. “The yarn must work to help balance and convey the feel and mood. It is vital in the interpretation of the drawing, bringing the tapestry to life …”

13jb Cobalt Haze, Jo Barker, woven on cotton warp using wool, cotton, linen, silk and embroidery threads
15” x 33.5”, 2010. photo by Tom Grotta

You’ll find more about these artists at browngrotta.com.


Return to Nature: an Art Trend to Watch in 2021

Artsy has identified Return to Nature as an art trend to watch in 2021. “Amid the ceaseless anxieties of 2020, people around the world found solace in nature,” wrote Shanon Lee on the online art platform earlier this month (“Trends to Watch in 2021: Return to Nature,” Artsy, January 6, 2021 https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-trends-watch-2021-return-nature). “They escaped the daily barrage of uncertainty to ground themselves in something more evergreen,” writes Lee. “That impulse, whether yearning for the freedom symbolized by the great outdoors or discovering refuge in the world of flora and fauna, can be seen in new works by contemporary artists.” Artsy sees Return to Nature as “one of the biggest artistic shifts we’ve witnessed emerge from the tumultuous unpredictability of 2020.”

Sara Brennans
 Dark Blue Line I, 1999
Broken White band with Pale Blue II, 2011
Journey-Tree-IV, 2020
Sara Brennans
 Dark Blue Line I, 1999
Broken White band with Pale Blue II, 2011
Journey-Tree-IV, 2020

This impulse is not one that has been wasted on UK artist Sara Brennan. known initially for starkly abstract weavings. In recent years, her weavings began to incorporate a hint of imagery, evoking treelines and clouds. During the pandemic, imagery became paramount. Brennan began to weave trees that had been part of her prepandemic world. “The drawings for the tree tapestries were taken from photographs of trees that I would drive past on a journey that I had been doing at least twice a week for the last six years or more,” she writes. “This journey stopped during Lockdown. Drawing, weaving and looking at these trees from a different context took me on another journey. The study of these trees and the tracing of time brought a new rhythm to a place.”

Flowers by Keiji Nio braided polyester, based on the images on the left. Photos by keiji Nio

Japanese artist Keiji Nio drew on images of nature for his work during the pandemic, as well. For his work he photographs nature — the beach, the sea, then silkscreens the images onto fabric tapes and from these, he creates braided sculptures. His most recent work, which is brightly colored, features a flower. “The picture of the flower used for this work was taken when I was looking for the flower which emphasized red, yellow and green in the botanical garden” says Nio. “Now that I can’t go out freely, I made a work using these flowers as materials so that I can feel the vivid color and fragrance of these flowers which we’ll experience again in the world after COVID is cured.”


Who Said What: Polly Leonard

Artist Thread details

“What is it about thread that is so appealing? Within contemporary society there is a hunger for sensual experiences that can only be satisfied by handle and texture. We are surrounded by smooth surfaces, from screens to kitchen counters, floors and cars. Clothing is increasingly constructed from a narrow range of nylon and cotton fibre – while appealing to the eye, these leave the hand starved of stimulus.” Polly Leonard, Founder/Editor, selvedge Magazine selvedge, Issue 84, Surface, September – October 2018To learn more about Polly and the founding of selvedge, access Threaded Stories: A Talk with Polly Leonard:https://classiq.me/threaded-stories-a-talk-with-polly-leonard

More Artist Thread Details


Artists from the Grotta Collection: Exhibition and Book Launch Opens Saturday

We’re getting ready to welcome six artists and lots of art fans to our fall event: Artists from the Grotta Collection: an exhibition and book launch, which opens on Saturday (Artist Reception and Opening: 1 pm to 6 pm). Featured in the exhibition is the work of more than 44 artists, who are among the artists collected by Sandy and Lou Grotta over nearly 70 years. Here are some behind the scenes views of our preparations.

2 Sara Brennan Tapestries
Installation of Dark Blue Line I and Linen Tapestry with Broken Grey Line by Sara Brennan above the New Kitchen Server

Here’s a shot of Tom installing a pair of Sara Brennan’s elegant tapestries.

Installation of Gyongy Laky's True North
Gyöngy Laky’s True North partially installed showing the exposed nails that get covered by the wood pieces

Over two-hundred nails are needed to install Gyøngy Laky’s True North.

The work that required the most ingenuity and effort to install was Helena Hernmarck’s substantial tapestry, 1884 New York Bay. This is just a glimpse of the varied work that will be included in the exhibitions, which includes ceramics, furniture, fiber sculpture and mixed media. Hope we’ll see you there.

The results of that unique creative collaboration are documented in the more-than 300 photographs that make up The Grotta Home, which will be celebrated in Artists from the Grotta Collection: exhibition and book launch runs from November 2nd to the 10th at browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT.

The Artists Reception and Opening is November 2nd, 1 pm to 6 pm, browngrotta arts, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT 06897. The exhibition hours for November 3rd – 10th are 10 am to 5 pm. A book about the collection, The Grotta Home by Richard Meier: a Marriage of Architecture and Craft, will be available throughout the exhibition and Tom will be available to sign it. For more info: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php.


The Grotta Collection Opens at bga November 2nd: Who’s New

Our Fall exhibition, Artists from the Grotta Collection: exhibition and book launch opens at browngrotta arts in Wilton, CT on November 2nd. The exhibition highlights significant works of fiber and dimensional art by more than 40 artists collected by Sandy and Louis Grotta.

Thomas Hucker,  Ledge Table
Thomas Hucker, Ledge Table, black palm wood with Holly inlay (gloss laquer finish), split oak, stained black (oil finih), egg shell lacquer, 201517″ x 42″ x 42″

The Grotta Collection represents nearly 70 years of arts patronage and a unique kinship fostered by the Grottas among pioneering contemporary craft makers in the fields of textile art, sculpture, furniture and jewelry. The Grottas are long-time patrons of Museum of Arts and Design and the American Craft Museum in New York. The private collection is housed in an architecturally significant home designed by Richard Meier in the 1980s known as The Grotta House. Among the 40 artists whose work is included in the exhibition, browngrotta will showcase five artists, new to browngrotta arts — Thomas Hucker, Dominic DiMare, William Wyman, Bill Accorsi and Toshiko Takeazu. These artists work in various craft media and their work is showcased in the Grotta collection. Here’s a preview:

Thomas Hucker is a studio furniture maker in Jersey City, NJ. He trained with fifth-generation German cabinetmaker Leonard Hilgner and also Jere Osgood at Boston University’s Program in Artisanry. In 1990, he studied product design at the Domus Academy in Milan, Italy. Hucker’s work is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. In 2016, he received the Furniture Society’s Award of Distinction. In 2018, he became a Fellow of the American Craft Council.

Fetish Box , Dominic Di Mare
Fetish Box , Dominic Di Mare , (a memorial to his father, the wand symbolizes an oar) paper, paint, Hawthrone wood, Golden Pheasant feathers, silk, bird bone, bone ring and fish, gold and gold leaf, quote by Robert Merrick, 13″ x 3.5″ x 2″, 2003

Dominic Di Mare received acclaim for pioneering dimensional weaving in the 1960s, cast paper in the 1970s, and mixed-media sculpture from the 1970s through the 1990s. “Among his most alluring sculptures are carved hawthorn branches with delicate feathers, beads, paper, and horsehair,” wrote the San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Design in his 2018 retrospective. These are simple materials, but in Di Mare’s hands they were transformed into intensely poetic works.” The son of a Sicilian-American fisherman who grew up on the water in Monterey, California, Di Mare’s work features related symbols, fish and hooks and lines and water. He is an American Craft Council Gold Medal recipient. His work is represented in numerous museum collections, ranging from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Plate with daughter Lisa,  William Wyman
1ww Plate with daughter Lisa, William Wyman, ceramic, 8” diamter, 1961,

William Wyman began his career as a professional potter in 1953. He established Herring Run Pottery in 1962, with fellow potter, Michael Cohen. Wyman is known for a series of stoneware slab built vessels. In the 1960s Wyman dipped his smaller slab vessels in multiple glazes creating patterns of flowing colors. In 1965, after time spent in Honduras, he began to create undecorated, unglazed geometric-driven structures inspired by Mayan ruins which he called “Temples.” His work is in a number of museum collections, including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New Hampshire, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, New York, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PennsylvaniaSmithsonian American Art Museum, Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C. and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.

Bill Accorsi was a college athlete, planning to become a football coach, when on a class trip he saw a Matisse exhibit. He says that was his first exposure to art, and it started him on a different journey, as he eventually became an largely self-taught artist himself. Now, at age 88, he can look back on a lifetime of creating outsider art and folk art. His sculptures—some in metal using wire, buttons and beads, others in wood—show people and animals in poses that are whimsical and fun. Often his figures merge into each other as jigsaw puzzles. Bright and pastel colors are an important feature of his work. He is an award-winning author/illustrator of 10 books, including Apple, Apple, Alligator; 10 Button Book; 10 Color Book; Friendship’s First Thanksgiving and a book on Rachel Carson.

Undulating Moon Pot, Toshiko Takeazu
1tt Undulating Moon Pot, Toshiko Takeazu, ceramic vase with blue and black highlights, signed with double T mark on bottom (partially covered by glaze), 15” x 5” x 5” , c. 1960

Toshiko Takaezu was born to Japanese immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, on 17 June 1922. She moved to Honolulu in 1940, where she worked at the Hawaii Potter’s Guild creating identical pieces and practicing glazing. She attended Saturday classes at the Honolulu Museum of Art School (1947–1949)[5] and attended the University of Hawaii. From 1951 to 1954, she continued her studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1951), where she befriended Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, who became her mentor. Takaezu earned an award after her first year of study, acknowledging her as an outstanding student in the clay department. In 1955, Takaezu traveled to Japan, where she studied Zen Buddhism, tea ceremony and the techniques of traditional Japanese pottery, which influenced her work. While studying in Japan, she visited Shoji Hamada, an influential Japanese potters. She taught at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin; Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; Honolulu Academy of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii; and Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey for 25 years. Her work is part of the permanent collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, among many others. She is a recipient of the Gold Metal of the American Craft Council and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant. 


Additional artists included in Artists from the Grotta Collection: exhibition and book launch are Naomi Kobayashi, Norma Minkowitz, Sara Brennan, Stéphanie Jacques, Axel Russmeyer and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette. See the full artist list here: http://www.browngrotta.com/Pages/calendar.php. The exhibition at browngrotta arts runs from November 2nd through November 10th, 276 Ridgefield Road, Wilton, CT. The Artists Reception and Opening is November 2nd from 1 pm to 6 pm. The hours November 3rd – 10th are 10 am to 5 pm.


Studio Visits Scotland

Scenic Edinburgh

Last November, Rhonda, Tom and Carter traveled to Scotland to visit Jo Barker, Sara Brennan and Lizzie Farey in their studios. Jo Barker and Sara Brennan have had their weaving studios at the WASPS Patriothall studios in Edinburgh for 30 years. WASPS (Workshop & Artists Studio Provision Scotland) is a charity that provides affordable studios to support artists, arts organizations, and creative businesses. We had a great time framing shots by their large light-filled windows, brick walls, curving stairways. We met another Patriothall artist, Paul Furneaux, while there. His work will be included in our upcoming exhibition Art + Identity: an international exhibition (April 27th – May 5th).

Edinburgh sunrise
Morning in Edinburgh
Photographing at Lizzie Farey’s Studio

Jo Barker and Sara Brennan will not participate in the April show because they are working full out for their upcoming exhibition at Drum Castle in Aberdeen. A Considered Place is an exhibition of work by Jo Barker, Sara Brennan, Susan Mowatt, Andrea Walsh and Jane Bustin who work in tapestry, ceramics, glass, cloth and paint that will run from April 21st to November 17th.

studi installation
Sara Brennan and Jo Barker installing tapestries

Walking around Stockbridge in Edinburgh was idyllic — George Street and Cow Gate. Restaurants were great and diverse — Scotch Corner, Wee Restaurant, Dishoom and the Blue Parrot Cantina. Our space in the Clarendon Luxury Apartments was spacious and well appointed. On our last day, we took a picturesque drive to Kirkcudbright, known as the Artists Town, to visit Lizzie Farey, coming back on a bus from Lockerbie. Lizzie works on sculptures of willow, also in an airy WASPS studio with an abundance of natural light in a pretty part of town. We are hoping Farey will be among the artists represented in Art + Identity.


Art News: Publications

A number of interesting and varied press reports, books and catalogs have crossed our desk at browngrotta arts in the last couple of months. The truly glorious Spoken Through Clay,  Native Pottery of the Southwest: The Eric S. Dobkin Collection, edited by Charles S. King (Museum of New Mexico Press) is one example. The volume documents 300 vessels in the Dobkin collection in large-scale, meticulously corrected color photos, a collection that has a “unique and distinctive focus on aesthetic of the vessel.” King has organized the works into several sections: Dreamers, Traditionalists, Transitionists, Modernists, Visonaries, Transformists and Synchronicity. The Navajo artists — mostly Pueblo — provide uniques insights into the works.
The catalog from Ane Henriksen’s recent exhibition in Denmark, Ane Henriksen in collaboration with Jens Søndergaard, is another.  Visual artist and weaver Ane Henriksen returned to Museum Thy in Denmark in June, with “a handful of great pictures,” inspired by the painter Jens Søndergaard’s works. The catalog chronicles that exhibition. For a number of years, Ane Henriksen has worked with image theories, including at the National Workshops at the Old Dock in Copenhagen. For 25 years, she has lived in Thy and created woven pictures inspired by nature and culture there. Highlighting work by Sara Brennan, James Koehler and Ann Naustdal among others, the Coda 2017 catalog is the third Coda volume published by the American Associate of Tapestry. It also includes informative
essays by Lesley Millar, Alice Zrebiec and other authors.
Several recent magazines have also featured browngrotta arts’artists including Fiber Art now’s Summer 2017 article, “Marian Bijlenga: Creator and Curator” by Jamie Chalmers. Chalmers notes that Bijlenga’s works dissect individual elements and disperse them while still maintaining an order to the arrangement. “[T]he incisions in the work reinforce the notion of scientific intervention and have echoes of the natural architectural work of Andy Goldsworthy, someone Biljenga’s cites as an influence.” In the September/October 2017 issue of Crafts magazine from the UK, Laura Ellen Bacon’s elegant work of willow is the subject of a feature, which notes that she has created a new work of Flanders Red willow, “about movement and vigor and trying to show how the material is being worked,” for the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize, for which Crafts noted in its July August issue, she is a finalist.
In the fall 2017 issue of Interweave Crochet, Dora Ohrenstein explains how Norma Minkowitz has established crochet “as a legitimate tool for artistic expression ”recognized by the 31 major museums that have acquired her work, including the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in her article “Norma Minkowitz: A Life in the Fiber Arts.” And online in “Randy Walker: Thread Held in Tension,” textileartist.org shares “what fires Randy’s imagination…how his background in architecture has shaped his artistic vocabulary…and how he puts together his subtle, yet mind-blowing installations.” Look for them.

Art Out and About: Abroad

Earlier this summer we published a blog post outlining current and upcoming exhibitions featuring browngrotta arts artists in North America. In addition to all of the exhibitions in North America, we have a ton of artists being featured in exhibitions abroad. Whether working in Denmark or vacationing in Greece take some time to relax and visit one of these spectacular exhibitions.

Jens Søndergaard with the touch of Ane Henriksen

Heltborg Museum (Thy, Denmark)

June 18-September 3

Ane Henriksen currently has a solo exhibition on view at the Heltborg Museum on the West Coast of Denmark. In Jens Søndergaard with the touch of Ane Henriksen, Henriksen uses weavings to interpret paintings by Jens Søndergaard. The weavings and paintings are on view at the Helborg Museum until September 3rd.

Jen Søndergaard with the touch of Ane Henriksen

 

A Darker Thread

Oriel Myrddin Gallery (Carmarthen, UK)

July 15-October 21  

Across the pond, there is A Darker Thread, at Oriel Myrddin Gallery in Carmarthen. Wales has been long celebrated for its’ distinctive textile design in both power-loomed blankets and hand stitched quilts. While all work in A Darker Thread references Welsh Culture or sense of place, artists were selected for their focus on the curious, the provocative, the humorous or the unpredictable. The exhibition features artists such as Alana Tyson, Laura Thomas and Ruth Harries. To compliment the exhibition there is a rich program of events over the summer for children and families. A Darker Thread is on show at the Oriel Myrddin until October 21st.

Treading Cloud by Spike Davis at A Darker Thread

Labyrinth

Mountados, Tinos, Greece

July 22-August 22

 

For Labyrinth, 10 artists were challenged to create a piece of art for a box that would hang above the streets of the village Mountados on the island of Tinos. The network created by the alleyways of cycladic villages is reminiscent of a labyrinth, therefore why the theme was chosen for Mountados. Though labyrinths are often seen as a place to get lost, they are instead the places to find oneself. “In these troubled and uncertain times, we are once again seeking a path. Here we are in this labyrinth, confronted with the idea of the inner journey that each of us pursues, in the face of our hesitation, our halts, our choices,” explains Mireille Liénard “It is the discovery of this labyrinth, but also this journey to the depths of ourselves, that this new edition of the Biennale of Mountados offers us.”             

Stéphanie Jacques for Labyrinth

Tapestry: Here and Now

The Holbourne Museum (Bath, UK)

June 23-October 1

Tapestry: Here & Now surveys contemporary tapestry while also showcasing some of the most innovative approaches to tapestry by a variety of international talent. This exhibit includes Sara Brennan and is curated by Dr. Lesley Millar, who wrote an essay in Retro/Prospective: 25+ Years of Art Textiles and Sculpture. Each piece exhibits a development in the artist’s career, textile making or society as a whole. The exhibition also exemplifies how artists use their medium to engage with political, aesthetic and personal issues of contemporary relevance.  Edward McKnight Kauffer’s “The ‘Arts’ Tapestry” will be on public display for the first time. The tapestry depicts a muse-like figure holding an open book, while beside a globe and fluted ionic column, expressing the importance of understanding classical art and architecture. Tapestry: Here & Now will be on view at The Holbourne Museum, in Bath until October 1st.

Broken White Band with Pink by Sara Brennan, linen, wool, and cotton, 32” x 32”, 2008

 

Everyday matter, The Value of Textile Art

Textilmuseet, Borås

September 16 – January 28

Everyday matter, an exhibition presented by Nordic Textile Art (NTA) in collaboration with the Textile Museum of Sweden, chronicles the slow processes of textile art. The exhibition not only shows methods to eliminate time in the textile making process but also shows artists how to communicate through materiality. Every two years the European Textile Network holds a conference in a European country. This year, Borås and the Textile Museum of Sweden are co-hosting the conference. Four browngrotta arts artist have been selected to present work in Everyday matter, including Løvaas & Wagle,Ulla-Maija Wikman, Grethe Wittrock and Ane Henriksen.

Grethe Wittrock working on a piece for Everyday Matter


Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog Cover Naoko Serino and Mary Yagi

Still Crazy…30 Years: The Catalog

It’s big! It’s beautiful (if we do say so ourselves –and we do)! The catalog for our 30th anniversary is now available on our new shopping cart. The catalog — our 46th volume — contains 196 pages (plus the cover), 186 color photographs of work by 83 artists, artist statements, biographies, details and installation shots.

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Naoko Serino Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Michael Radyk Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Lilla Kulka Spread

Still Crazy...30 Years: The Catalog

Jo Barker Spread

The essay, is by Janet Koplos, a longtime editor at Art in America magazine, a contributing editor to Fiberarts, and a guest editor of American Craft. She is the author of Contemporary Japanese Sculpture (Abbeville, 1990) and co-author of Makers: A History of American Studio Craft (University of North Carolina Press, 2010). We have included a few sample spreads here. Each includes a full-page image of a work, a detail shot and an artist’s statement. There is additional artists’ biographical information in the back of the book. Still Crazy After All These Years…30 years in art can be purchased at www.browngrotta.com http://store.browngrotta.
com/still-crazy-after-all-these-years-30-years-in-art/.
Our shopping cart is mobile-device friendly and we now take PayPal.


Art Press: Sara Brennan in the News on Two Continents

Sara Brennan in both American Craft and Selvedge Magazines this month

Sara Brennan in both American Craft and Selvedge Magazines this month

Viewing Sara Brennan’s tapestries is to be immersed in a land- or skyscape. Brennan’s evocative weavings are featured in two different magazines this month, selvedge published in the UK and American Craft in the US. In selvedge, in “View,” Issue 73, pp. 92-93, Lesley Millar writes about the layering of history in Brennan’s tapestries, “At the centre of her work there is a stillness and a sense of being held, which is an echo of the experience at the centre of an ancient forest.” Millar notes that the artist uses a traditional Gobelin high warp technique which links her tapestries to the Middle Ages. She also uses yarns she has been given, old yarns, sometimes yarns she had inherited from her father’s studio in Edinburgh. Brennan admits to obsessing about the surface in her tapestries, the qualities of a specific yarn. “The surface texture,” Millar writes, “slows down our gaze through a series of subtle, textured intervals forming a visual interplay between our eye and the sensuality of the surface.”

American Craft and Selvedge Magazine Covers

American Craft and Selvedge Magazine Covers

The article in American Craft, December/January 2017, by editor in chief, Monica Moses is in a section called “Collective Unconscious: On the Horizon,” pp. 36-37, features five artists, includling Brennan, whose work envisions where the sky and land meet. Brennan reduces the landscape to its essence, “earth and sky, demarcated by horizon.”

Linen Tapestry with Broken Grey Line by Sara Brennan, linen, wool, and cotton, 42.5" x 42", 2014

Linen Tapestry with Broken Grey Line by Sara Brennan, linen, wool, and cotton, 42.5″ x 42″, 2014

Brennan’s work can be seen at browngrotta.com and, through January 2017, in Here and Now a touring exhibition curated by the UK’s National Centre for Craft and Design of contemporary British tapestry artists and weavers from Australia, Norway, Latvia, Japan and the USA. For more information visit: http://www.nationalcraftanddesign.org.uk.