“Context: Language, Media and Meaning,” a juried exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum, showcases 30 works predominantly of fiber, handmade paper and textile from members of the Surface Design Association’s southern New England chapters. Each material work incorporates or refers to language. The phrase “Surface Design” refers to a self-selected group of artists sharing certain materials and practices, who borrow and challenge craft traditions while transcending disciplinary boundaries. Their engagement with language reflects curiosity and willingness to critique signifying structures, concern for contemporary politics and consciousness of feminist issues in changing times, often all in a single piece. The works are multivalent: their words alone don’t impart the full blast but add urgency, agency and irony to contemporary iterations of traditional forms and methods. We hear words … [Read more...] about SURFACE DESIGN: LANGUAGE AS A MEDIUM AT FULLER CRAFT
Issue Articles
SHINING IN THE SEAPORT: WEARABLE ART AT THE SOCIETY OF ARTS + CRAFTS
Currently on view in Boston’s Seaport District on the second floor of one of that neighborhood’s sheathed-in-glass high-rise buildings is: “Adorning Boston and Beyond: Contemporary Studio Jewelry Then + Now.” Guest curated by MassArt Jewelry Professor, Heather White, for The Society of Arts + Crafts, the show is contoured to contextualize today’s jewelry trends using images and writings focused on the studio jewelry work of American post-war artists and designers. Such work blazed a conceptual imprint of enduring significance. White begins this show with documentation in photo and text to suggest the experimentation of the post-war era continues to inform the strongest studio jewelry trends of today. Particularly the show explores the role adornment plays, describing and declaring personal identity and engaging the public and the wearer. Stepping forward from the elevator into the … [Read more...] about SHINING IN THE SEAPORT: WEARABLE ART AT THE SOCIETY OF ARTS + CRAFTS
BEHIND EVERY GREAT ARTIST: ARTISTS AND THEIR PARTNERS
I came up with this story concept during a gathering of friends, classmates and fellow artists. We’ve been getting together as often as possible after a hiatus of about 40 years for several reasons. At the core of this group are the former students of Ed Togneri, Bill (Willoughby) Elliott, Herb Cummings or Frank McCoy at Southeastern Massachusetts University (which became the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 1991). Many of us are from the Bachelor of Fine Arts Class of 1975 and were painting majors. It’s very interesting how, as we aged, we began to reach out to each other on Facebook. As we reconnected, we learned that some of us were fortunate enough to secure full-time faculty positions while others went into alternative fields such as marketing and advertising. When we had our first reunion a couple of summers ago, it was amazing to hear, not only how similar our life and … [Read more...] about BEHIND EVERY GREAT ARTIST: ARTISTS AND THEIR PARTNERS
Welcome from Brian Goslow
The early months of the year are unpredictable, with the usual cold temperatures and nasty weather typically making it tougher to travel from place to place. On the other hand, it encourages picking a single place or district to settle into for the day and playing closer attention to the exhibitions they visit. It’s also a good time for artists and artisans to settle in to address those projects they’ve put up during the warm weather season. Over the past few months, during the holiday fair season, I’ve contemplated the lasting value of a work created by furniture and jewelry makers, potters, sculptors and fiber artists, especially at a time where communities herald their roles in the maker culture. How does one truly judge which work being created today will find itself part of a museum display centuries from now? Or will that be up to the curators of 2219 to decide? With these … [Read more...] about Welcome from Brian Goslow
Making Connections With Donna Dodson
I first came across Stephen Hamilton’s work at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Roxbury, Massachusetts in the 2017 show, “Black Gods Live: Work of Stephen Hamilton.” I was struck by the vibrant representations of African men and women, the handcrafted tapestries and the narratives in his work. I took to following him on social media to keep up with his practice and recently did a studio visit with him to find out more about his new work. “The Founders Project” will be on view at the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building in Dudley Square in November, courtesy of Now and There. One can trace the development of this series in his recent work. “Portraits of the Orisa: Nigeria Series, 2016” re-imagined artists and members of the Yoruba religious community as the Orisa and other figures central to the Yoruba spiritual and philosophical tradition. The series … [Read more...] about Making Connections With Donna Dodson
Capsule Previews
“Stories to Tell,” a one-person show of “assemblage paintings that combine portraits and other figurative compositions with various salvage and found objects” by Barbara Johansen-Newman will be on view from November 1 through 26 at the Gallery at Gorse Mill, 31 Thorpe Road, Needham, Massachusetts. The folkish-feel of Johansen Newman’s current work brings her career full cycle; she started out “enamored with the art form of puppetry,” creating both puppets and the scenery they’d perform in front of, took up the fiber arts, creating puppets, soft sculptures and dolls, then became an illustrator for children’s books. Gorse Mill, a renovated former textile factory, is home to studios for potters, ceramicists, glass blowers, painters, sculptors, mosaic artists, silk painters and fiber artists, jewelers, photographers, authors, illustrators, stained-glass artists, graphic designers, … [Read more...] about Capsule Previews