Red Meander, Anni Albers. Hand-knotted, handspun wool. (7 × 10 feet)
We The People, Hank Willis Thomas, 2015. Quilt made out of decommissioned prison uniforms. (73 ¼ x 88 ¼ inches)
Street Art in Fort Smith
Spent a little time in Fort Smith, Ark., yesterday and took a few photos of some of their world-class street art, part of a downtown revitalization project, The Unexpected.
Heraclitus
"The most beautiful order of the world is still a random gathering of things insignificant in themselves."
Heraclitus, as quoted in Utopia Drive, by Erik Reece
W. 31st Street
Quilt on Fence
Theaster Gates on Archinect
Worth a listen for this quote alone:
"Let's imagine that the work that I've been doing was simply an effort to demonstrate that beautiful things live everywhere. That I'm actually interested in beauty, and beauty in places that we don't imagine it ..."
Faulkner Lake Rd.
Kevin Beasley on Art21
An installation centered on a cotton gin motor and the artists response to seeing cotton growing. "Why am I so mad at this plant? This plant is not doing anything except growing and being beautiful."
Panel on Crafts in Arkansas
It was an honor to share the stage last night with Linda Nguyen Lopez and Leon Niehaus, two of Arkansas’s most interesting craftspeople. If you don’t know their work, check it out.
Linda Nguyen Lopez
Leon Nieheus
Contemporary Craft: A Conversation, at the Clinton Presidential Center
I am honored to be part of a panel Thursday, February 21 at 6 p.m., at the Clinton Presidential Center. The panel will discuss craft art in Arkansas, how craft art is different than traditional fine art, and the role they think it plays in reflecting culture.
Brian J. Lang (moderator)
Brian Lang is the chief curator and Windgate Foundation curator of contemporary craft at the Arkansas Arts Center.
Linda Nguyen Lopez (Panelist)
Linda Nguyen Lopez is first-generation American ceramic artist of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Her abstract works explore the poetic potential of the everyday by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround us. She is currently an Instructor and Interim Head of Ceramics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Leon Niehues (Panelist)
From Huntsville, Arkansas, Leon Niehues has been making baskets, sculptural baskets, and bentwood sculpture for 36 years. While using traditional materials and techniques, he adds innovative ideas, methods of construction, and new and unique materials to his pieces. Niehues, and his wife Sharon, were included in The White House Collection of American Crafts.
James Matthews (Panelist)
James Matthews is a documentary artist with a bias toward the human-made landscape, manual processes, and the physical object. His Eviction Quilts series features works made from clothes and bedding left curbside after an eviction. Matthews lives in Little Rock.
Threadstories
How important are materials and which do you prefer?
Each mask is a sketch, I construct and deconstruct the same masks endlessly exploring the properties of different yarns and pushing the materials. Working intuitively I let the materials lead, no design or drawings in advance. I think with my hands. My studio is full of different yarns, I don’t over think what materials I will use ultimately it is the form that I am striving for, and it is this aspect of the process that excites me. I go by eye when choosing yarns sometimes it works and even when a mask doesn’t work out I have usually learned what not to do next time.
From an interview in RedMilk with the artist behind @Threadstories.
