Posted Friday June 15 2012 at 10:47 am.
Used tags: art, event, gallery
The Open Door Gallery presents Marian Brown: Fabrics of Meaning June 18, 2012 - August 31, 2012
Opening reception takes place Tuesday June 19, 2012 4 - 7 pm. At 6 pm, Edward Clapp, founder & editor of 20UNDER40: Re-Inventing the Arts and Arts Education for the 21st Century, will moderate a conversation with the artist on the genesis of the project, her use of studio art as a cathartic healing mechanism and her current work.
The Artistic Process
In the spring of 2009 Marian sent out a letter to family and friends asking for everyone to contribute to an upcoming "family tree" project by sending in a "fiber of meaning." This entailed every family member sending in a piece of cotton clothing, which they deemed as emotionally significant.
Marian spent the summer of 2010 in two studios turning the recycled clothing into handmade paper. Marian ran a workshop for youth, involving them in the process of making handmade paper by creating specific jobs for each child.
In the summer of 2011, Marian began working on the completed paper. Her inspiration stems from work by both Matisse and Kara Walker. Marian's idea is to utilize positive and negative space in order to highlight the paper itself. She draws attention to the idea that paper is not simply a material to be worked on, but is indeed the art itself. She does so by pulling shapes out of the paper, and layering the paper in order to create depth and composition, as opposed to building on top of it with other materials. The color and integrity of the paper is that of the fabric from which it originated. The cotton fibers remain unsized and un-dyed. The colors are true to the clothing from which they were made.
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Marian makes Boston Globe Critic's Pick! Thank you, Cate McQuaid and June Wulff!
http://calendar.boston.com/boston_ma/eve.. Kati (URL) - July 18 2012