Paint By Needle

Friday November 2nd, 2007
Rowan Morrison Gallery
"Paint by Needle"
The Textile works of Narangkar Glover and Ako Castuera

Details from the works that will be on exhibit

As I gather the bits and pieces together and work frantically to finish up my last pieces, I'm being reminded of the work of many talented contemporary artists whose work is also in the textile-soft-sculpture-visual-art category. Here are just a few of our picks:

Laura Splan

"Underneath" (installation) 2003, cosmetic facial peel, wood, metal, thread, blood

Frances Trombly is a Miami Artist showing at Steven Wolf this month, and has a write up by Kenneth Baker at SFgate.

"Balloons" 2004, crochet

Anu Tuominen is Swedish, I think.


Maria Porges is an Oakland sculptor perhaps known more for her wax sculptures, but this I'm very familiar with, as it's as the Berkeley Art Museum:

"Bomboozle", 2003, felted wool, dimensions variable, 48” x 48”

Tonya Solley Thornton just moved from Oakland to Ashville, NC

"Merry Go Cake", mixed media, 5'9"

Lacey Jane Roberts knits with a little toy that makes I-chords. At CCA she made a giant, bright pink, chain link fence with I-chords. Here's another of hers:


And here's a preview of my work that will be showing here at Rowan Morrison Gallery and Artist's Bookstore.

"Color Wheel", 18" x 18", Crewel Embroidery on Jute

Korean Embroidery at the Asian Art Museum

Made it to the Asian Art Museum last weekend for the Yoshitoshi woodcuts exhibit. Big Thanks to Robin and Don for clueing me to that one: it's remarkable and exquisite. You can catch the second half of the show until September 2nd. They organized it in two halves because of the light sensitive pigments in the prints, but holy moly are those colors vibrant!

Upstairs in the permanent collection are a bunch of Silk Embroideries by Korean artist Park Pil-Soon, b. 1949. Neither the museum, nor the internet have any information on her - guess I'll just have to travel to Korea to learn more! They let you take photos upstairs so here are some rather adequate photos of her beautiful work - but I do encourage a visit in person if you live in the Bay Area.





I absolutely love the Magenta, Blue, Glod, Red and White Traditional colors of Korea. The only thing missing this visit were the silk wrap clothes that women used out of scrap silk in these colors. They were used to wrap gifts for auspicious occasions like weddings. Usually the gift would be a wooden duck for good fortune.





That silk robe took her two years to complete. I'm telling you: Go in person!



These are some Japanese grave shrines made from clay that I really like.


This is a Shinto Diety. Normally Shinto dieties were not depicted in human form, but this one is.



More Korean Contemporary art. They organize their permanent collection into region, and by far my favorite regions of the museum are Korea and Japan.