Rowena Bradley, Double Weave Lidded Basket,

No date, double woven river cane with walnut and blood root dyes, 6.75 x 6 x 6 inches. 2004 Collectors' Circle Acquisition. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.03.09.58. 

At one point, Rowena Bradley was one of only a handful of double weave rivercane weavers. She learned by watching her mother weave, a third generation Cherokee basket weaver. Eventually, she became part of the Cherokee craft revitalization which helped boost Cherokee economy and also kept the traditions of Cherokee craft alive for future generations. Bradley's father was Henry Bradley, Principal Chief of the Eastern Band, and she grew up on lands owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian. 

Double weave baskets were good storage containers because they were strong and often water repellant. A double weave basket is really two baskets, one inside the other, woven together at the rim. Beginning at the base of the inside basket, the weaver works upward to the rim and then down along the outside towards the base, often using two designs on the inside and the outside. Bradley learned patterns and designs from her mother, but she also came up with some of her own. To make the baskets, the rivercane is collected, split into quarters, peeled, soaked in water and then dyed before beginning to weave. Bradley used materials common to traditional Cherokee rivercane basketry, including naturally found dyes from native roots and bark, including those from butternut, black walnut, bloodroot and yellow root. 

This basket was purchased for the Museum by the Collectors' Circle after it was in the Museum's exhibition Transformations: Cherokee Baskets in the Twentieth Century, which examined Cherokee basket making over the past century, and how the materials and styles have evolved during this time period. A photograph of Rowena Bradley taken by photographer Tim Barnwell will be on display starting May 14th in the Museum's new exhibition Hands in Harmony: Traditional Crafts and Music in Appalachia, Photographs by Tim Barnwell. Look for it next week, here at Work of the Week!

 For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

 April 26 - May 2, 2010

Robert Yarber, The Corruption of Ecstasy,

1989, color lithograph, 30 x 44 inches. Museum purchase with funds provided by Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2008.40.61.

Robert Yarber is the Distinguished Professor of Art at Pennsylvania State University. He is best known for his images of flying or falling figures seen above neon-lit cityscapes viewed at night. The main ideas of Yarber's work revolve around "combining antiquity with modernism. His paintings have a dream-like surreal atmosphere that is balanced against the anxieties of late 20th, early 21st century culture. This work contains three figures- one crying and hiding his face, one looking out with binoculars and one flying in the air- all three of which are very different in the way they interact with the world. The fourth figure- the viewer- must choose which one to relate to.

This work is on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Seen and Unseen Gallery. The Museum purchased it with funds provided by Ray Griffin and Thom Robinson, after it was presented to the Museum's collecting group Art Nouveaux in 2008. The Art Nouveaux is a group for those new to collecting who want to learn more about collecting art, art connoisseurship and more. One of the Museum's collecting focuses is prints and this lithograph makes an excellent edition to the collection.

April 19 - 25, 2010 

Martha Armstrong, Fall Construction,

1997, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches, Gift of Alan W. Armstrong in Memory of Marion Armstrong Hearn. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1998.23.21.

"Painting the landscape, for me, is watching the light. Painting still lifes in the long slanting light of winter is a way to keep track of myself and the days as they move toward spring"- Martha Armstrong

Martha Armstrong is a landscape painter with a vigorous and forceful approach. Painted in the style of Neo-Expressionism, Armstrong uses slashing brushstrokes and strong color contrasts in her landscapes in order to display spontaneous emotion through her work. As Jeffrey Carr says, she paints your perception of objects; not what is actually there, but what you actually see.  

This painting, Fall Construction, is positioned right next to, and in juxtaposition with, last week's Work of the Week, Louis Finkelstein's Park Tennis, in the Museum's Permanent Collection exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Urban and Rural gallery. Similar in size, these two paintings convey a familiarity that can occur between the urban and rural landscapes and also between spring and autumn. Looking Back is a celebration of the Asheville Art Museum's permanent collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries; come see these two paintings side by side.

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

April 12 - 18, 2010

Louis Finkelstein, Park Tennis,

1961, oil painting on canvas, 50 x 50 inches. Gift of the Artist, Asheville Art Museum Collection. 1998.08.21.

Can you feel the end of winter and the beginning of spring? Help me to ring in the warm weather with a little Park Tennis by Louis Finkelstein. Finkelstein was a painter, an art critic, a prolific teacher, a firm advocate for the arts and a public presence. He was in the Art Student's League of New York, the US Air Force during World War II and on numerous boards, planning committees and arts councils. This work, Park Tennis, was painted in the style of New Realism, a reaction against Abstract Expressionism that used flattened space, large scale and simplified colors to convey a sense of the realistic, in contrast to the abstract. Rumor has it that in the 1960s Finkelstein coined the phrase "abstract impressionism”, an abstract movement where small brushstrokes were used to build large scale works.

This painting is currently on display in the Museum’s exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, in the Museum’s permanent collection gallery Urban and Rural. Looking Back is a celebration of the Asheville Art Museum's collection of American art of the 20th and 21st centuries and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. The Permanent Collection steers the Museum’s other functions, making it an instrumental part of the Museum’s identity and purpose as a stewardship of art to the public.

Come in to see this incredible work, and then go outside and play some tennis. Good luck...

Stone Roberts, Luke and Flowers,

2009, Photogravure on paper, 22.75 x 20.25 inches. Gift of Camille Stone Roberts. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2010.02.60.

Stone Roberts was born in Asheville. His richly detailed paintings pay homage to the old masters but are clearly grounded in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, reflecting a keen eye for detail and a humorous and sly wit.

The dog in this work, Luke, was Roberts' dog and would often accompany him to the studio. Luke also appears in a number of Roberts other works. This work reflects a keen sense of realism, an art style which emphasized the depiction of things as they appear or occur, without embellishment or interpretation. Looking at this work, one can only imagine Roberts turning his head in the studio to see his dog licking from a bowl and knocking things off the table.

Although Luke and Flowers is included in the Museum's exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century , it is currently in the Museum's community gallery by the elevators, as an introduction to the show. As a part of this gallery, it is free to see at the Museum, so come into the Museum and see it in person.

 
March 29 - April 4, 2010

Pinky Bass, Barbed Wire (from Limens and Sublimens),

1994, Photograph, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 27.88 x 36 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by Ray Griffin in honor of the 2007 Art Nouveaux and Thom Robinson. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.19.91.

Pinky Bass is best known as a pinhole photographer although she also works in other media forms. Her work conveys universal themes of life, death and transformation, and she describes herself as a feminist, spiritualist and artist.  

A pinhole camera is a light-tight box with a tiny hole in one end and film or photographic paper in the other. There is no lens in a pinhole camera; it is replaced by a tiny hole, and when light passes through the hole, an image is formed. Pinhole cameras have no focal length but they have an infinite depth of field. There are a wide variety of pinhole cameras; they can be made with one or multiple pin holes, they can be made out of shells, cans or cereal boxes and they can be very large or very small. Bass' pinhole photograph, Barbed Wire (from Limens and Sublimens), was made from a bible with two points of view.

1955 (printed by the artist in 1997), Photograph, black and white silver gelatin print, 15.38 x 19.38 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by 2005 Collectors' Circle members Paul and Cherry Lentz Saenger. 2005.17.91

Link developed a love for trains at the age of four when he was given his first Lionel train set. As a youth, he became interested in photography. In the late 1930s, he studied civil engineering. Combining his training as an engineer with his youthful interest in photography, he became a successful commercial photographer and artist.

During World War II, Link performed secret war research for the United States Government, and, stationed adjacent to The Long Island Railroad, his earlier interest in steam locomotives was rekindled.

Link began photographing the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the mid-1950s. Although he was not hired by the N&W, he gained their permission to realize a decade-old dream of photographing steam trains at night using a complex system of synchronized flash units. In his carefully staged images, he captured both the last steam powered trains in the United States and some of the people who maintained and lived near them; these photographs became some to the most dramatic images of trains in the American landscape. The photographs that Link made in Western Virginia and Northwest North Carolina are considered by many to be some of the most technically and aesthetically sophisticated images of the 20th century.

This photograph, Living Room on the Tracks, (Lithia, Virginia), is considered to be among Link's strongest images and provides multiple avenues for interpretation. It is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum, which celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's permanent collection. The Museum is dedicated to collecting important photographic pieces from artists in the region and nationwide.

March 15 - 21, 2010 

Oscar Bailey, Ed Ruscha, 10 Times, Tampa, FL,

1970, Photograph, Black and White Silver Gelatin Print, 6.25 x 43.5 inches. Museum Purchase with funds provided by 2007 Collectors' Circle member Frances Myers in memory of Nat. C. Myers. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.31.91.

Bailey is a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education, and he started a photographic program at the University of South in Tampa, FL in 1969, where he taught until he retired to Yancey County, here in Western North Carolina.

This celebrity portrait is currently on display in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, which explores the history of Portraiture (it is also part of our Website's front page banner). The Museum is dedicated to collecting contemporary photography as part of its long term collecting strategies, and this unique panoramic work reflects the Museum's varied photographic collection.

(photo no longer available) William Wegman, Red Detachment,

2006, Polaroid photograph, 24.25 x 20.75 inches. 2007 Collectors' Circle Purchase. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2007.33.02.96

William Wegman is best known as an art photographer noted for compositions of his Weimaraner dogs in various costumes, poses and scenarios. Wegman received international attention for his images of his first Weimaraner dog, Man Ray. Man Ray became so popular that the Village Voice named the dog "Man of the Year" in 1982.

This work is currently in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century , which includes formal portraits, self-portraits, portraits of animals and portraits of friends, models and celebrities. In this case, Wegman's photo captures both a portrait of an animal and a celebrity.

The Museum is dedicated to collecting contemporary photography, and in this work, Wegman uses a specific way of photographing his subject. In 1978, Wegman was invited to use the newly developed Polaroid 20 x 24 inch camera. This camera produces large format "contact" prints renowned for their color and detail, but only produces one unique print at a time. Red Detachment is an example of his continued work with the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera.

March 1 - 7, 2010

1983, Cibachrome photograph, 10.38 x10.38 inches. Gift of R.K. Benites. Asheville Art Museum Collection. 2005.12.03.94.

Annie Leibovitz is a photographer whose work has included magazine, fashion and advertising photography. She is best known for her portraits of celebrities, who range from political figures to musicians and athletes. From 1970 to 1983, she was the chief photographer for the magazine Rolling Stones, and in the early 1990's she founded the Annie Leibovitz Studio in New York City. As a portrait photographer, Leibovitz emphasizes some aspect of each subject's public persona. Using the whole of the subject's body, typically captured in the midst of physical action, Leibovitz achieves her effects with flair--often outrageous--setting her work apart from that of other portrait artists.

This portrait of Laurie Anderson is currently in the Museum's newest exhibition Limners to Facebook: Portraiture from the 19th to the 21st Century, which includes formal portraits, self-portraits, portraits of animals and portraits of friends, models and celebrities. This celebrity portrait is of Laurie Anderson, a performance artist and musician. Anderson autographed the mat framing this work upon visiting the Museum in 2008 in conjunction with the Museum's exhibition Time is of the Essence. One of the Museum's collecting focuses is on photography and we are delighted to have a photograph by this important contemporary art photographer in our collection. Come in to the Museum to see what Anderson wrote on the portrait Leibovitz took of her!

Pierre Daura, Chickens,

circa 1963, watercolor and tempera painting on paper, 15.25 x 12.13 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Martha R. Daura, 1998.17.08.22

Pedro Francisco Daura y Garcia was born and raised in Spain. He was formally educated at the School of Fine Arts where his teachers included Pablo Picasso's father, Jose Ruiz Blasco. At the age of fourteen, he sold work in his first exhibition. While working on a mural in Normady in 1923, Daura fell and permanently damaged his left hand, rendering it useless for the remainder of his life, yet he still continued to paint and sculpt.

In the 1920's, Daura met and married an American art student, Louise Blair, who was from Virginia. They had a daughter, Martha. After traveling to Virginia around 1935 to visit his wife's relatives, his paintings of Virginian landscapes were well received upon his return. Soon after, he joined the Republican army in Spain as a volunteer against the forces of Franco, was wounded in battle and returned to France to recuperate. After refusing to return to Spain after the war, both he and Martha lost their Spanish citizenship and the family was forced to move to France. In 1939, they traveled back to Virginia but were unable to return to France because of WWII. After gaining American citizenship, the family moved to a village at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains in Virginia where Daura and Louise lived until their deaths.

Daura's Chickens was painted around 1963, near the end of his life, while living in Virginia. It is painted in the American Scene-Rural style, where artists depicted scenes of typical American life and landscapes, reflecting the country's nationalism and isolationism in the face of the social changes between the wars. Daura's overall style can be characterized as "romantic realism, combined with a gentle expressionism and imaginative abstraction."

This watercolor is on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , in the Urban and Rural Gallery. Daura's daughter Martha donated this work to the Museum. Come into the Museum to see this vibrant work in person to welcome the Spring and say farewell to Winter!

February 15 - 21, 2010

Ati Gropius Johansen, Sample for Marzipan Annie,

circa 1957, ink and watercolor on rice paper, 14.13 x 9.88 inches, Black Mountain College Collection, Gift of the Artist, 2008.46.16.41

Beate ‘Ati' Gropius Johansen is the daughter of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. She is a book illustrator and designer; primarily focusing on graphics in the form of children's book illustrations, her work can be seen in over 40 published books.

Two works by Johansen, including this one, are now on display as part of the Museum's new exhibition, Nouns: Children's Book Artists Look at People, Places and Things, which examines original book illustrations from artists who are committed to the genre of children's books. Johansen painted these as samples to give to prospective publishers in order to gain employment. During her subsequent career, she specialized in children's book illustrations, resulting in over 40 books published under the name Ati Forberg.

From the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1946, Johansen attended Black Mountain College, studying mostly under Josef Albers. After leaving BMC, Ati completed her graduate work at the Chicago Institute of Design. The Museum is dedicated to collecting work by artists who studied at Black Mountain College as part of its long term collecting strategy. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists.

Come to the Museum to see this exciting new exhibition on Children's Book Artists, or join us for one of the many programs scheduled in conjunction with this show. Bring your children and snuggle up with a book in the gallery for your own story time session; books and chairs provided!

For more information on this work and artist, or to see the other image in the show by Ati Gropius Johansen, visit our Permanent Collection online!

February 8 - 14, 2010

Sulton Rogers, Untitled Pregnant Woman in Red Dress,

not dated, carved and painted wood, 13 x 5 x 6.5 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.11.01.32

Sulton Rogers, Untitled Man with Pink Shirt and Green Pants,

not dated, carved and painted wood, 12.5 x 4 x 6 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.11.02.32

In our last week on sculpture, these two figures needed to be paired together to give you a taste of the uniqueness of Sulton Rogers. An Outsider Artist, Sulton Rogers was taught wood carving by his father when he was 13. His first name is often misspelled as "Sultan." Rogers' woodcarvings are best described as fanciful, grotesque and occasionally erotic.

For more information on this artist and these works, Untitled Pregnant Woman in Red Dress and Untitled Man with Pink Shirt and Green Pants , visit our Permanent Collection online!

February 1 - 7, 2010

Virgil Ledford, Bear,

circa 2008, walnut wood, 8.75 x 11 x 4.25 inches, Asheville Art Museum Collection. Museum purchase with funds provided by 2009 Collectors' Circle members Russell and Ladene Newton.

As a child, Virgil Ledford listened to stories about his great-grandfather Murphy, who "could carve anything he wanted." Ledford grew up in Western North Carolina and attended Cherokee High School, where he studied woodcarving with Amanda Crowe. He credits her with teaching him how to create his own unique designs while basing them in the culture of his people.

Ledford is one of the best-known of the living Cherokee carvers, and he has made a living as a woodcarver for many years. In Virgil's own words, "I didn't know it was going to be my livelihood. It's a God given talent. I just made it work for me."

Last year, Virgil Ledford was in two exhibitions at the Asheville Art Museum, Cherokee Carvers: Tradition Renewed, organized by the Museum and Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art, organized by the Southern Arts Federation. This carving is a fine example of Ledford's work, using simple forms to express the character and essence of the bear.

The art of the Cherokee is one of the areas identified in the Museum's collections growth plan, outlining areas the Museum is collecting in depth. It also continues our discussion of sculptural pieces in the Museum's permanent collection; look at the last few weeks for a more on sculpture.

This piece was recently purchased by the 2009 Collectors' Circle members Russell and Ladene Newton during the annual Collectors' Circle Selection Dinner. The Museum's Collector's Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about this prestigious group!

January 25 - 31, 2010

1991, wood, 12.75 x 37.25 x 13 inches, Gift of Randy Siegel, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 2009.14.01.38

For almost thirty years, Clyde Jones has been making creatures out of wood with chainsaws, decorating them with found objects. A North Carolina native, Clyde lives and works in Bynum, NC, south of Carrboro and Chapel Hill. He was born in 1938 or 39, he thinks, but it does not really concern him. His property is littered with his works, hundreds of whimsical creatures that he does not like to sell but loves to share with children, teaching them to make their own. Clyde and his critters have traveled across the nation and throughout the world, but as a true Outsider Artist, Clyde does not concern himself with the conventional art world and so his craft is not influenced by recognition within it.

Outsider Art has been established as a collecting focal point for the Museum and is discussed in the Museum's Collection Growth Plan. Outsider art is originally created for the artist and not an institution, society or market. The value is determined by the creator, not the observer. Outsider art has been traditionally understood as work that falls outside mainstream culture usually because of one or more factors such as class, race, mental handicap or imprisonment.

This sculpture, untitled critter, is currently in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum and was recently installed as part of the exhibition's rotation early this month. Come see it before journeying out to see Clyde's forest of creatures.

January 18- 24, 2010

Dorothy Gillespie, Triangled Celebration,

1985, aluminum, 144 x 60 x 60 inches, Gift of Nationwide Life Insurance Company, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 1991.17.33

Dorothy Gillespie's sculpture is a permanent fixture in the Asheville Art Museum's foyer, hanging above the library frieze and hovering over the heads of guests in the Holden Community gallery. Composed of three separate pieces, Gillespie redesigned this sculpture to fit in its current location. At its previous location, in Chapel Hill, two of the units were connected together so there were two segments hanging down, one long and one short. Today, three large pieces hang down from the ceiling as you walk in to the Asheville Art Museum. Don't forget to look up!

Dorothy Gillespie was born in 1920 in Virginia, and at the age of 90 years old, she is still working in New York City. She is best known for her distinctive, brightly colored metal abstractions and her permanent sculptures. Working in the style of Pattern and Decoration, Gillespie's use of bright colors invoke the decorative aspects found in many craft pieces at the Museum. Pattern and Decoration, primarily based in the United States, was a reaction against Minimalism; artists working in this style were often influenced by Feminist Art and created works that utilized domestic materials or made reference to the domestic environment.

One of the Asheville Art Museum's collecting focuses is on large sculptural pieces. This work starts our discussion on sculpture found at the Museum.

Visit us to see this amazing work of art, visible from many different vantage points within the Museum.

For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

January 11- 17, 2010

Helen West Heller, Isometric Architect,

1941, woodcut, 7.87 x 5.75 inches. Gift of Thelma Lowenstein, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 1993.08.01.65

Helen West Heller (1885-1955), also known as Helen Barnhart, was a participant in the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1949 she won the First Purchase Prize from the Library of Congress, and she was the author of "Migratory Urge," a text cut in wood. Her interest in nature motifs and love of wood is evident in her woodcuts and paintings. In Helen West Heller's own words, "I build up contrasts and similitudes of ideas as well as opposed areas, forms, tonalities, and colors."

Isometric Architect was placed in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum as part of the Museum's rotation of works on paper last week. This exhibition on the Museum's permanent collection has been in the gallery for over six months. Because of concerns about light exposure and other factors, the Museum rotates works on paper after a period of time so these pieces can ‘rest'. Even if you have already seen it, come in to see all of the new works in this exhibition and notice the continued comparisons and contrasts made by the Curators in each of the four galleries: Alone and Together, Geometric and Organic, Seen and Unseen, Urban and Rural.

This piece is part of the American Scene-Urban movement that came to prominence in the 1930-50's. These artists sought to capture the plight of the individual in the urban arena. Their works often depicted the loneliness of the city and were in contrast to the more conservative American Scene-Rural artists of this time.

January 4 - 10, 2010

Lorna Blaine Halper, Spiral Man,

not dated, cast bronze, 32.88 x 12.33 inches, Gift of the Artist, Asheville Art Museum Black Mountain College Collection, 2008.03.12.33

The spiral motif is important throughout Lorna Blaine Halper's career. The form is evident in early works like At the Opera (1948), eventually transforming this visual form into a "spiral guy" who became a "lifelong companion" enabling her to do "zillions of things." According to Halper, "I can fly to the moon with the spiral guy."

This motif was explored by Halper at Black Mountain and led her into new materials, like the cast bronze work, Spiral Man, on view in Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between. Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between is a solo exhibition currently on display at the Asheville Art Museum in the Holden Community Gallery. Admission to this gallery is free; an exhibition publication is available for purchase in the Museum Shop.

Lorna Blaine Halper attended Black Mountain College from 1945 to 1948 where she studied with Josef Albers, Fannie Hillsmith, Robert Motherwell and Ilya Bolotowsky. She married a former student and member of the faculty, Tasker Howard, and they moved to New York. After Tasker's early death, she remarried novelist and critic Albert Halper.

As part of its collecting focus, the Asheville Art Museum is dedicated to collecting work by Black Mountain College (BMC) artists. BMC, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, BMC launched a remarkable number of the artists. Lorna Blaine Halper has gifted all of the works of art to the Asheville Art Museum for her solo show. Her gift of such a sizeable body of work representing the full range of her artistic career enables visitors to experience a BMC artist in depth. It also allows the Museum to continue to preserve and education the public on this unique institution for generations to come.

According to Cole Hendrix, Assistant Curator and curator of the show Lorna Blaine Halper: The Space Between , "for me, the Spiral Man seems to a force of liberation for Halper. I imagine much of the work in the show to be about line and it's potential. In earlier works, line seems contained, bound as it were. Then it begins to move and bend and challenge the boundaries of the picture plane and our sense of space. When Lorna takes that early spiral form (At the Opera) and transforms it into a figure, she gives line life and in a symbolic way, that line becomes a (super) human force."

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

December 28, 2009 - January 3, 2010

Susan Weil, Leaf Hands,

2007, blueprint, 78 x 71 inches. Asheville Art Museum, Black Mountain College Collection. 2009 Collectors Circle Purchase.

Throughout her career, Susan Weil has continually pushed the limits of painting. Her work defies traditional notions of the medium instead of hovering over the line between painting and sculpture. Since her career began in the 1940's, Weil has continuously reinvented her style but her work has always contained common threads exploring questions of space, time and movement.

In Leaf Hands, Weil returns to a medium she used in the late 1940's and early 1950's with her then husband, Robert Rauschenberg. In 1948 Weil and Rauschenberg attended Black Mountain College. While at BMC, Weil and Rauschenberg began experimenting with blueprint paper. The blueprints used light sensitive paper and a sunray lamp to capture large scale silhouettes.

The Museum has long been interested in collecting work by artists who taught or studied at Black Mountain College. With the recent partnership between the Museum and Mary Emma Harris and the development of the AAM Collection Growth Plan, expanding our collection of BMC work has become a top priority. Leaf Hands is a monumental work by a seminal BMC artist. BMC was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists who spearheaded the avant-garde in America of the 1960's.

This piece was recently purchased by the Museum's 2009 Collectors' Circle during their annual purchase party. This was a rare opportunity to acquire a truly significant work and we are grateful to the members of the Collectors' Circle for making the acquisition possible. The Museum's Collector's Circle is a group art lovers who meet regularly to learn about personal art collecting and to support the Museum's permanent collection through the annual purchase of works of art. Contact us to learn more about this prestigious group!

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

December 21 - 27, 2009

Lonnie Holley, Teaching My Child How to See Grandmother's Mask,

1992, Acrylic Painting, 27.38 x 26.25 inches. Gift of Delphia Lamberson and Hoke Smith Holt, Asheville Art Museum Collection, 2002.01.04.24

Lonnie Bradley Holley was the seventh of 27 children. Never completing the seventh grade in school, he says he educated himself by reading "National Geographic" magazines.

Holley began his artistic life in 1979 by carving tombstones for his sister's two children who died in a house fire. He used blocks of a soft sandstone-like by-product of metal casting which had been discarded in piles by a foundry. He believes that divine intervention led him to the material and moved him to produce artwork.

Inspired to create, Holley made other carvings and assembled them in his yard along with various found objects.

Outsider art has been traditionally understood as work that falls outside mainstream culture usually because of one or more factors such as class, race, mental handicap or imprisonment. As outsiders, the artists are commonly unaffected by, isolated from, and most importantly uninfluenced by Art as a grandiose identity. Outsider art is originally created for the artist and not an institution, society or market. The value is determined by the creator, not the observer. Outside artists tend to be moved by their own relationships, faith, personal histories, external forces and immediate environments. As with certain other Outsider artists, Holley began producing art after a personal tragedy and described himself as giving way to a greater force - that "divine intervention" he mentions.

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

December 14 - 20, 2009

Georgia Blizzard, I am Just a Little Pebble in the Sand,

late 20^th century, earthenware, 4.5 x 6.25 x 5.75 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum Purchase, 2006.06.02.85

Georgia Blizzard's (1919-2002) work falls under the rubric of Outsider art. Outsider artists are commonly unaffected by, isolated from, and most importantly, uninfluenced by art as a grandiose identity. Many Outsider artists begin making work as adults, often after an illness or personal tragedy; such is the case with Georgia Blizzard who was born in Saltville, Virginia May 17, 1919. Her family moved to Plum Creek when she was a small child and she and her sister played along the creek. Too poor to have store-bought playthings, they learned to use the creek's clay to make their dolls, dishes, animals and other toys.

During World War II Georgia Blizzard worked in a munitions factory, and later in a textile mill. In 1958 she became ill and had to have a lung removed. To help supplement the meager family income, she and her sister made and sold Indian relics. Finally, Georgia began to make her own pots, fired and colored with bark, leaves or mud. Her pieces were very personal often providing her with a way to free herself from private demons and sorrows. Her works, frequently depicting local or family characters from her memory, have a pre-Columbian quality. I am Just a Little Pebble in the Sand reflects her concerns with human and personal insignificance.

Georgia Blizzard produced less than 100 pots per year and is highly sought after by individuals and institutions interested in American Folk and Outsider artists.

This piece is currently in the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Its inclusion in this exhibition points to the Museum's dedication in collecting Outsider Art as part of its long-term collection growth plan. Visit the other Works of the Week from this month for a continued discussion on Outsider Art.

December 7 - 13, 2009

Mattie Lou O'Kelley, Rooms

1978, 24 x 30 inches, oil painting. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Randy Siegel, 2002.17.02.21

Like many Outsider artists, Mattie Lou O'Kelley began her artistic endeavors late in life; she didn't start painting until she was 50.

Born in Georgia, she grew up on a farm in the rural community of Maysville, the seventh of eight children. As a girl, she helped around the house and farm, quilting blankets and canning vegetables, among other chores. Mattie attended school only to the ninth grade because she was needed at home. She never married and lived a quiet, reclusive life after the death of her parents. She worked at a variety of jobs: a seamstress, a cafeteria cook, and later as a worker in a mop yarn mill. At the age of 50, Mattie retired from the mill and four years later ordered canvas and oils from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog. Her subjects center on the life she lived and commemorate the nostalgic scenes of her childhood. Her paintings brought her both national and international recognition and she is often compared with Grandma Moses.

Although many of O'Kelley's works celebrate a rural life, she was also interested in the bustle of the city. The 1978 painting Rooms exemplifies the energetic and engaging view from her studio apartment in New York City. This painting can be seen in the exhibition in Gallery 1 as part of the Museum's exhibition, Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. Looking Back celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's collection and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists. As part of its collecting strategy, one of the Museum's collecting focuses is on Outsider Art. Since many Outsider artists are Southern it is fitting that the Asheville Art Museum have a strong collection. Although similar in style, Outsider Art is not Folk Art; Outsider artists are completely removed from the mainstream and their art is made purely for themselves. For more on this contrast, scroll down to last week's piece. More on Outsider Art next week!

November 30 - December 6, 2009

Kate Clayton (Granny) Donaldson, Cow Blanket

1936, Crocheted wool appliqués on a wool background, 30.7 x 35 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of Peggy Dodge, 1976.62.71

Kate Clayton (Granny) Donaldson was born in 1864 in Marble, a small town in Western North Carolina between Bryson City and Murphy. She was a traditional artisan using the basic methods of crocheting and appliqué, but moved beyond tradition with these colorful folk art cow blankets, as they came to be called. The motif usually consisted of a crocheted man, woman and sometimes children, with a flower pot, various animals and a tree of life. A member of the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild saw one of her blankets and encouraged Donaldson to make more. Her pieces were generally made and sold in the 1920's and 30's.

This piece is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. The exhibition is divided into four sections; this piece is in the room Alone and Together, which juxtaposes pieces from the collection to facilitate further investigation and dialogue of the artworks. Looking Back celebrates the Asheville Art Museum's collection and highlights some of the Museum's holdings in Southeastern and Western North Carolina artists, including documenting and preserving works from the region's unique craft culture.

As part of its collecting strategy, one of the Museum's collecting focuses is on Outsider Art, many pieces of which come from the South.

Although similar, Outsider Art is different from Folk Art. Outsider artists are completely removed from the mainstream and their art is made purely for themselves. In contrast, many of the Folk artists remain within the mainstream of the art world, even if they fail to practice its style. Generally they accept its subjects, technique and even its values, because they hope for public, if not official recognition. Their work often comes out of an artistic or craft tradition and their creations are within the boundaries of a community and a culture.

Granny Donaldson said, in a 1959 interview with John Parris one year before her death, "I can't rightly tell you how I come to make the first one. Nobody taught me or showed me. I never got the ideas from anybody and I never copied one for the good reason I'd never seen one, much less heard tell of one." Yet according to Allen Eaton in Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands, Donaldson saw a similar blanket used in Italy to drape over the backs of cows during festivals and created her own version. No matter what the correct account may be, Granny Donaldson's Cow Blankets are her own personal invention and have become folk art classics.

You decide if this piece can be considered Outsider Art. Tune in next week for a continued discussion on Outsider Art.

For more information on this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!

November 23 - 29, 2009

Stoney Lamar, Blue Tree Shoes,

2009, Mixed media sculpture, walnut, milk paint and steel, 74 x 17 x 8 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Museum purchase with funds provided by John and Robyn Horn & Blue Spiral 1, 2009.26.30.

Stoney Lamar (1951- ) received his BS degree in industrial arts (wood technology) from Appalachian State University. A friend's borrowed lathe led him away from his original goal of designing and building furniture and into sculpted woodturning. His apprenticeship with Mark and Melvin Lindquist freed him from many self-imposed restrictions and limitations of traditional lathe approaches.

This piece is one of the most recent works to be added to the Asheville Art Museum's Permanent Collection. It is currently on display in the Museum's exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum , and it is a testament to the Museum's focus on collecting fine craft by regional artists as part of its long term collecting strategy. The Museum is also dedicated to collecting large sculptural pieces.

This sculpture was purchased through the generosity of John and Robyn Horn and Blue Spiral 1, including owner John Cram. These individuals have enabled the Museum to strengthen its Permanent Collection through their generous support. Individuals, and their gifts to the Museum, significantly contribute to the Museum's growth; support like this piece allow the Museum to become a stronger steward to the community of regionally and nationally significant art so that it may educate and preserve it as cultural artifacts for generations to come.

This is one you have to see in person! Walk around it and see how it changes.

November 16 - 22, 2009

Sally Gall, Spill,

1999, photograph, black and white silver gelatin print,30 x 29.75 inches. Asheville Art Museum Collection, Gift of the Artist, 2008.17.9.

Sally Gall has been taking photographs for over 25 years. Her stunning images have the ability to create moods that invoke strong emotional reactions from the viewer. Her artistic photographs embody mystique, romance and longing. While she made a name for herself for her black and white photographs, Gall has just recently begun to take photos in color.

The Asheville Art Museum received this photograph last year as a gift from the artist and it is currently in the exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Its inclusion in this exhibition points to the Museum's dedication in collecting contemporary photography as part of its long-term collection growth plan.

Sally Gall received a BFA in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1978. She has taught and lectured extensively in the US and abroad. Her public collections include the Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and many others. Gall is represented by Julie Saul Gallery in New York where she recently closed her tenth solo show.

November 9 - 15, 2009

Kent Washburn, untitled

1967, silver gelatin print, 10.63 x 13.5 inches, Gift of Mrs. Helen L. Gumpert, 1967, 1967.1.05.91

Kent Washburn moved to Asheville, North Carolina and worked as an administrative assistant with the Redevelopment Commission. In 1966 he shot 46 photographs for the Commission's Urban Redevelopment project to document the residents and living conditions of the East Riverside district of Asheville. Washburn left Asheville soon after and pursued a career in law, later becoming a District Court Judge in Burlington, North Carolina.

These photographs are now part of the Asheville Art Museum's collection. Many of them were exhibited at the Museum in October 1966 and again in May 2004. Individual works have been used in several of our exhibitions including the current exhibition Looking Back: Celebrating 60 Years of Collecting at the Asheville Art Museum. The Asheville Art Museum collects pieces that are reflective of the local community as part of its collecting strategy.

  November 2 - 8, 2009

Anthony Lord, Adjustable Floor Lamp,

circa 1930, wrought iron, 63 x 26 inches, Gift of the Artist, 1981, 1981.01.57.

Anthony (Tony) Lord was a well-known Asheville architect and community leader. He was also a fine iron worker and from 1929 - 1937 he owned and managed a blacksmith shop on Flint Street in Asheville. Lord, as he was often called, graduated in architecture from Yale. After graduating he joined his father's architectural practice but there was little work for an architect in the years following the Depression and Lord concentrated on his iron work. He stated that he'd always had an interest in smithing, but he also had help from the Boone brothers, a family of fine blacksmiths. Lord named his business Flint Architectural Forgings and although he made a few items for personal use most of his work is permanently attached to buildings - from Asheville homes, to the Yale campus and the National Cathedral. This wrought iron lamp is adjusted by squeezing the coiled metal spring and raising or lowering. It is signed F A F (Flint Architectural Forgings).

Anthony Lord was an architect and an artist, but he was also a strong advocate for keeping trees in downtown Asheville, and his efforts, including a 1945 donation of two trees for Pritchard Park, eventually led to the formation of the city's Tree Commission. In 1984, the Asheville Art Museum held a show of his watercolors, ironwork and architecture. Among other honors, the Lord Auditorium at the Buncombe County Library is named for him.

This lamp illustrates Lord's extraordinary skill and attention to detail and is indicative of the Museum's collecting focus on fine craft from Western North Carolina. It is currently located in the Museum's exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection which highlights the exceptional growth of the Permanent Collection and showcases some of the areas in which the Museum has collected in depth.

Mark Peiser, Crane Road Spring, PWV 236,

1980, blown glass, torch-worked imagery, 11.5 x 6 x 6 inches. Gift of Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanezian, 2004, 2004.18.03.50.

This week, Mark Peiser will be awarded a North Carolina Award, the highest civilian honor the state bestows, for his significant contributions to the state and nation in the field of fine arts. Read more about it on the NC Department of Cultural Resources Newspage. Congratulations!

In 1967 Mark Peiser chanced upon a glass course at the Penland School of Crafts in Penland North Carolina. The Penland experience was life-changing and by 1969 he was the first resident craftsman in glass and purchased nearby land to build his home and studio. Peiser has been in the forefront of the studio glass movement for over 40 years. He is a consummate glass student constantly exploring and learning about its capabilities. Peiser has had several distinct periods in his career. From his early Experimental works, through his Paperweight Vase series and his Inner Space pieces to his Forms of Consciousness and today his Cold Stream Cast Glass he continues to push the glass envelope.

Peiser has received many grants and awards and has appeared in numerous exhibitions over the years. He was a founder of the Glass Art Society and has been a member of the Art Alliance for Contemporary Glass, the American Craft Council, the International Sculpture Center, and the Board of Directors at the Penland School of Crafts.

Crane Road Spring is one of Peiser's Paperweight Vase series and illustrates his amazing skill with glass and imagery. In 1979 Mark Peiser took some time off to consider his career in glass. He spent the fall and winter in Ballston Spa, New York where nearly every day he passed a grove of fenced birch trees on Crane Road. At the first of the year he returned to Penland and glassblowing. Although he never saw Crane Road in the spring his mind conjured the scene to create this piece. This work is illustrated in the catalog from his solo exhibition at the Asheville Art Museum in 2003 Looking Within: Mark Peiser, the Art of Glass. The donors, Dr. and Mrs. George Ovanezian, had lent Crane Road to the Museum for the exhibition. When it ended they gifted Crane Road Spring and two other Paperweight Vases to the museum.

Peiser also has a piece on display in the Museum's current exhibition Looking Forward: New Works and New Directions for the Permanent Collection. Peiser's work in the Permanent Collection reflects the Museum's focus on collecting Western North Carolina crafts.

"Look hard at his work, for history will certainly judge it among the most significant contribution to the medium in years to come." -Dan Klein, Independent Scholar and Author

Ruth Asawa, Untitled (S.372),

This wire sculpture is part of a series begun in the 1950's utilizing a form within a form technique in which the smaller, inner spheres are connected to the outer spheres in a continuous surface that progresses inside to outside. Asawa feels that the form within a form is one of the most important concepts in her work.

Ruth Asawa was the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrant farmers. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor when Ruth was 16, she and her family were sent to internment camps in New Mexico and Arkansas. There, Ruth spent her free time studying drawing and painting with professional artists who were also interned.

This piece is on display in Gallery 6 at the Museum as part of Ruth Asawa: Drawing in Space, a solo show featuring Asawa's looped wire sculptures and paintings done at Black Mountain College. It was given to the Asheville Art Museum in 2007 by Lorna Blaine Halper, another alumna of BMC who will be featured in a show that opens in December at the Museum.

Black Mountain College, located just outside of Asheville, was a unique school that used an interdisciplinary and experimental approach to arts education. Although it lasted only 24 years, from 1933-57, and enrolled fewer than 1200 students, Black Mountain College launched a remarkable number of the artists. The Museum is dedicated to collecting and preserving the art of Black Mountain College as part of its collecting strategy so that its regional and national context can be fully explored.

For more information about this work and artist, visit our Permanent Collection online!