The Fuller

Felicity and I voyaged down to the fabulous Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton last week. Man-o-man, I love that place!

Current exhibits included:

New Sole of the Old Machine: Steampunk Brockton – Reimagining the City of Shoes:

will spotlight Steampunk, a highly popular art design genre that asks the question–What if yesterday’s innovators had access to today’s technologies? Steampunk, in general, includes the repurposing of objects and materials around us to examine the past while reimagining a path to a brighter future. Fuller Craft Museum’s exhibition will focus on Brockton’s esteemed history as a shoe manufacturer. The exhibition is being curated by Bruce Rosenbaum, the preeminent authority on Steampunk.

This was a lot of fun. I would’ve liked to have seem even more.
Maybe The Arts League of Lowell or The Brush Art Gallery could have a show like this. Where Brockton has a history of shoe manufacturing, Lowell had the big textile mills. This could be absolutely wild! Hells bells, I’m getting ideas for pieces I'd like to create already. Hmmm, must go put a bug in the ear of someone I know up there.

But back at the Fuller, I was thrilled to see (413): Pioneering Western Massachusetts which

…explores the works and careers of five makers who have been responsible for the development of western Massachusetts’s internationally renowned craft community: Josh Simpson (glass), Mark Shapiro (ceramics), Silas Kopf (woodworking), JoAnn Kelly Catsos (baskets), and Mara Superior (ceramics).

There’s so much brilliant work being created here in Massachusetts. SO many tremendous, fascinating artists – Jasmine Keane, Linda Baker-Cimini and Holly Sears to name just a few.

Another very cool exhibit was Uncommon Exposures: Photography in Craft Based Media

…showcases how seemingly opposing practices, craft and photography, are brought together by artists through clay, fiber, jewelry, and other traditional craft-based media. In this exhibition, the provocative capabilities of both film and digital photography achieve a balance with the remarkable work of the handmade.

Stephen Sheffield’s piece: NYT: Untangling the Snarl, (2008, silver gelatin print, mixed media, bee pollen) spoke to me in particular. In a whole I read the news today, oh boy kind of a way. Of course.

I’m psyched to go back down there next month to take in John Bisbee: Material Obsession

John Bisbee has spent nearly 30 years using nails as his sole medium to create geometric sculptures, organic installations, and unwieldy objects from thousands of nails that are hammered, bent, welded, or fastened together in a seemingly limitless procession of forms. His mantra: “Only nails, always different.”

Hah, sounds wild!