view article - Kate Gridley

Breaking New Ground,
Eight Vermont women artists share innovative work
grounded in a love of nature, respect for life cycles,
and the joyful act of creation.
StorybyelayneClift
photos by DeiDre scherer
Driven by an interest in aging human faces,
Deidre Scherer’s work (top) “focuses on the
universal issues of aging and mortality, and
on seeing these transitions as a natural part
of life, worthy of reflection.” One of Deidre’s
torn paper weavings, Strings (bottom), part of
a series involving “finger weaving,” in which
she uses digital prints of her fabric work and
weaves together two prints so they appear
reintegrated in woven form.
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may/june2013
A
S A C H I L D , Deidre Scherer
loved seeing dioramas
her father painted at
the Museum of Natural
History in Manhattan.
Spending hours gazing at Latin American
terra-cotta animals and wood sculptures
crafted by Native Americans, she buried
dead animals and dug up their bones to
display on her bedroom windowsill. “I
could pick up anything and work with
it,” she recalls.
Influenced by the work of artists
like Käthe Kollwitz and Alice Neel
and by early Renaissance and Baroque
tapestry, fresco painting, and mosaic,
Deidre developed her unique medium of
“thread on fabric,” pioneering the genre
of fabric art.
Deidre’s work with fabric began
when she was a young mother finding it
difficult to paint while raising children.
She braided rugs, made batik, and
worked with layered fabric. Then she
made a fabric book for her daughter, a
project she credits with beginning her
“entire romance with fabric.”
Deidre’s unique process brings to
life people of extraordinary character
and humanity, based on models and
created with her special technique.
Working from sketches or photographs,
using scissors and a sewing machine, she
cuts and layers with the eye of a painter,
always looking for what she calls the
magic: “a sense that there is a sentient
being who will appear to tell me how
they want to come through.”
Her work with elders grew out of
a project in which she visited a nursing
home “looking for wise, queenly figures
to draw.” Observing and talking to older
people was life altering. She became a
hospice volunteer and through that work
found inspiration for her art. Listening
to stories as she sketched the faces of
elderly people, Deidre began to act as
witness to their lives. As she transposed
her sketches into fabric images, she saw
that her works transcended individual
contexts; they became universal representations of life, and death. Soon her
work was recognized for illuminating the
inevitable progressions of life, opening
an “essential dialogue” about the difficult issues of aging and mortality.
Currently working on a series
involving “finger weaving,” Deidre uses
digital prints of her fabric work in a
process that weaves together two prints
so they appear reintegrated in woven
form. Other works in progress in her
Williamsville studio include a piece for
an assisted living home. “In considering
our own death,” she says, “we have a
chance to consider our own life. This is
the dialogue of my work.”
Middlebury artist Kate Gridley
thought she wanted to be a doctor when
she was in college but after a summer
attending art school she realized “these
were my people.” Returning to Williams
College, she changed her major and after
graduation headed to New York, then
to Italy where she studied Renaissance
painting with artist Ben Long. Back in
the States, she began exhibiting at age
24 and hasn’t stopped since.
“What always informs my work,”
Kate says, “is a sense of quiet observation
simply of what’s in front of me. I’m as
interested in space seen as an object as I am
in the actual subject matter. I’m searching
for the quiet power in what I see.”
Her latest project represents that
power in a set of 17 portraits called Passing
Through: Portraits of Emerging Adults,
inspired by a vision of people between
adolescence and full-fledged adulthood
being recognized, honored, and supported
Making Great Art
photo by howarD roMero
photos by Kerry o. FUrl ani
Kate Gridley’s latest project is a set of 17 portraits called Passing Through: Portraits of Emerging Adults,
inspired by a vision of people between adolescence and full-fledged adulthood being recognized, honored,
and supported in fulfilling their human potential.
in fulfilling their human potential.
“Oil portraits of emerging adults
are seldom painted in our culture,” Kate
points out. “Yet the moments in which
young adults develop their ideas, fully
realize their selves, and claim their voices
beg for the kind of sustained examination that detailed oil painting demands.”
After choosing the subjects—
all of whom have a connection to
Middelbury—Kate realized that she had
selected them for their stories and ideas
and not simply because they impressed
her as self-possessed and promising
youths. “It felt appropriate to record their
stories, their words, and to take note of
what they say.” The resulting edited oral
portraits will be an integral part of the
exhibition, “accessible with a cell phone
when one stands before each painting.”
The exhibition opens in June at
Southern Vermont Arts Center and
will then tour Vermont and other New
England venues. Kate hopes it will be
a springboard for larger discussions on
issues related to this age group and is
convinced the project “will contribute
something significant to our messy,
fragile world.”
Sculptor and slate carver Kerry O.
Furlani began her career as a journalist
but quickly discovered that her happiest
hours were spent making sculpture after
her workday ended. In the 1990s, she
studied at the Frink School of Figurative
Sculpture in England where she earned
an MFA. Introduced there to traditional
hand-carving techniques, she discovered
an affinity for carving forms using the
timeless materials of stone and wood.
In 2001, Kerry came to Vermont to
work with local marble but found the
beautiful colors and soft quality of slate
most interesting. “Slate, with its long
history of use in the letter-cutting industry,
was an ultimate fit for my passion for
line and long-held desire to explore the
ancient form of relief carving.”
One day Kerry found a slate roof
tile in her backyard and began translating one of her charcoal drawings into
a relief carving. She has continued to
explore this native Vermont material
ever since. For the past decade she has
been showing a growing body of slate
work including panels, benches, tables,
and sculpture throughout New England.
Her Poultney studio is near the slate
quarries that feed her muse while she
earns a living selling art and lettering.
In 2011, supported by a Vermont
Arts Council Grant, Kerry traveled to
Wales to study with master letter carver
John Neilson. The three-month apprenticeship resulted in Words to Stone: The
Carved Lettering of Kerry O. Furlani,
widely shown in Vermont galleries.
Why carve letters in stone? “I find
In the 1990s, sculptor and slate carver Kerry O.
Furlani (top) discovered an affinity for carving forms
using the timeless materials of stone and wood. In
2001, she came to Vermont to work with local marble
but found the beautiful colors and soft quality of
slate most interesting.
(middle) Kerry O. Furlani, Woman I, slate, 28 x 20
inches (71.1 x 50.8 cm).
(bottom) Kerry O. Furlani, Family Secrets, slate, 26 x
30 inches (66 x 76.2 cm).
Vermontmagazine5 7
photos by Dona M ar a Friedm an
(Left) From her Rupert art studio, painter Dona Mara Friedman employs the ancient art form of encaustic, or
hot wax, painting to produce unique and diverse artwork. She describes the medium as “elemental, natural,
organic, messy, often with unexpected results.” (Right) Another example of Dona exploring the medium of
encaustic painting, which has developed and heightened a new dimension to her oil painting endeavors.
photos by Eliz abeth Billings
The completed CUNY School of Law art installation
hangs in the sunlight. The integration of Elizabeth
Billings’s woven materials and Andrea Wasserman’s sculptural elements combine to form strong
natural patterns. Elizabeth Billings (left) and Andrea
Wasserman (right) smile after completing the CUNY
School of Law installation. The collaboration, they
agree, is a gift. “We are blessed to be able to do what
we love,” Elizabeth says.
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may / june 2013
great meaning in a studio practice that
has ties to my surrounding land and our
ancestral history, like that of the Roman
‘V-cut’ letters dating back 2,000 years,”
Kerry says.
Carving slate by hand using chisels
and mallets, Kerry is fueled by the challenge of carving a layered stone prone
to splitting when struck by a mallet. She
also wants to “shake up the public perception of slate’s function in our culture
as a humble material for landscape and/
or architecture. I hope my carvings will
serve to honor slate’s beauty as a vehicle
for art making.”
Carving is also integral to the work
of encaustic artist Dona Mara Friedman
whose studio is in Rupert. Encaustic, or
hot wax, painting is an ancient art form
dating back to Greco-Roman times. It
involves using heated beeswax to which
colored pigment or other ingredients
are added. The liquid paste is then
applied to a natural surface like wood.
By applying heat, the artist manipulates
the wax mixture, sculpting and painting
toward a final work.
Dona, who began her career
as a painter and graphic artist after
graduating from Rochester Institute
of Technology’s School of Art and
Design, says that creative investigation in painting led her to the ancient
medium of encaustic art, adding a new
dimension to her oil painting. “The
layered quality created with this combination of beeswax, dammar resin,
and pigments drew me to its luminous
surface. The process of painting with a
heated medium offered an experimental
odyssey. It is elemental, natural, organic,
messy, often with unexpected results.”
Dona says her latest work in this
ancient medium has allowed her to use
all that she learned through her years as
a painter. “Doing the work, exploring,
experimenting, and getting lost in that
investigation is so pleasing. The drive is
wicked and the desire to find the essence
continual.”
Artists Elizabeth Billings and Andrea
Wasserman have been collaborating
for 18 years on large-scale public art
projects that complement and enhance
the essential nature of their settings.
Both MFA graduates of the
Cranbrook Academy of Art, each artist
studied weaving and textile design in
Japan, an experience that figured largely
in their respective artistic development.
Today, Elizabeth extends the tradition
of textiles by integrating woven surfaces
with gathered natural elements, thus
providing a deep connection between
the work and nature’s rhythms. Andrea’s
work is more sculptural, involving
drawings mingled with carved and cast
forms that use strong patterns within
nature so that the living organisms
become palpable.
“In our public work we like to make
more apparent what is underlying in the
site so that when we make a piece it
makes sense for that space as if it always
wanted to be there,” Andrea explains.
“We let a site speak to us about what’s
important. In that way, each project
becomes its own specific journey.”
The synchronicity that exists
between the two artists, and between
them and the environments in which they
work, can be found in such venues as
the Burlington Airport, the bike path on
Isle La Motte, the lobby of the Marriott
Hotel in Burlington, and Vermont Law
School’s amphitheater. Farther afield,
photo by Kirsten M acEdwards
they have done installations for the
Philadelphia International Airport and
the Proton Therapy Institute at the
University of Florida in Jacksonville.
The artists’ materials are wide-ranging. They include wood, stone, slate, glass,
saplings, threads, and reeds. For example,
an installation at the Emery Hebbard State
Office Building in Newport, Vermont
includes wood and granite carvings,
etched glass panels, and a copper weathervane. “We think a lot about our natural
environment,” Elizabeth says. “But the
sense of the artist’s hand is always evident
in our work.” That has meant a sharp
learning curve on occasion since she and
Andrea do everything themselves, from
sandblasting to cutting slate and splitting
rock.
Saxtons River artist Michèle Ratté
grew up in Brattleboro, where she
began silk screening in sixth grade. She
returned to Vermont a few years ago after
living in Martha’s Vineyard. Describing
herself as a “printmaker, assembler, and
inventor of textile printing processes,”
photo by Michèle Ratté
Saxtons River-based artist Michèle Ratté’s work
involves metal and mineral pigments, fabrics, sewing, and “nature-formed” objects such as stones
and shells.
photo by Dona M ar a Friedm an
Michèle Ratté, island 1, 2010, 22k gold monoprinted
hand-loomed silk, linen, translucent velum, Kevlar
thread, metal beads, 6½ x 8½ x 2 inches (16.5 x 21.6
x 5 cm).
her work involves metal and mineral
pigments, fabrics, sewing, and “natureformed” objects such as stones and
shells. “Reverence for nature forms the
underpinning of my art,” she says.
Michèle holds a patent, with master
dyer Joan Morris, for inventing a
process with chemist Dr. Miklos Breuer
that permanently prints precious metals
and mineral grains onto textiles. A series
of large-scale mono-prints using this
technology, executed with Joan Morris,
have been exhibited at several venues,
including the Bennington Museum. A
VPR reviewer said of a recent exhibition
there, “Ratté’s work is infused with a
compelling tactile rhythm and grace.”
An award-winning graduate of
Dartmouth College’s art program,
Michèle’s unique artistic work led to a
successful business that supplied several
major retailers in the U.S. and Japan with
original designs on hand-printed textiles.
But in 1997 she closed her company to
concentrate exclusively on studio work.
Currently, she is working on threedimensional collages that incorporate
her printmaking and textile skills.
“I feel strongly that the work I’m
doing speaks the language of nature.
I want to convey how interdependent
and fragile it is in today’s world. I want
people to notice what’s going on.”
Watercolorist Brenda Myrick began
drawing and painting at the age of 5
but she didn’t choose her medium until
after she had earned a degree in studio
art and art education at the University
of Vermont. “I love watercolors because
they are the direct link to the soul—when
it is working it is magnificent, spontaneous, and pure. For me, watercolors
beautifully describe the essence of spirit
whether it be a portrait or landscape.”
Brenda began doing landscapes
when she saw an ad for artists who
could paint upscale homes in Florida
from a photograph. But she soon became
bored with houses, so, having always
loved horses, she turned to depicting the
regal animals. Her first commission was
painting retiring barn horses. “I kept
going from there,” she says. “I realized
I could capture the essence of a subject
that mattered to me with my art.”
Beginning with photographs and
information about her subject, Brenda
moves into her work by connecting with
the spirit of the animal or person she is
painting. “It’s almost a natural gift,” she
says. “I begin to feel the connection and
to focus on it. Through working and
Watercolorist Brenda Myrick loves presenting her
work to people who have commissioned pieces from
her. “It’s so meaningful to them, so personal. I love
being there when they see the work for the first time.
It can be pretty emotional when they see that the
spirit they wanted to capture is there and is never
going to be lost.”
photo by Brenda Myrick
Brenda Myrick, Kramer, 2010, watercolor, 16 x 20
inches (40.6 x 50.8 cm).
letting go as I’m working I somehow
develop that spirit into the painting,
usually through the eyes. It’s a kind of
awakening that matters so much to me
that I don’t want to do any other kind
of art without that element.” Any piece
needs to have that kind of meaning,
Brenda says, “some sort of resonance for
the artist or for someone else. The human
aspect of what an artist creates is what
drives us all. We must connect with the
beauty that exists in each subject. That’s
what makes the process so exciting.”
Elayne Clift is a writer, journalist, and lecturer in
Saxtons River, VT. Her latest book and first novel,
Hester’s Daughters—based on The Scarlet Letter—was
published in 2012.
V e r m o n t M a g a z i n e 5 9