Anywhere, Anywhere, I Don't Know
This November in the Main Gallery we are featuring core artists Sarah Alexander and Sara Fine-Wilson. Their exhibition, Anywhere, Anywhere I Don’t Know explores how layered natural patterns and organic forms take on the appearance of landscape, or mindscape, that could be from anywhere. The show runs from October 30th through November 24th with an opening reception on Friday, November 1st from 6:00–8:00 p.m. A video release and artist’s Q&A event will be held on Saturday, November 16th from 3:00–5:00 p.m. Below the artists answer questions that they asked each other about ideas, materials, and processes.
Sarah Alexander
How did you come up with the basic form idea and how did it evolve during the process of making this new body of work?
In 2016, I was looking at the old Fountain Street Gallery space in Framingham and brainstorming for my up-coming exhibit. The gallery was in an old industrial setting and had a lot of cracks and crevices in the gallery where I could envision my little grassy forms crawling in and out of the spaces. It was at that moment where I first got the idea to try and bring my drawings to life in a 3-D form. I had to put the project aside when the gallery abruptly had to move to a new location and picked it up again a year later for an exhibit called “Breaking the Rules.”
Why Steel?
My husband Nick and I have owned and operated a steel fabrication company Norfolk Iron Work Inc since the 1980’s, and something about the raw industrial feeling of the material appealed to me. It (steel) is a big part of my story. It has been my lifeline, my provider, and, at times, my nemesis.
Through the years out of necessity (we married young and didn’t have a lot) we were always figuring out how to make things for our house and garden out of steel because it was what we had access to. I guess I was following that path in turning to steel with this project. Also, I wanted to see how changing the materials of a subject would change the narrative.
How did you decide to go from making your drawings in 2d with paint to 3d with steel?
I did a lot of drawing in my sketchbooks to come up with forms that I thought would be interesting to recreate out of steel. I then brought my designs to a place where I had pieces water-jet cut in various sizes to hammer and weld together. As I worked, I discovered different techniques that I wanted to experiment with. Using an engraving tool, I experimented with drawing onto the steel. I played with mark-making, as I would if it were a two-dimensional drawing. With each piece, I was able to experiment a little more with how I put the puzzle of twisted metal together. At first, I used frames to build my wall pieces, and eventually abandoned the frames and set the pieces free, welding them together without a base. I like to think of this process as “Drawing With Steel,” as I approached everything, as if I were drawing.
Sara Fine-Wilson
How do you come up with ideas for your sculptures? Do you draw them before you start? What is your biggest influence?
My ideas emerge from intuition and material exploration. I don’t plan out my sculpture through drawing. I focus on exploration of a particular type of gesture like dropping or twisting. I sometimes make small maquette like forms that allow me to see how the forms will interact with each other more quickly than larger scale forms. I find influence and inspiration in nature. Phenomena like cracking, shifting, growing, accretion and flowing all express different moods that mirror the human condition. Some artists I love to look at include: Sara Sze, Tara Donovan, Mark Bradford, Linda Sormin, and Jun Nishida.
What do you love about using clay? Did you always work in this medium?
I love the range of possibilities that I have with clay. It can be liquid, mucky, soft, round, firm, geometric, hard, cracky, stony and sharp. I have worked with metal, wood, fiber, glass, plaster, paint, paper mache, mixed media and found objects as well, but I always come back to the clay because of its range. I have worked with clay since I started making art and majored in it when I was in art school. I also love glass blowing, black and white photography, and printmaking.
What’s the biggest piece you’ve ever made? What’s the smallest?
The largest piece I have ever made was an 8 foot by 10 foot installation in parts, the smallest about the size of a walnut. Right now, I like to make work that relates in size to organs within the human body. It allows for intimacy between the viewer and the work.