T.W. Wood pairs fabric and glass
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Debora Coombs: Menfolk Passing Jeb Wallace-Brodeur/Times Argus |
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By Anne Galloway Times Argus Staff - Published: May 30, 2008
ertain themes appear unavoidable in fabric artist Anna Ferri's work. She can't seem to resist returning to the same motifs in panel after panel of her quilted wall hangings. The full moon, egrets, sinuous reeds, orchids and Frank Lloyd Wrightesque geometric forms show up in slightly different variations like refrains in a familiar medley.
You know what's coming next without having to strain your imagination.
Ferri of Brookfield has nearly 30 panels on display at the T.W. Wood through July 20. I first saw her work at the Barre Opera House a few years ago; the Wood's exhibition of her fabric art is much more extensive (it includes several diptychs and a triptych), though Ferri has only one recent piece in the show.
The compositions rely on the fabric patterns, dark brooding color schemes and outlines made with machine top stitching. And while the subject at hand is nature, in the form of plants, birds and the sky, Ferri creates controlled environments in which the natural world is highly stylized. The imagery is framed by dark borders and Chinese box style intricacies. Within these confines, the organic elements are rigidly ordered in geometric sequences. And though the imagery seems to allude to Eastern culture (fans and Asian lettering regularly appear in the panels), Ferri doesn't take the references a step further by introducing asymmetry to the compositions.
The Wood has interspersed Ferri's quilted tapestries with a small South Gallery show of glass by five Vermont artists, though the arrangement appears to be something of an afterthought as about a third of the wall space in the small room is blank.
The quality of "Through the Glass," however, makes up for this flaw in curation. Waitsfield artist Michael Egan's confections are made of candy cane striped rods of glass fused together into whimsical compotes. The bright orange and yellow and mauve and green striping is convincing enough that it's tempting to break off a piece to taste the apparent sugary sweetness.
The rest of the pieces are of the stained glass variety. Chris Jeffrey, who has a studio in Barre, specializes in architectural work. The former attorney has made stained glass for Barre's First Presbyterian Church and a mausoleum window for Rock of Ages Corp., in addition to homes and businesses. Jeffrey's two panels in the show feature abstract elements and geometric forms. In "Circles," for example, he fixes small circles of mirror-like pieces in a dazzling field of multi-colored glass. It's the sort of glitzy décor you'd see in a fancy bar rather than a church sanctuary.
The rest of the stained glass offerings are stylistically, anyway, closer to the religious genre, featuring jewel-like color schemes, painted figures on glass and hidden messages. Somehow, though, I don't think most reverends would approve of the subject matter these artists experiment with.
In a sendup of the Christian tradition, Liza King and Rick Neumann of Brattleboro put a pagan goddess at the center of their paean to the gods. Their "Guardian of the Elements" brazenly bares her breasts and her legs are fused together in mermaid's tail. She is immersed in cobalt blue water, though the emerald green jungle behind her also seems ready to engulf her. I'm not sure she'd qualify as a guardian under these circumstances, but she's surely at one with the elements.
Debora Coombs also plays secular themes against the backdrop of the religious associations with stained glass. But in her works, part of a series called "Menfolk," she uses a more refined, esoteric approach. Her panels, which feature middle-aged men and soldiers, are post-Christian and post-modern. The hand-painted portraits are highly realistic, but in this disembodied context – a transparent pane of glass – they take on a haunting fragility and otherworldliness. Her tough guys are vulnerable, and appear to be dying actually – one is sleeping or is already dead; the other is bald and stripped of his uniform as he languishes in a hospital bed, linked to life by intravenous fluids. Patterns of nonsensical imagery and rectangles of pure color and light, surround the portraits.
Coombs, whose work was shown at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) last year, has captured a facet of our post-Christian and post-modern culture. It isn't pretty or easily explained. Like the stained glass allegories that graced the churches of yore and conveyed a sense of mystery to an illiterate mob, Coombs' narrative-free imagery has a mysterious quality that even the mass of Internet-savvy, world-weary viewers might find perplexing.
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