“You get out what you put in” could be a textbook definition of mold casting. I did learn how to make a proper mold from Patrick Strzelec in the 1990s, but this working-class American adage also sums up his integrity and transparency—as a maker, an educator, and a thinker.
Kiyomi Iwata, who was born in Kobe, Japan, is a textile artist whose work explores the relationship between geographies—East and West, North and South— through cultural signifiers, text, and materiality.
HELSINKI Kohta Pinpointing the intentions behind “Personal Object,” Skopje-based Yane Calovski’s arresting exhibition of heterogeneous works ranging widely across materials and possible subjects, proved challenging. The difficulties became immediately evident in Embroidery (2020), a striking and expansive painted wood sculpture.
If birthplace is a determinant of fate, then Maria Lai (1919–2013), who was born in Ulassai on the island of Sardinia, embraced hers willingly, mining a profound cultural heritage made personal. For her, geography truly was destiny, and her work is defined by what was native to her experience.
For more than 30 years, Jeanne Silverthorne has investigated the psychological and physical space of the studio, as well as its successes and failures. For her, the studio is reality and more than reality. She identifies with its beat-up chairs, wiring, floorboards spent light bulbs—even its flies.
For a long time, I have been looking at how we shape landscapes and project meaning through them, but now I’m thinking less about a site and more about an event. With this piece, you’re experiencing a vignette of something happening in time.
SEATTLE Greg Kucera Gallery While “Searching for Home” featured installations of carved wooden objects like baby pacifiers, shoes, suitcases, and guns, “Sacred Games,” Abid’s recent show, concentrated on discrete, mostly wall-mounted sculptures and miniature paintings covering a wider variety of subjects; these works intensified the sense of material construction as a vehicle for significant content, including the oppression of Muslim women and the culpability of world religions.
Davina Semo is folded over her laptop, head in her hands, elbows on the table. She makes eye contact with the camera, with me, and we both laugh. There’s really nothing else we can do. We both have the lights on—she in her studio in San Francisco, me in my home a few miles away.
