Featured Artist: Claire Marcus

During the six weeks of 'Black White Red' we'll focus on individual artists here on our blog. Every week, several artists will be featured. Today, we're pleased to introduce to you: Claire Marcus 

Karori Rose
Repurposed Heirloom
Handkerchiefs
stitched w/
vintage button
20" x 20"

KARORI ROSE  is part of a mixed-media series that addresses my family history.  I used my grandmother's  vintage handkerchiefs to create a piece that recalls my grandfather's skill as a gardener.  The piece is named for the Karori section of Wellington, New Zealand, where my family lived during World War II. By my grandmother's account, the plants my grandfather raised were "bowed over with blooms", and provided some respite from the stresses of wartime life. 

Karori Rose, detail
Repurposed Heirloom
Handkerchiefs
stitched w/
vintage button
20" x 20"

Artist Statement:
My work is created in series with processes including painting, drawing, and photography printed on silk, stitched with found objects. It reflects my background as a fifth generation fiber artist, synthesizing family heritage with training in painting, architecture, and design, based on nature and landscape studies.  I have special interests in the structure of land- and cityscape, and its power to evoke memory and narrative, as well as the interaction of built and natural environment.

All aspects of my work have been exhibited or published. Recent exhibits include the FiberPhiladelphia  show REFUSE/re-seen at some things looming in Reading; a solo exhibit at the Monroe County Bar Association in Stroudsburg, which included works from my current Golden Door series inspired by my life and family history in New York City; and  a third participation in the New Arts Program Small Works Invitational in Kutztown.

As an artist in education for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts since 1998, I have conducted community arts projects, K – 12 residencies, and professional development seminars addressing the needs of diverse populations, including adjudicated youth.  Many of these programs result in permanent installations created by the participants for the host site.

www.ClaireMarcusFineArts.com

Featured Artist: Claire Marcus

From April 14th, to June 2nd, we present "Refuse/Re-seen" during which we'll focus on individual artists here on our blog.  Today, we're pleased to introduce to you:  Claire Marcus

My work is created in series with processes including painting, drawing, and photography printed on silk, stitched with found objects. It reflects my background as a fifth generation fiber artist, synthesizing family heritage with training in painting, architecture, and design, often based on landscape studies.  I have special interests in the structure of land- and cityscape, and its power to evoke memory and narrative, as well as the interaction of built and natural environment.

Conquest Series: Norfolk
20" x 16" 2012

My Conquest Series addresses narratives between the lines of the 1086 Domesday Book, a record of England’s population and resources twenty years after the Norman Conquest. The ephemeral nature of cultures, possessions, and history is the major theme I find in Domesday. I re-purposed pages from a damaged Domesday Book translation listing the 1086 landowners and stitched them to photographed pages from a discarded atlas that I edited and printed on sheer silk.

Conquest Series: Essex
20" x 16" 2012

New landowners are cited in the Domesday text alongside the names of those they defeated and displaced. We learn much about the buildings, crops, and livestock of the properties, but the previous inhabitants disappear from the record.  While we are left to imagine their fates, maps show little Norman impact on English place names. In considering the blending, ebb, and flow of cultures, we remember that churches mentioned here lost their property to Henry VIII’ s Reformation. Later still, British servicemen like my grandfather fought on behalf of French interests in WWI and returned to Normandy as liberators on D-Day in 1944.