Tracy McCabe Stewart - Contemporary Fiber

Last Friday, Shelley and I went to Art Chicago at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago.  It was heavy on the modern art, which isn’t really my thing, but there were some great artists there, including two or three, depending on how you count them, that I really love:  The Zhou Brothers: painters and sculptors.  One of them was actually in the booth, so I felt weird about taking pictures, but the have an incredible website.  Look at their “in the studio” link  and you can see they amazing scope of their work.  I love their paintings, but am not as moved by their sculpture work.  Their paintings are so reminiscent for me of the cave paintings at Lascaux, France and Altimira, Spain that I am mesmerized by them.   The communication from those early drawings never fails to move me and I get the same feeling looking at these paintings.   The Zhou brothers’ work at this show was much smaller than some of their pieces (they often work on scaffolding because of the size of their work), but was just as powerful for me.  

Loooking at my pictures, just about everything is actually ancient or by an artist that’s work looks ancient.  Leave it to me to find all of that at a modern art show!

CLICK FOR BIG ON ALL PICTURES!

I also saw work by my favorite ceramic artist, Peter Hayes.  Peter also has an ancient feel to his work.  In case you haven’t noticed, that is a strong preference for me!  Look at his website and read about his process.  It is just amazing.  He will create a ceramic piece and throw it in the water for a few years to create and “aged” look about it, among other things.  The dedicated process really shows.

Peter Hayes-Raku Disc with Blue Wave

 Here’s a detail of that piece:

Peter Hayes Raku Disc Detail

and a final Peter Hayes piece:

Peter Hayes

There was a gorgeous booth with lots of ancient textiles.  They were truly stunning:

Fringed Mantle from north coast of Peru

and a detail of the same piece:

Here are more Peruvian textiles:

Peruvian Textile

Ethnic textile

Here is a great piece by Deborah Butterfield:

Here are more antiquities:

All of these below were used for currency:

Anklet Currencies

and these are beatiful currencies from Liberia:

Liberian currencies

and a truly beautiful bust.  I neglected to record where this was from:

I really loved these fetish dolls from Cameroon as well:

Here is a pic of a beautiful Ancient  Bi disc.  I think they are still Bi disc even though not Chinese-anyway, the shape is the same:

I DID look at some modern things! 

Here is a contemporary Korean artist working in paper that I thought was brilliant.  These pieces hung togther, but apparently, I didn’t shoot them together.  Use your imagination!:

Sup Ham Daydream 4026

and the companion it was shown with:

Here’s a detail:

I also really loved this painting by Brian Rutenburg:

Brian rutenburg-The Fading 3

and these photos by Doug and Mike Starn:

Doug and Mike Starn-Black Pulse

Eric Aho-Southern Sky

I adored this plexiglass piece by Palomas Navares:

Paloma Navares

Cantos Rodados By Paloma Rodados-Detail

this junk hauling truck had a great bed:

Junk truck (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

As did this overpass:

and the mineral deposits left on the under side of the parking structure:

Mineral Deposits I (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

and these:

Mineral Deposits II

and some great reflections in a parking lot puddle:

Parking Lot Reflections (C) Tracy McCabe Stewart

More pictures tomorrow!