As part of the recent SAQA conference, a small group visited the
Snyderman-Works Gallery in Old Town Philadelphia, where we met the dynamic couple who began the enterprise some fifty years ago. Their specialty is fibre, glass, ceramics and jewellery.
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| Ruth and Rick Snyderman |
Until April 16, Snyderman-Works is staging its tenth biennial textile show. Many of the works on display are by artists who have been represented by the gallery for decades.
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| Gerhardt Knodel's panels, each 144 x 112, polyester |
Knodel's panels were what I noticed immediately on stepping into the space. There were five in all.
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Anna Torma, Camouflage 2, 2013, 71 x 35
fabric collage and hand embroidery |
Anna Torma of New Brunswick had three pieces mounted on a single wall. Torma won the lieutenant-governor's award for High Achievement in the Visual Arts, 2014.
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Wendeanne Ke'aka Stitt, Niho Mano Quilt, 2012, 34 x 34,
Hawaiian Kapa cloth that is hand-dyed, machine-pieced and hand-quilted. |
Stitt, a native of Hawaii, is concerned about the vanishing art of Kapa cloth and hopes to preserve and advance this traditional technique.
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Hilary Steel, Cloth to Dance to : Freely, 1990, 90 x 45,
warp and weft Ikat, hand weaving, cotton and rayon |
Hilary Steel has been represented by the Snyderman-Works for many years. Two of her woven tapestries were on display, the one from 1990 looking every bit as current as the one made this year.
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Hilary Steel, Enter, (second textile in the Guardians Series)
2016, 87 x 42, hand-weaving, Shibori dyeing on cotton |
A sampling of some other arresting pieces:
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John Garrett, Circle Grid #8, 2016, 24 x 24 x 2,
steel wire, paint, rebar ties, wire grid and bed springs |
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Lia Cook, Intensity Su Data, 2013, 52 x 39,
woven cotton and rayon
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Piper Shepard, Only Their Silhouettes, 2015, 8' x 8',
hand-cut muslin, gesso, graphite and aluminum armature |
I'm so glad the organizers put together this opportunity for those attending the SAQA conference, and I would recommend Snyderman-Works to any art lover visiting Philadelphia.
1 comment:
I enjoyed seeing the exhibit through your eyes. I would have liked to have seen Anna Torma's work and Knodel's. The bed springs reminded me of the ones we saw at the side of the road at Tervete - I took photographs as they caught my fancy.
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