November 15, 2010

Materials: Hard and Soft - Acceptance

I'm very happy to announce that Watt &Shand #5 has been accepted into Materials: Hard and Soft, a prestigious fine craft exhibit at the Visual Arts Center in Denton, TX, from February 4 - April 3, 2011.  This annual competition and exhibition of contemporary crafts was started in 1987 and is now in its 23rd year. This year's juror is Thomas Lauerman.

Watt &Shand #5 is from my ten piece series about the transformation of the former department store building in Lancaster, PA into a modern hotel and convention center.  The building was gutted and the site razed, but great care was taken to preserve and reuse the Beaux Arts facade of the building.  In the initial stages of construction it was supported by an elaborate steel scaffolding.  The screened images in this work are from a photograph I took one afternoon when the sun was shining through the empty windows, and the border print is a repeating image of the same photograph. 

I documented the series very thoroughly here on my blog; you can follow it back, and view lots of pictures, by clicking on "Watt and Shand" under Labels in the right sidebar, and/or visit The Structures on my website.  I wanted these works not only to serve as a historical record of this particular building and project, but to also be able to stand alone and be of interest based on their design and execution, and this acceptance, and that of #7 and #10 into Artquilts XV in Chandler, is very encouraging in that regard.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very nice. It is interesting to me that you chose this subject because I watched with great fascination when the same process happened near where I catch a bus to work- they kept up one facade of a very old building and built an entirely modern building behind it. But I didn't think of it as art potential. I will have to pay more attention to the world around me!
Congratulations!!

Judy Warner said...

Congrats on your acceptance! I suspect that over time, your entire series will be appreciated for it's recording of history.

Sherry Boram said...

How terrific, Sue! I'll get to see #7 and #10 in Chandler on Thursday.
Congratulations on the artistic and critical success of this series.

Martha C. Hall said...

That's great news Sue! I followed your account of the series as you made it. It has certainly been successful in all regards. I remember this one in particular for its composition and the lacy effect of the border image. Well done - as always!

Kristin L said...

Congratulations. I like the "lacy" border on this one!

Sue Reno said...

Thanks everyone! Marsha, I had never considered working with architectural subjects until I walked around a corner one day and saw the sun shining through the empty windows of the facade--I was smitten, and it all grew from there.
About that lacey border--I wanted to do a repeat of the image, and it was just serendipitous that it turned out that way.