SHOW UP! SHOW DOWN A conversation between makers and materials Rocky Neck Cultural Center, Gloucester, Massachusetts Joan Benotti Co-Curator with Conny Goelz Schmitt Eight artists explore the opposition of order by deconstructing and constructing across media. Objects and images are reconsidered, altered and remade in paper, paint, flora, fiber, photography and metal. With Susan Alport Joan Benotti Paul Cary Goldberg Tim Hansen Erica Licea-Kane Conny Goelz Schmitt Rebecca Schnopp Daniel Zeese IMAGE The Fell pieces are based on studies of birch trees I began while on a winter break in Northern New Hampshire. The word can mean the skin of an animal or a pelt as well as to cut or knock down a tree. These many layered pieces are stretched and primed, painted, gilded, torn into strips, machine stitched and hand finished. The Birch Series of woven and sewn painted paper collages are a continuation of this exploration.        BOUSTROPHEDONS An ancient word inspires a contemporary exhibit. Flatrocks Gallery, Gloucester, Massachusetts Joan Benotti Guest Curator with writer Ann McArdle Playful and immersive, eight artists explore ideas of back and forth, pattern, rhythm, relationships between people and things and time and place in paint, paper, film, fiber, photography and word. With Joan Benotti Paul Cary Goldberg Ann McArdle Valerie Weigand McCaffrey Nick Neyeloff Conny Goelz Schmitt Linda Lagano Sojda Juni Van Dyke IMAGE This work is my first large scale, sewn and woven, painted and gilded piece. Tilling and Weaving speaks to the back and forth, bi-directional element of boustrophedon as well as the cyclical rhythm of the seasons. The title is based on a theme illustrated in early Chinese paintings where women weave silk and men till fields. The piece is under painted and gilded on both sides, then taken off the stretcher, ripped and patched, woven and sewn. This process is a working memory from childhood of watching my grandmother, a skilled seamstress, bead and sew. I was as fascinated then, as I still am now by the wrong side as much as the right side of things. View detail and process images here.