After spending not enough time with my friend Holly in her Connecticut studio, I went on to Rye, NY to see my friend Susie. We spent Friday catching up with each other and visiting some of our favorite places on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx; which include Vincent’s Meat Market for lamb sausage and Casa Della Mozzarella, where there is always a line but who cares? The fresh mozzarella is worth the wait!
On Saturday we drove into the city to attend the 15th New York SOFA exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. SOFA stands for Sculpture Objects & Functional Art. What a collection! A feast for the eyes! Some of it puzzling and some of it awe-inspiring. It was hard to take it all in. There were two artists whose work really stood out for me. One was a woman named Sue Lawty. From a distance her pieces looked like large paintings made with small gray dots. Nice, even soothing maybe, but not so spectacular at first. Then Susie said, “These are all tiny rocks!”
Calculus, 2010 natural stones on gesso 78.75; x 118
I took a closer look at her work from several angles. Fascinating! (And, in case you don’t read more about Sue from the link above, you should at least know that “calculus” is Latin for “small stone.”)
The other work I really liked was by a glass artist named Steffen Dam.
The shapes, colors and translucence were a perfect follow-up to inspire more polymer clay experiments. I could have looked at his pieces for a long time. Though I took very few photos, I can look through the images of sold art on the SOFA site to be reminded of many of the pieces I saw and liked, and of several I could not imagine anyone buying! There was a lot of interesting jewelry, too, but strangely no photos of the pieces that were sold.
I had a great trip. On the way home I spent the night with my son Fritz and his girlfriend Meg and their dog Rocky, in Portland. After stopping to stock up at Trader Joe’s, picking up some fish for dinner in Ellsworth, and dropping off a new orchid plant during a brief visit with my mom, I made it back home on Tuesday’s 3:30 boat.
I love going away, seeing good friends, and doing different things, but coming back to my home on the island is the best part of any trip.
Barbara S Fernald Jewelry 