sudden spoon, a rosy charm
a group show inspired by Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons
November 9, 2024 - January 25, 2025
Gertrude Stein's experimental 1914 book of poems, Tender Buttons, contains short, descriptive vignettes composed of surprising verbal juxtapositions that aim to shift our perception of mundane subjects. The writing subverts the familiar, rendering ordinary subjects surprising and alien. Like the book, the group exhibition "sudden spoon, a rosy charm" borrows the categories "ROOMS," "OBJECTS,” and "FOOD" as a jumping-off point for organizing its subjects, and considers how the placement of works near each other can change our read of them. Unlike the book, the exhibition also leans on how multiple artists' varied styles and interpretations can do the same.
Rooms are represented directly and by mere suggestion in "sudden spoon." Familiar flooring and walls anchor the wheelchair in Aaron Cunningham's black and white-tiled room, while the table and lamp in Jaqueline Cedar's painting seem to float slightly on a field of yellow. Matthew Mann's staircase is whimsically thin, a green marble line with a painted mural behind it, bringing the outside in. The space described is simultaneously familiar and curious, set with dreamlike signifiers. Daniel Bauman's paintings of cubes and corners only imply enclosed spaces we might interpret as rooms, leaving ideas like place and narrative open-ended.
On another wall, a thread evolves through a series of “object” works. When viewing them from left to right, the subject starts as a shoe that becomes a shoe planter that becomes a series of (mostly) vases. After this, the pieces relate to each other with expressive linework and collections of objects, as in Jotina Ballard's drawing of energetic forms and Lewis Foster's inventory of colorful devices arrayed like candies. The "candy" in Daniel Bauman's painting "Untitled (candy)" becomes very object-like here. Similarly, food items by Gracelee Lawrence morph into strange, inedible objects shimmering with iridescence on another gallery wall.
Parts of the exhibition offer a single idea repeating across multiple artists' works, its recognizability shifting or disintegrating as one views them together. Depictions of pie by seven Art Enables artists range in style from realism to surrealism to vibrant abstraction. Jacqueline Coleman and Mike Knox provide classic depictions of pie slices on plates, while Ceej Maples' deceptively similar slice is filled with computer chips. Nearby, more abstracted pies by Jay Bird, Marti Clark, Helen Lewis, and Eileen Schofield include elements like patterns of squares, scalloped dots, and silver ice cream scoops. Urgent lines almost entirely wrap one drawing like a spool of yarn. This kind of undulating rhythm might mimic the feeling of repeating a word over and over until it loses its original meaning. Through this forced incantation, meaning is unmoored from expectation, open to new connections, uses, and invention. "sudden spoon, a rosy charm" celebrates this possibility made tangible by every artist at work while paying homage to one of the great re-contextualizers of the 20th century.
We are proud to showcase talented artists from across the country in this exhibition, including some from other progressive studios, alongside our own resident artists: Jotina Ballard (PASC), Daniel Bauman, Jay Bird (Art Enables), Jaqueline Cedar, Marti Clark (Art Enables), Calvin “Sonny” Clarke (Art Enables), Jacqueline Coleman (Art Enables), Aaron Cunningham (North Pole Studio), Santina Dionisi (PASC), Lewis Foster (PASC), Mike Knox (Art Enables), Gracelee Lawrence, Helen Lewis (Art Enables), Keith Lewis (Art Enables), Ceej Maples (Art Enables), Matthew Mann, Alsendoe Owens (PASC), Lucy Picasso (Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts), Eileen Schofield (Art Enables), A.T. (Art Enables)