Thanks to my friend interior designer Dee Elms of Terrat Elms, who suggested me for the project, Mr. Webster and I have been collaborating on bringing new artwork to his Boston Design Center showroom, Webster & Company.
I pick the artists (most have ties to New England) and present available pieces to Mr. Webster. He and Visual Design Director Jonathan Giacoletto choose which ones to feature and where to hang them. We began in fall 2015 and it’s an ongoing success.
For a full listing of available works (as well as those that have sold), see the Webster Art Project tab here on my blog. If you are interested in pricing, please email me at stylecarrot [at] gmail [dot] com.
This fall I’ve had the opportunity to work on a wonderful new project: curating artwork for the Webster & Company showroom at the Boston Design Center.
I love art. I buy art like other women buy shoes. I have master’s in art history that I did for fun and I started collecting art around the same time. Friends have asked me for help choosing artwork, and over the years I’ve often thought of art consulting for interior designers.
This summer I was at the bar at Blackfish in Truro with my friend Dee Elms,who encouraged me. (If you don’t know her, she is a very talented, supremely generous Boston-based interior designer). A week later I got an email from Mr. Webster at Webster & Company, asking me if I’d be interested in helping find local Boston artists whose work he could hang in his showroom. (A little birdie suggested me.) He was looking to do a complete swap of everything he had hanging. Within a month.
In a frenzy, I scoured my files and sources for Boston artists (and some further afield in Maine and on the Cape) whose work I loved that aligned with Mr. Webster’s tastes. We met in early September, narrowed down my finds, and over the last few weeks the very gracious Mr. Webster and his meticulous visual design director Jonathan Giacoletto have hung the work. There are about 75 pieces from almost 20 artists, all either local or with ties to the area.
It’s been a thrilling experience, both working with Mr. Webster and his team and all the artists. I haven’t seen everything hung yet, but I plan to go this week. If you happen to be over there, stop by. (Obviously they’re all for sale. If you you’re interested, you can let me know.) Here is one piece from each artist represented. If you read ARTmonday regularly you will recognize some names. More photos to come of the installations in the coming weeks.
John Ross
John Ross, who has a degree from UCLA and is co-founder of design label PATCH NYC, composes photos inspired by Dutch still life paintings in his South End studio using only natural light.
Tess Atkinson
Tess Atkinson, who graduated from Skidmore College and studied photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, likens her images to being lost in a trance.
Linda Pagani
Linda Pagani, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, photographs vast spaces to compose abstract new environments.
Anna Kasabian
In her studio in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Anna Kasabian crafts wafer thin porcelain pieces that recall the forms and motions of flowers, sea plants, and ocean waves.
Jenny Brillhart
Abstracting beauty from the ordinary, Jenny Brillhart, who holds an M.F.A. from New York Academy of Art and a B.A. from Smith College, lives and works in Miami and Stonington, Maine.
Judyth Katz
Having begun her career as a fiber artist, today Judyth Katz works in paints and pastels to create abstracted landscapes en plain air and from her studio on the Outer Cape.
MP Landis
MP Landis, who traveled the world with his Mennonite missionary parents, opened a bookstore, and painted in Provincetown, recently relocated from Brooklyn to Portland, Maine.
Jenny Prinn
Rain, laughter, footsteps, and foghorns are examples of the fleeting inspirational moments that inform Maine-based artist Jenny Prinn’s colorful abstract paintings.
Grace Hopkins
Grace Hopkins, who holds a B.F.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, creates photographs with he look and feel of abstract paintings.
Hilary Tait Norod
Neuroscience and psychology are strong influences on Boston-based painter Hilary Tait Norod, who holds a B.A. in studio art from Skidmore College.
Steve Barylick
Former creative director and muralist Steve Barylick, who holds a B.F.A. from Massachusetts College of Art, paints abstracts at Joy Street Artist Studios in Somerville.
Linda Cordner
Linda Cordner layers pigmented translucent wax to depict subtle, atmospheric landscapes, all created in her SoWa studio.
Alicia Savage
Boston-based photographer Alicia Savage, who holds a B.A. from Northeastern University, documents her life and mind in self-portraits that hide her face but uncover her journey.
Budd Hopkins
Abstract Expressionist Budd Hopkins (1931—2011), who worked in New York and Wellfleet, combined geometrics with a gestural style. The Whitney Museum and The Guggenheim, among others, own his work.
Sarah Lutz
Sarah Lutz, whose abstract work refers to the natural world, holds a B.S. from Skidmore College, an M.F.A. from The American University, and lives and works in New York City and Truro, Mass.
Stephen Sheffield
Using film and nontraditional techniques, South Shore-based photographer Stephen Sheffield, an alumnus of Cornell University and California College of the Arts, creates narrative images with a cinematic feel.
Ellen Levine Dodd
Ellen Levine Dodd, who grew up and studied art in New England, creates expressive compositions with colorful gestural brushwork in her Northern California studio.
Joe Diggs
Working from his home studio overlooking a pond on Cape Cod, Joe Diggs sometimes strategically plans his compositions while other times is guided by pure emotion.
I spent a few days in Connecticut before fleeing the Northeast for sunny South Florida. As I may have mentioned before, my in-laws have all sorts of wonderful artwork. I took a bunch of Instagram shots of their collection. Many Cape Cod/NYC artists, who are also longtime family friends, are represented, including Budd Hopkins, Paul Resika, Selina Treif, Joan Miller, and Sidney Simon, as well as my husband’s great, great grandmother, Ina Whitney, whom I didn’t even realize was a painter. I’ve also included a piece by James Rosenberg, which was their very first piece of art, given to them by my husband’s grandparents, and painted the year they were married. Here are the highlights of the artwork that is hanging in their home at the moment.
Today’s post is in memory of Budd Hopkins, an artist who worked in New York City and Wellfleet, Cape Cod, and died one year ago Wednesday. He was a longtime friend of my in-laws, and his daughter, photographer Grace Hopkins-Lisle is a childhood friend of my husband’s, and a friend of mine now too. I knew Budd a little bit. I remember how he playfully teased my son one afternoon when we happened to hanging around during his visit with my in-laws. Last year, my husband spoke about remembering him as the guy who always had a joke for the kids, while they ran wild during the grown-ups cocktail parties in the seventies. Seemed he hadn’t changed much.
He was a very successful painter and sculptor; an Abstract Expressionist, whose work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, Guggenheim, and Hirschhorn. He was friends with Motherwell, encountered Pollack, and lunched with Rothko. (He was also known for his sighting and subsequent research of UFOs. In his obituary, the New York Times called him, “the father of the alien-abduction movement,” having been the first to publish narratives of people who said they’d been abducted.) But back to his artwork.
I first saw his work when my husband and I moved in together. Budd had given him a piece as a wedding present to his first wife. It’s a visually uplifting work,I think, in a saturated pink in a nice silver frame. It’s one of his “guardians” (not sure if they’re guarding earthlings or the other worldlies). My in-laws have several of his pieces hanging in their Cape house, including a sculptural representation, and presented us with a couple of little guardian studies over the years. Last summer, his daughter Grace curated a show of his work at Castle Hill in Truro, which was the last time we saw him. My kids both got to pick out a piece they liked, which their grandfather purchased for them. They love having them in their bedrooms.
These are photos I took at my house, my in-laws, at Castle Hill, and at Budd’s own home in Wellfleet, during his memorial service.
The stairwell of Budd’s Wellfleet home.
Two small guardian studies hang in my dining area.
Leaning in my living room.
At the end of the hall at my in-laws’ house.
detail
Two in the stairwell.
Two non-guardian abstracts.
In the basement of Budd’s Wellfleet home.
On my son’s bookshelf.
Below: Exhibit at Castle Hill in Truro last summer.
Grace Hopkins is one of many New England artists whose abstract artwork defies expected New England standards. Hopkins grew up in NYC and is now based in Portland, Maine, with her artist husband and sweet little girl Gigi. Grace shows her work in galleries all over the Northeast. I discovered her work in Cape Cod. Her father, artist Budd Hopkins, is a longtime friend of my in-laws. (I’ll do a post on Budd at some point too.)
Hopkins characterizes her work as abstract photo-paintings. I have included a sampling of her photos from 2005 to the present , so you can its progression. This is how she describes the evolution: ” In the past few years I have been getting closer to my subject matter and minimizing the number of objects in my pictures, essentially zeroing in on what really interests me and excluding everything else.”
