Going to ground: Claire Sherwood
By Amy Williams with Charly Jupiter Hamilton
One of our favorite artists is Claire Sherwood. The current West Virginia’s Juried Exhibition at the Cultural Center in the state Capitol Complex has two of her installations. But before that, Charly and I had seen Sherwood’s work at the Della Taylor Brown Gallery at W.Va. State University in September.
Sherwood works in cement and fabric to create fabulous pieces that are thought-provoking, beautifully executed and big in every way. Her Juried Exhibit pieces are called “Pipe Dreams” (which won an “Award of Excellence” and was purchased for the state’s art collection — see photo) and “Vessel for Mourning.” We both kept going back to them.
Of “Pipe Dreams” Charly says: “To me they look like columns on a building, jet engines, things falling from the sky, toppled statues. It’s like the times we are in — toppling regimes, earthquakes, hurricanes, the collapse of civilization. It feels there’s a little danger of that happening in some ways.”
The artist told us that she grew up across from a concrete factory. Hailing from New York, she is the kind of person that seems on the ground versus on a pedestal. Charly has named her “Sculpture Girl,” and adds: “She’s grounded, versus an ‘I went to a private school and visited the ruins of Europe and now I am making art to put on a pedestal’ kind of way.”
In “Pipe Dreams,” Sherwood could likely get away with less detail inside her work, if she wanted. But within the outer vessel there are smaller pipes (they kind of look like scrolls) with writing on them. “It’s a womanly trait,” continues Charly. “It’s good to know this stuff is on the inside.”
Sherwood, who welds and teaches at Marshall University in Huntington, strikes us as someone of substance. But what we both liked most is the idea of how she epitomizes that art comes out of you and your experience. And, of course, this art surprises us.
“We could be looking at a Mark Moore piece of art and blam — there’s this jet engine on the floor,” says Charly.
I actually thought it looked more like a cigarette — but hey isn’t that what art is all about?
