As the registrar I am privileged to experience all of the art firsthand – literally!  My college background is in textile design and ceramics.  While much of the textiles are 2-dimensional, my last projects at school were creating 3- dimensional, woven furniture. My ceramics included inlaid textile designs and ceramic pieces that were hand-built with layers of clay.  The art I seem to be most drawn to are works that have texture and dimension but are not necessarily sculpture. 

It was very hard to pick just one artwork to discuss but after a lot of thought I chose a drawing by Mark Fox, called Evernow, which entered the collection in 2017.  Mark Fox is an artist who works in all medias with a particular interest in pushing the boundaries of paper.  He manipulates and layers these paper pieces to create intricate compositions.  

 Evernow consists of individual drawings done with ink, watercolor, acrylic marker, gouache, graphite pencil, color pencil, ballpoint pen, and crayon, which are then connected together to create a cascade of color and shapes coming down the wall.  The way the artist uses the drawings and layering, as well as the color and shapes, he creates a multi-dimensional drawing. At the top of the work it looks like a mass of color, without real definition but as the cascade occurs, you are able to identify letters and shapes of the individual drawings.  The work seems to breathe and move without restriction. I am drawn to this work because I like the layering and use of the paper, it is more intimate to me. I can imagine that this work had many different configurations before the artist chose this particular one. There is a bit of happenstance in the end result.

-Pam Parry, Lead Registrar