PERMANENT COLLECTION
The Gadsden Arts Center has several outstanding works of art on permanent loan or as part of the permanent collection. The Center is in the process of expanding the collection through the generous donations of local art colletors.
|
Ruby C. Williams
Piano Playing Cow I Give Better Buttermilk, n.d.
paint on plywood, 48” x 24”
Gift of Lou and Calynne Hill, December 2009
2009.1.13
An image repeated often in the Ruby Williams’ work, this orange cow has black and white piano keys across its back, and a small head and small utters. The cow stands in a grass field with the passage written in white above its head, “Piano Playing Cow I Give Better Buttermilk. The Gadsden Arts Center exhibited this work in the exhibition, Vernacular Art from the Hill Collection, August 28–October 25, 2009.
Ruby C. Williams was born sometime in the 1920s in Bealsville, Florida; a community founded by freed slaves in the 1860’s. There she grew up, had a family, and started her produce business on Highway 60 in Hillsborough County, Florida. She painted brightly colored signs to attract visitors to her produce stand, and eventually became known for her artwork. Her paintings tell stories from the Bible or from her own family and often have a moral. Today Ruby enjoys her fame, which has taken her to classrooms and galleries, both near and far. She says seeing people smile when they look at her paintings makes her happy. Ruby has received the Florida Folk Life Award and was included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum entitled “On Their Own- Selected Self-Taught Artists.” She has also illustrated a children’s book titled: I am Ruby.
|
|
Works on Loan:
Florida Shirt
Leo McMillan
mixed media
On loan from the artist
This large-scale mixed media sculpture represents all things associated with the state of Florida, included dolphins, oranges, flamingos, NASA, snakes, alligators, and more while posing as a “Florida Shirt”. Artist Leo McMillan teaches 3D Design and Art Tools and Techniques at Florida State University and has maintained a professional art studio for thirty years. He is a past recipient of an Individual Artists Fellowship from the State of Florida and was one of three artists chosen statewide to design a monumental sculpture for the front of the State Capitol. Currently, McMillan resides in Quincy, and sits on the Gadsden Arts Center Exhibition Committee.
 Ichiboku Sculptures:
Natabori, Mongaku, Yama Uba
Mark Lindquist
wood
On loan from the artist
Mark Lindquist has been an innovator and leader in the field of woodturning/sculpture since the late 1960s. Lindquist's thirty-plus years of contributions to contemporary art have altered the direction of woodturning and sculpture worldwide. Through exhibiting, writing and teaching, Lindquist was instrumental in bringing about the acceptance of the craft of woodturning as a serious art form, and inspired and nurtured the followers of this fledgling movement. Mark Lindquist's sculpture has evolved out of his art historical studies and his mastery of, and experimentation with, the craft of woodturning. Beginning in the late 1960s, he developed many of the techniques and aesthetic concepts which underlie the current studio woodturning movement, including the use of flawed materials (especially spalted wood), the application of modern abrasive technology, and the integration of Japanese ceramic sensibilities.
These sculptures are from one of Lindquist’s several series of sculpted wood. Ichiboku, literally "one tree," is a type of Japanese sculpture made from a single block of wood. This technique flourished in the ninth century when a spirit of religious revivalism prevailed, and the spirit of the tree was invoked to lend strength to the image carved from it.
Lindquist’s works have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world, and have been acquired by prestigious museums such as the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the White House Collection of American Craft, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, and numerous other public and private collections.
In September of 2010, the Gadsden Arts Center will host and exhibition that explores the 40-year evolution of Lindquist’s work, from wood vessels and furniture to large-scale totems to abstract photography.
|
Gadsden Arts, Inc.