Joining Carole & friends for Three (Pertinent) Things on Thursday...

Kate & I are leaving later today for a quick trip to Asheville, NC. The main reason being to see a show at Black Mountain College Museum entitled Question Everything! The Women of Black Mountain College.

A little background:

• Black Mountain College was the subject of Kate's master's dissertation at University of Edinburgh in 2014.
• Kate & I visited Black Mountain/Asheville in 2015. It was a pretty great trip, and we even visited the original sites of BMC.
• My first up-close & personal (mind-blowing) encounter with the work of Black Mountain College alum Ruth Asawa's work was on a pretty awesome trip to the Bay Area in 2010 to visit my friend and former blogger Celia.
• Kate & I made a special trip to St. Louis in 2018 to see Ruth Asawa: Life's Work at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation.

There are many other influential, renowned, or even famous people to attend and/or teach at BMC in its relatively short lifespan -- Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Merce Cunningham, and Buckminster Fuller to name a few -- and I've seen the work of many in various museums and/or documentaries.

Arguably, the best known of them all to knitters & textile artists might be Josef & Anni Albers, to wit:

• Albers Shawl by Amy Christoffers
• Albers Socks by Sachiko Burgin
• Albers Cowl by Ann Weaver
• Albers Baby by Ann Weaver
• Albers Shawl by Ann Weaver
• Albers Pullover by Julia Farwell-Clay
• Albers Collection ~ Head by Sarah Monroe
• Albers Collection ~ Hands by Sarah Monroe
• Albers Stash Blanket by Leigh Radford
• Albers by Stephanie van der Linden
• Albers by Laura J. Bellows

Though not the only ones to inspire knitting designs:

• Twombly lines by Susan Ashcroft

Anni Albers and Ruth Asawa are among the artists featured in Question Everything! For purposes today, I've plucked the names of three new-to-me artists, also included in the exhibition, to do some research ahead of the show!

1 - Suzi Gablik

Suzi Gablik (b. 1934) studied at BMC in the summer of 1951. She is an artist (painter, collage), art critic, author, and teacher. I am especially drawn to images in the "Tropism" series (#9, above).

tropism | 1 a : involuntary orientation by an organism or one of its parts that involves turning or curving by movement or by differential growth and is a positive or negative response of a source of stimulation

I'm excited to see if any of these pieces are included in the exhibition.

2 - M.C. Richards

Mary Caroline (M.C.) Richards (1916-1999) was a poet, essayist, potter, painter, and teacher. She taught writing at BMC in the late 1940s, having moved there with her then-husband Albert William Levi Jr., a social scientist, when he was invited to join the faculty in 1945.

Her book, Centering In Pottery, Poetry, and the Person, was originally published in the 1960s, and became an underground classic (an original paperback can be had for a cool $989 and some change).

The book... pulled together ideas about perception, craft, education, creativity, religion and spirituality, arguing for the richness of daily experience if carefully attended to, and the creativity of the average person. "Poets are not the only poets," Ms. Richards wrote. --New York Times obituary of M.C. Richards

She sounds fascinating! I am not really what you'd call a "poetry person," but I could not resist that book... it's on the way!

3 - Hazel Larsen Archer

The first things I learned about Hazel Larsen Archer (1921-2001) was that she was born and raised in Milwaukee, that she had polio when she was 10, and that she was a photographer -- so right away there are a few points of connection and interest. She was both a student and a teacher at BMC, and in 1949 joined the faculty as the school's first full-time teacher of photography. She documented life -- performances, events, people -- at BMC. After leaving NC, she and her husband moved to Tucson, AZ, where she operated a freelance studio.

I'm excited about the show/the trip and you can be sure I'll fill you in on it all!