While listening to songs from Carole King's Tapestry, I slid into one of my habitual roundabout internet surfing sessions, when one curiosity leads to another, and another, then another. From CK's Tapestry I started researching woven tapestries, first stop Wikipedia. Found a couple of interesting ones, of a tapestry (Chuck Close) and tapestry as painting subject,
but then decided I'd get more out of a museum website, so I hopped over to the website of the American Folk Art Museum, which, I'm embarrassed to say, I've never been to. This is sad, given the fact that I've been conveniently volunteering right next door at MoMA for years now. Anyway, before I got any further with tapestry research, I was distracted by the art of Eugene Von Bruenchenhein and his aptly named exhibit: “Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: ‘Freelance Artist—Poet and Sculptor—Inovator—Arrow maker and Plant man—Bone artifacts constructor—Photographer and Architect—Philosopher’”.
This exhibit name attempts to express, or reign in, the magnitude of his weirdly inventive and exhaustively productive life as a self-taught artist. The few images I've pulled jump from his wife acting as pinup, her tapestry-like dress almost blending into the wallpaper behind her, the architectural sculpture made of painted and glued chicken bones and the clean minimal drawings, rendered with a ballpoint pen. I was so intrigued I had to find out more, via Roberta Smith's glittering review.
All this to say, I made one last internet leap to report this all right here along with the announcement that I will be paying my first visit to the American Folk Art Museum, imminently, where I'll learn about tapestries and let Eugene inspire me.
