The Details Have It, a new Focus Gallery exhibition at the Folk Art Center, is on display through Sunday, September 6, showcasing the work of five Southern Highland Craft Guild members working in ceramics, glass, jewelry, wood and fiber. Through close attention to texture, pattern, surface, construction and finish, the artists demonstrate how meticulous craftsmanship can elevate functional objects into expressive works of art.
Valerie Berlage, curator of collections and exhibitions at the Guild, says the show draws partially on a Charles Eames quote: “The details are not the details. They make the design.”
Maya Sophie Stansbury, artist
“No truer words in the case of the artists exhibiting in this show,” Berlage says. “Exotic woods, minute stitching, infinite textures and colors, and so much more invite pause and reflection on all the intricacies, be they subtle or complex, of each piece.”
Among the featured artists is glass artist Ronnie Hughes, who has spent five decades mastering borosilicate glass. Unlike traditional soda-lime glass, the medium gives him more time to shape intricate forms, allowing him to recreate North Carolina’s native wildflowers with remarkable botanical accuracy. His hand-formed sculptures are created without molds, paints or adhesives and reflect a lifelong fascination with the diversity and delicacy of the natural world.
“Detail has everything to do with my work,” says Hughes. “It is a type of glass that gives you enough time to actually pay attention to details. Glass is such an immersive, flexible art. You can create almost anything out of it, and it is fun. I chose to make wildflowers because of their diversity and the symbolism of the fragility of the natural world we live in.”
Fiber artist Laura Gaskin also embraces detail as the foundation of her work. Known for richly layered embroidered images inspired by the Southern Appalachian landscape, Gaskin carefully determines which visual elements are essential and how they can be conveyed through individual stitches.
“Details make my stitched pictures come alive,” says Gaskin. When I begin, I look at an image that I want to incorporate into the picture and decide which details are most telling. Next, I decide how I can best represent those details with stitches, given the scale in which I work.”
Gaskin says her artistic process grew from years of exploring different fiber arts before developing an embroidery technique that emphasizes her two greatest passions.
“Color is my great love,” Gaskin says. “The embroidery technique that I use today, it maximizes the time I spend working with my two favorite aspects: color and imagery. The colors I layer, stitch by stitch, allowing the viewer’s eye to blend them, much as Impressionist painters did.”
In addition to Hughes and Gaskin, the exhibition features ceramic artist Maya Sophie Stansbury, jewelers Ruthie Cohen and David Alberts; and wood artist Neil Carroll.
The Folk Art Center is located at Milepost 382 of the Blue Ridge Parkway, just north of the Highway 70 entrance in East Asheville. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Learn more at SouthernHighlandGuild.org.
