November 7 — 30, 2024
Opening Reception: Nov. 7, 5-7 pm
The term “foundling” conjures a Dickensian scene of despair and abandonment. However, that misses the full meaning of the term. By definition, a foundling is found and cared for by someone. Abandonment is replaced with nurturing. The child is given a new chance, a chance to grow and thrive in a new environment. Using that lens, pairing “Foundlings” with “Flowerings” in a title and exhibition is as natural and beautiful as pairing the soulful work of Crystal Cawley with the poetic work of Maret Hensick.
Maret Hensick
Maret Hensick’s poignant and poetic mixed media on paper series was begun in July of 2019, four months after the death of her mother, as a way of honoring her mother’s love of flowers and travel. Dissatisfied with her first attempt at portraying a single white phlox from the artist’s garden as “a big white flower of impressive delicacy to express all the grief and love [she] was harboring,” Hensick began picking and painting in additional flowers as they bloomed. She then constructed graceful and intricate vases for the flowers, using materials from a box of her mother’s mementos (old letters, stamps, wine bottle labels, Chinese cutouts, cards from the 20’s and 30’s, postcards, and maps). The work that resulted is both universal and deeply personal. The ongoing body of work this tribute to her mother seeded is richly symbolic, and eloquently spoken in the language of flowers.
Hensick’s paper bag series started when she was staying in Los Angeles for a few weeks. I didn't have any paper but we had lots of paper bags. It was the year of the big push away from plastic. The first paintings were of layer cakes from an LA bakery and then a series of my sister's shoes. Paper bags are rough and hold paint well and I loved the creases, shapes and edges of the bags mixed with the delicate cakes and shoes. Back in Maine I continued using paper bags to paint delicate flowers letting the organic shapes of the bags dictate the composition and the rough, brown texture to contrast with the subject matter. Some of the paintings have sewing, masking tape (an ode to Tom Hall). collage and glaze. I stopped painting on bags in 2020 but still use pieces of them in my watercolor/collage work.
Maret Hensick earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and, from then studied printmaking with Leonardo Lasansky at Hamline University studios. Hensick and her husband, native Mainer and fellow Greenhut artist, Tom Paiement, moved to Maine together to pursue their dream life as a working artist couple. Hensick enjoyed a long and successful career as a surface designer, licensing designs to over 60 companies around the world, including LL Bean, Harborside Graphics, Papyrus, Department 56, Excell Home Fashions, Pier 1, Boston Warehouse, Sellers Productions IHR and Pictura.
Throughout, Hensick maintained her fine art practice as well, utilizing a broad variety of media (oil pastels, watercolors, monoprints, iPad drawings, collages, fabric paints, tissue paper, pencil, etc.). In 2020, she stepped back from surface design to focus on fine art exclusively, taking part in a four-person exhibition at Cove Street Arts. In 2021, Hensick had her first side gallery show at Greenhut, which sold out!
Crystal Cawley
I start with something tangible, whether it’s a discarded library book, a decrepit piece of furniture, a worn tablecloth, a box of old greeting cards or puzzle pieces, or leftovers from other projects. I enjoy responding to what’s already there, something with its own visual history that becomes part of what I make — I love the challenge of merging disparate materials and ideas into something more. My work combines my interests in the form and history of clothing and the possibilities of paper and fabric sculpture, with traditional handiwork like embroidery, spinning, and letterpress printing.
My work explores identity, time, memory, and loss – some of what it is to be human – through the intersection of art, craft, and traditional handiwork. I embroider on paper, using a vocabulary of stitches as drawing and mark-making. I print letterpress on fabric – using letter forms as image and pattern. I like reusing things, and get inspired by materials that have been discarded or are somehow obsolete. I tinker with wire to find ways of holding everything together. I get satisfaction from slow processes that require a particular kind of patience, repetition, and commitment.
Crystal Cawley is an artist who works with paper, textiles, collected objects, and re-used and re-purposed materials. She teaches in the Continuing Studies program at the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine, and is an artist member of Portland's Pickwick Independent Press, a printmaking collective. She has shown her work around the US and in England, Greece, and Japan. Her work is in the collections of the Boston Public Library; Columbia University Library; The Library of Congress; Maine Women Writers Collection; MOMA/Franklin Furnace Artists’ Book Collection; the Smithsonian Institution Graphic Arts Collection at the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; and the Munakata Shiko Museum, Aomori, Japan, among others. She has received grants from the Maine Arts Commission, the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, and the Pollock Krasner Foundation.
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