Ross Palmer Beecher, Abstract Red Blue Folk Art Americana Flag Can Tapestry Quilt Ross Palmer Beecher, c.1988

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Ross Palmer Beecher (born 1957) Hand signed in sharpie on the verso. Dimensions: 19.5"w x 17"h. A unique contemporary found … Read more Ross Palmer Beecher (born 1957) Hand signed in sharpie on the verso. Dimensions: 19.5"w x 17"h. A unique contemporary found object assemblage tapestry made of Pepsi with Olympics logo, Sunkist, Budweiser Beer, Seltzer, Coca Cola Classic, White Rock and Hawaiian Punch aluminum soda cans by American artist Ross Palmer Beecher. The artist wove together elements of cans to create a small sculptural wall hanging in a quilt like pattern. The Pepsi logos become decorative hearts, which allows the viewer to see these everyday logos as a fine art object. Ross Palmer Beecher (1957- ) is a contemporary mixed media woman artist who creates quilts, flags, portraits of famous film directors and American folk heroes, and other types of objects from welded copper pennies to aluminum cans and found objects. She lives and works in Seattle. This is in the style of the great artist from Ghana, El Anatsui as well as African artists Romuald Hazoumè, and Willie Bester. They are among the artists best known for their work with recycled materials. Ross Palmer Beecher was born in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 1957. (Her name was Dawn Beecher). Ross Palmer Beecher grew up in Riverside, CT. Her Puerto Rican grandfather, a Yale educated attorney, married her Ziegfeld dancer grandmother. Her parents worked in advertising and communications, but loved cocktail parties and sailing. She studied painting, printmaking, and illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. (RISD) She left school after two years to move to Seattle in 1978 where she took odd jobs, "deli work, parking cars, and working in a laundromat". She began to make political cartoons as hand-colored Xerox prints at Pike Place Market before she made found object art.. In 1980 she began making woodcut prints and metal quilts as art, connecting to her New England roots. After multiple odd jobs, she began creating metal and mixed media wall sculptures from materials she found while riding her bicycle in Seattle: "gas caps, bottle caps, auto tail light fragments, and empty soft drink cans". In the mid 1980s, "folk art-inspired exhibitions in Texas, Illinois, Louisiana, and California" invited her participation. She accepted a position in 1993 as Artist in Residence at Bailey-Boushay House for patients with HIV/AIDS. Beecher’s strict formal control and rigid symmetry are the foundational skeleton of her art. However, within the quilt grids, all hell breaks loose: spirals, sunbursts, maze shapes, diamonds and circles all have their day as our apprehension of each piece reveals license plates, paint tubes, olive oil cans, aerosol paint cans and other cast-offs. Her work incorporates bullets, military and denim fabric, and screws in collage and assemblage creations. Beecher's art has been well-received by critics. This one has a patriotic quality in red white and blue. Her artworks gained regional and national attention in galleries, museums, and private and public art collections. While her art is inspired by American folk art forms such as "quilting, flag-making, bricolage, and primitive portraiture", she is not a folk artist. In 1999, Matthew Kangas outlined Beecher's personal and artistic development over the 17-year period after she left the Rhode Island School of Design. Matthew Kangas wrote that her early art has links to the work of unlettered artists but is "quirky enough (in technique and subject) to separate her out from true Outsider art or folk art". Judy Wagonfeld of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said of her work, "Stitching scavenged fabric, textile, wood and metal, she crafts offbeat flags and Americana rife with satire. What appears simple turns convoluted. It's as though you order a corn dog and get esoteric polenta with prosciutto". According to Wagonfeld, her works pay homage to the folk art genre, while satirizing the elitist art world, and her glitzy metal quilts honor women's work as art. She joined the Greg Kucera Gallery in 1986, where she has had more than ten one-person exhibitions and been exhibited in many thematic exhibitions. Reviewing a 2014 installation at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, Kangas noted Beecher's art is "an utterly unique amalgam of folk art, Pop Art and engaged social-political art". Kangas notes her largest works are a "nod, both droll and commemorative to Jasper Johns and Joseph Albers". Her work seems to me more like a feminist modern version of Anni Albers. Selected exhibitions Quilts, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle (2014) Black Art, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, curated by Sandra Jackson Dumont (2008) Art of Recycling, Hallie Ford Museum, Salem, Oregon (2006) Art in Embassies Program, US Embassy, Austria (2006) AMERICANA: Quilts, Flags and Famous Folk, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle (2003) The Great Film Directors, Bank of American Gallery, Seattle (2000) San Francisco Airport Exhibition, San Francisco (1989) Awards: Betty Bowen Memorial Award (Seattle Art Museum, 2002) Artist Trust fellowship (2005) See less