Luce Foundation Center for American Art
Craft: Fiber: Airbark Basket #4
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Airbark Basket #4 1996 John Garrett steel, copper, and tire bits approx. 15 x 15 x 17 in. (38.1 x 38.1 x 43.2 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Docents of the Renwick Gallery on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Renwick Gallery 1997.15 |
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| "My strategy for dealing with ordinary materials is to push them to an extreme, to be excessive. And sometimes it's just fun!" Artist quoted in American Craft, April/May 2001 | |
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Airbark Basket #4 is the most recent of John Garrett's works in the Museum's collection. He has woven discarded shreds of tires into a vessel form bound with lengths of industrial copper wire. When we look at all three pieces by Garrett that have been acquired by the Museum, we can tell that his weaving has grown looser and more energetic over the years. Airbark Basket #4 suggests a whirlwind of creativity that, if only for a moment, brings a "bunch of junk" together into a beautiful work of art. For an artist who likes the idea of recycling, it's appropriate that a work like this seems just about to explode into the bits that went into creating it. |
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