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Monday, December 8, 2008

Visual Art Currently Hanging

Posted by Jen Graves on Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 9:05 AM

^{Sean Alexander's Guard Dog (2008), ink, graphite, gel pens, and watercolor; 16 by 20 inches}

At SOIL. (Gallery site here.)

When I saw Sean Alexander's drawings at SOIL last First Thursday, my mind went immediately back to 2001, the year the new, slice-of-bedrock American Folk Art Museum opened in New York. I happened to be in the city and saw a show of religious drawings that I'm now not sure about: were they Shaker gift drawings? I think so. (I bought a postcard there that I absent-mindedly memorized while looking at it for years on my desk at work, and I can't understand why it isn't at my current desk, and I can't remember its exact origin—19th century? eastern seaboard?) It is enough to make me want to call the AFAM to see what that show was. Their online archive doesn't go back that far.

In any case, here are two good images (second and third down) of Shaker gift drawings. What I wish I could find is my postcard's image. It would go perfectly with Alexander's obsessive patterning.