May Gallery Exhibition: Lisa Anderson Shaffer "AERIAL"
Rare Device is pleased to announce our May 2016 gallery exhibition AERIAL, featuring new work by artist and jewelry designer Lisa Anderson Shaffer.
AERIAL explores the ever-changing and temporary truth of nature. Each piece in the series begins with actual aerial photographs of the West Marin County coastline the artist calls home. Anderson abstracts and renders each location as a three-dimensional fiber artwork formed by crochet, nautical knots, and embroidery. Each intricate piece incorporates delicate details, but color and recognizable shapes have been removed. Anderson’s sculptures depict small areas of ocean depth, erosion, and shoreline that take on their own beauty, isolated and abstracted from their original context. AERIAL captures a coastline frozen in time, even as the original location may have changed or even forever disappeared before the artist has even completed each fiber piece.
Anderson’s fascination with the ever-changing flux of nature began when she moved to West Marin nearly 3 years ago. Surrounded by sweeping views of the nearby mountains while confronted with intimate details of a single leaf raised Anderson’s curiosity and heightened her sensitivity to viewing both perspectives simultaneously. AERIAL is an invitation to experience both the faraway and intimate details of nature all at once: “To not only see the coastline, but also each grain of sand, all at the same time,” says Anderson. “The same location at the same time on the next day will be completely different. Forever temporary.”
Lisa Anderson Shaffer is best known for fine art fiber installations and her collection of modern fiber jewelry designs, Zelma Rose, named for Anderson’s grandmother Zelma, who first taught a 9-year-old Lisa to cross-stitch. With an intergenerational collection of Anderson family needlework as inspiration, Lisa has been creating her own modern needlework for the past 15 years. She holds a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and a MS from San Francisco State University. She is a 3-time California Arts Council Artist in Residence Recipient, along with an Academy of Handmade Awardee for Best Artist in Needlework. Lisa Anderson Shaffer currently resides and works in the mountains of West Marin County, California.
Lisa Anderson Shaffer's AERIAL is on view at Rare Device from Friday, May 6 to Tuesday, May 31. Please join us for a reception for the artist on Friday, May 6, from 6pm-9pm at our Divisadero location (600 Divisadero Street). This reception is free and open to the public. RSVP here.
Detail of Lisa Anderson Shaffer's AERIAL
Lisa Anderson Shaffer in her studio, photographed by Tory Putnam
Lisa Anderson Shaffer in her studio, photographed by Tory Putnam