Mary Merkel-Hess

Kalo

Windblown

Windblown is the better of the two works. The gentle sway of the paper makes me want to move my hips from side to side. Long, swinging hair comes to mind, or the tip of a congealed paintbrush. The color is unfortunate, but perhaps derives from an early morning sunrise or dying grass.


From her website:

Fiber artist Mary Merkel-Hess was born and raised in Iowa where the landscape is dominated by fields of grass and corn. Her sculptural vessels and wall pieces, which she refers to as "landscape reports" are inspired by these natural surroundings. Using paper, reeds and other materials, Merkel-Hess' work conjures images of slender grasses and cultivated fields, shaped and tamed like Iowa's landscape.

"I make art because I am fascinated with form and structure. I look for inspiration in the natural world, and then allow technique to mesh with these visual ideas to create something new. I enjoy all aspects of this process: the appreciation of the world around me that suggest ideas and the search for a method of construction that allows my ideas to take shape."

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In Craft Spoken Here there is a piece called Blue Reed on view. It is the same blue-purple color of Kalo, above, but one long row of "reeds", all the same height. It looks like a hedge of grass.

Gallery label of Blue Reed

Blue Reed is intricately connected to the simplicity and austerity of the Midwestern landscape. Taking visual cues from the natural world, Mary Merkel-Hess makes art because she is fascinated by form and structure. “I like grasses growing tightly in a ditch. . . . I look for details that evoke the whole.” Paper, the artist’s chosen material, enables Merkel-Hess to make large objects, such as Blue Reed, in a swift and fluid process. Her work is firmly rooted in basket making, but functionality is not the goal. Blue Reed sends the message that a basket presents in terms of shape, recalling our daily existence. But in recreating textures found in nature, it becomes a spiritual vessel for meditation and contemplation.