Dialogue: Lindenfeld + Lindenfeld

This is an exhibit of ceramics by Naomi Lindenfeld and weavings and fabric collages by her mother, Lore Lindenfeld. Naomi created works in clay in response to her mother’s textiles.

We are pleased to bring this exhibit, previously staged in 2015 at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center, to Artistree's Community Gallery. The Lindenfelds have had a summer home in Barnard for many years. You can see more of Naomi's work on her website - as well as her talk at the gallery.

Naomi grew up with her mother's loom in the family's living room. Not many years later Naomi ended up with clay carving tools and a rolling pin in her own ceramics studio. The pairings of work in this show exemplify the influences of Lore Lindenfeld's work on Naomi's ceramics and served as an opportunity for her to grow creatively and to honor her mother and her life's work.

Lore Kadden Lindenfeld (1921 - 2010) emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in the late 1930s. She attended Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the 1940s and was a student of both Josef and Anni Albers. Inspired by the Alberses and the Bauhaus school tradition, she worked as a textile designer for the New York fashion industry followed by a career as a weaver, fiber collage artist, and as a weaving and art history teacher at the college level.

While working on a degree in ceramics from Boston University's Program in Artisanry, Naomi discovered the Japanese technique, Nerikomi, of layering colored clays to create patterns. She has been captivated by exploring many ways of working with colored clay ever since. She also came to realize that her method of working with clay - the sense of movement, abstract graphic quality, nature-themed imagery, and vivid color - echoed her mother's textiles.

Naomi created this series of pieces in response to her mother's work. She says, "It was both fascinating and challenging to interpret a two-dimensional medium within a three-dimensional realm; to not just reproduce my mother's ideas and imagery but to draw inspiration and design the pieces as my own. My hope is that my ceramics, while paying homage to my mother, stand on their own just as her fiber works do."