Acts of renewal are at the core of what it means to be an artist. Artists across all disciplines bring new life, energy, and perspectives to the world through creative ideation and the skillful manipulation of materials. In turn, consuming art can both renew our ability to see the world as it is and allow us to imagine previously unseen futures. We see this time again with visitors to Studio who leave their tours transformed – and certainly renewed! – by the intensity of Wharton Esherick’s artistic vision.
Across his career, Esherick took renewal seriously. After training as a painter he renewed his artistic identity time and again, finding inspiration enough to make everything from illustrated books to stage sets and costumes. He believed in renewed approaches to form, as seen in his refusal to make furniture that looked like anything previously on the market, instead creating objects that existed between function and sculpture. He believed in renewing materials, giving second lives to wooden objects like hammer handles and wagon wheels (Hammer Handle Chair, Wagon Wheel Chair). Where others saw cast-off scraps, only useful for firewood, Esherick envisioned a renewal: the now-iconic floor of the Studio’s Dining Room, a sensual and organic mosaic.
While renewal and its meanings are always on our mind at WEM, the past few years have brought it to the forefront as we’ve reached significant milestones: the completion of an initial plan for an enhanced museum campus (2020); a transformative endowment gift from the Windgate Foundation (2020); our 50th Anniversary celebration (2022); and a feature segment on PBS’s Craft in America, to name a few. We’ve embarked on significant restoration projects such as reviving the dappled fresco on WEM’s Silo, an act of renewal that will restore Esherick’s vision and allow us to welcome visitors for years to come.
In the fall of 2024, over seventy works from WEM’s collection will leave the studio for The Crafted World of Wharton Esherick, a traveling exhibition (with an accompanying catalog) that opens in October at the Brandywine River Museum. As WEM’s largest collaborative show to date, it offers the possibility for renewal in several ways. Objects that have not travelled outside Esherick’s Studio in decades – or ever – are afforded the chance to have new life in a gallery context before returning home. Likewise, WEM’s interiors have largely existed in the same way since the museum’s opening in 1972; for the first time, they will be temporarily renewed through the inclusion of little seen works from the museum’s collection (and select private collections), on display in the spaces where they were originally made or shown for the first time in decades. While we anticipate returning to form after the closing of the Crafted World, we will do so having renewed our understanding of how we might share the riches of WEM’s collections and enhance the visitor experience.
For the Wharton Esherick Museum’s 31st Annual Juried Woodworking Exhibition we invite you to think about renewal, and how it exists in your artistic life. Have you made an artwork that represents a moment of personal, professional, or ideological renewal? When have you transformed a material, giving it new life in the process? What objects facilitate moments of renewal, restoration, or caretaking? Is there a way to renew meaning from the past through artwork that’s wholly contemporary?
With these initial prompts, we encourage applicants to think about this idea broadly and hope that you’ll submit entries across the spectrum of thematic approaches (so long as they contain wood in some way). We look forward to seeing it all.
SELECTION
Jurors Rosanne Somerson, President Emerita and Professor of Furniture Design, Rhode Island School of Design, and Jennifer Scanlan, Executive Director, James Renwick Alliance for Craft, along with Emily Zilber, WEM’s Director of Curatorial Affairs and Strategic Partnerships, will select the finalists for the exhibition from the images submitted using a blind jury process. It is strongly recommended that you submit high-quality images to ensure the jury sees your piece at its best.
The competition is open to both emerging and established makers across all artistic disciplines, so long as wood is part of the finished piece. Entered works should be available for the duration of the exhibition. Jurors will evaluate the submissions based on inventive approaches to the prompt, craftsmanship and technical proficiency, aesthetics, and other considerations as determined by the jury.
