“Circle of Blue Trees” by Ruby Bock
Opening Reception:
October 14, 5-7pm
The Gallery at Flat Rock is excited to present a two-person exhibit featuring married artists Ruby Bock and Barry Rhodes, with work centering on the influence of the landscapes of western North Carolina, where the couple has adjacent studios on their property in Madison County. The artwork of “In a Quiet Cove” will range from pottery and fiber art to photography, with each piece evoking the essence of the artists’ surroundings in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
“Ever since lockdown started my work has been more oriented toward landscape,” says Barry Rhodes, who has working in clay for over 40 years. “The idea for the show came from the fact that our work is more and more influenced by our locale.” The surface designs on his pottery include layers of slips and underglazes applied by brush, bottle, or ceramic pencil. Barry says that his surfaces have become simpler, while the forms have become more sculptural.
Ruby’s work in fabric and paper explores the graphic possibilities of fiber art in stitched pieces that play with color, form and pattern. “For this show, the collaboration is a lot about the colors,” she says.
Ruby’s work for “In a Quiet Cove” will feature wall hangings she calls “window quilts.” These pieces incorporate translucent fabrics that let light play on and through the surface of the artwork, evoking the mist on the mountains. Ruby says she will also include shards of Barry’s pottery in her work, a reference to their parallel creative lives. Her pieces have a muted yet lively color scheme that includes shades of blue, green and grey, the colors she sees when she looks out from her porch.
“In a Quiet Cove” will be the first time Barry’s hand printed photographs have been exhibited. During the Stay-at-Home order in 2020, he dove into learning the platinum/palladium printing process, whereby a negative made from a digital photograph is set on paper coated with light sensitive emulsion and then exposed to UV light to develop an image. Barry finds a lot of parallels between his pottery and photography, and many of the photos were taken within walking distance of the couple’s home and studio in Marshall.
“This, too, is really very influenced by the area we live in,” says Barry of his photography.
