Sherry Owens: promise me the earth
On view through October 2, 2021
The Grace Museum
Abilene, Texas
thegracemuseum.org
For over 30 years Sherry Owens has used the sinuous crepe myrtle tree to tell her story – of the Texas landscape, of death, renewal, beauty, and of today’s growing environmental concerns. Owens begins by collecting discarded trees, whittling, carving, waxing, painting, dyeing and burnishing the branches before she assembles them with pegs, baling wire and other material choices. As free-form as the work appears, Owens creates detailed drawings of each piece as a starting point. The narrative of each sculpture is decided well in advance of its assembly; the subsequent choice of each stick, each gesture, and each connecting point follows the marks of the drawing into the third dimension. Sherry Owens began her profession as a weaver. “I’m really still a weaver,” she says, “only now I’m weaving with sticks.” But a visit to her studio proves that Owens’ process and product is not that simple.
[Sherry Owens, no title, 2017, crepe myrtle, dye, wax.]
