News

The fiber-based works of CIA Professor Tina Cassara made such an impression on David Sapp that he was moved to create a series of graphite-on-paper drawings in response. The result: a two-person exhibition at The Sculpture Center, 1834 E. 123rd Street, titled Tina Cassara and David Sapp: Threads, Lines, Traces, which runs Sept. 18 through Oct. 30.

According to The Sculpture Center, Threads, Lines, Traces “draws upon a subtle interplay between the line of a fiber construction and a graphite line drawn on paper.”

Cassara, who is co-chair of CIA’s Sculpture + Expanded Media Department, has conducted extensive research into women’s labor in the American textile industry. She has used computer-aided embroidery to create two-dimensional hangings of lyrics from working women’s songs. Her more recent work (see image above) is handmade, delicate and three dimensional. Notes The Sculpture Center, “In her current work, Cassara is moving to abstracted, open, subtly repeating, interlinked forms that drape away from the wall into space, swaying in the slightest current of air.”

Cassara told Cleveland Magazine, “It takes a long time for these various ideas to come together. It happens over years and years of work – one piece develops another.”

A writer, Sapp is also a professor and director of the Little Gallery at Firelands College, Bowling Green State University. He came upon Cassara’s work in her solo exhibition in Oberlin, Ohio, last spring.

The Sculpture Center is just off Euclid Avenue in Cleveland at 1834 E. 123rd Street. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 10am to 4pm; Saturday, noon to 4pm, or by prior appointment.