Renwick's Michael Sherrill Retrospective ends Sunday

At the entrance to the Michael Sherrill Retrospective at the Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

In his North Carolina studio close to Asheville at a place called "Bat Cave" (that is the real name), naturalist/artist Michael Sherrill brings it all home, his love for the outdoors, his creativity, and his desire to make the world understand the loss of Earth's gifts and those we take for granted.

Using glass, clay, and metal, Mr. Sherrill designs and sculpts nature's bounty and more for wall hangings and display. The Renwick Gallery has 73 of them up for this last weekend.

Michael Sherrill, Aqua Bottles, 1995/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Queen of Hearts, c. 1990, Racine Art Museum, left, and Head and Shoulders, c. 1990, collection of the artist/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill Retrospective spans his artistic evolution over more than 40 years, beginning with his teapots and ending with colorful metal animals mixed inside and around real and fictional plants.

Michael Sherrill Retrospective, Smithsonian Renwick Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Bumbleberry, 1999, Mint Museum. The wall label says this work was inspired by the non-native kiwi plant which grew outside the artist's studio and seemed to always  grasp for light and support.  I don't know about you, but this sure suggests a snake to me.  Perhaps I mixed up the proper plant credit? Update:  I did not mix them up!/Photo by Patricia Leslie


Mr. Sherrill's beginnings were not unlike those of many artists, but few have six children as this artist does. At his Washington opening, he said: “I had to balance doing my best work and surviving economically.”

The 2008 recession took its toll on some of his potter friends who were unable to continue their art, "growing bored" with struggles. To the persistent go the laurels, and Mr. Sherrill, who started as an abstract potter, kept up his craft which became harmonious sculptures of nature.

Michael Sherrill at the opening of his retrospective at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019
/Photo by Patricia Leslie


He grew up listening to the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan who, he thinks, invited listeners to join in their music, and he wants viewers to do the same with his art:  participate.

Michael Sherrill at the opening of his retrospective at the Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, How Plants Travel, 2003, collection of Marsha Madorsky.  Mr. Sherrill created this about the time his works shifted from table tops to wall hangings.  Here, the flowers gradually diminish in size as the eye moves up the curvature/Photo by Patricia Leslie

For models (including snakes which are easily found around his mountain studio; he kept one in his high school locker, he said) he uses wires and sometimes sketches designs in advance but not always. His sculptures are colored metal, many with beautiful, small flowers, their shapes and sizes reminiscent of plants and nature's limbs which float on seabeds.

Michael Sherrill, What the Eye Sees, 2003, collection of Ann and Tom Cousins. The open areas, according to the label copy, are intended to invite viewer interpretation/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Michael Sherrill, Brightly Hidden, 2010, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA.  This was made by Mr. Sherrill when he served as an artist-in-residence at the Tacoma Museum of Glass.  It is designed to show the snake in the Garden of Eden, good v. bad, beauty v. danger/Photo by Patricia Leslie

At the Michael Sherrill Retrospective, Smithsonian Renwick Gallery, June 27, 2019/Photo by Patricia Leslie

A photo of some of Michael Sherrill's "mudtools" on display and available for sale at his website/Photo by Patricia Leslie

To fashion his works, Mr. Sherrill, mostly self-taught, needs specialized tools which he makes himself and sells on his website. (They are pictured on a wall at the Renwick.)  

On a recent trip to Japan, he found reproductions of them for sale in two shops.

Organizer of the show was the Mint Museum in Charlotte, N.C., which has named Mr. Sherrill , "Artist of the Year."



What: Michael Sherrill Retrospective and see Reforestation of the Imagination by Ginny Ruffner in an adjacent gallery. 

When: Now through January 5, 2020. The Renwick is open from 10 a.m.– 5:30 p.m. every day.

Where: The Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006, at the White House 17th Street block, adjacent to Blair House.

Admission: No charge

Metro stations: Farragut North or Farragut West

For more information: (202) 633-7970 (recorded) or (202) 633-2850

patricialesli@gmail.com