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 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.
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.
/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.
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.
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
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