Present to Past: Threads of Continuity at Delaware Art Museum
Françoise Barnes, Misumena Ellipsoides , quilted cotton blend, silk, and polyester batting, 1988, Delaware Art Museum I was at Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington last Thursday. I've had a personal rule when visiting a museum that I have to look at the older art first. The whole drive up from Baltimore was through a punishing driving rain. Maybe some brashly colorful art would shake that chill out of my bones. So breaking with tradition my first stop was the contemporary gallery. I saw that Contemporary Curator Margaret Winslow had rearranged the gallery since my last visit, which makes everything look fresh. What caught my eye was the fabric wall hanging above. Though I'm known as a landscape painter, my first years as an artist I worked abstractly and still have a fondness for bold abstracted forms. This ambitious piece by Francoise Barnes was visually rich and elegant. She overlapped a network of bright colored shapes on a background of subtle grayed-do