Polly Apfelbaum does things that I could only wish I'd thought of. She works with great color, fabric, symmetry, and visual spectacle. In 2009 I was in Kansas City for a poetry reading and took a detour to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. There was the usual fair that you find in a contemporary museum until I went into the back rooms and saw this:
I was really taken aback by all of the fabric on the floor. I had thought that I went into a room I was not supposed to and was unsure where I should walk or what I should do. The docent saw the stress on my face and started explaining the exhibit to me. Polly Apfelbaum used hand dyed and cut fabrics arranged on the floor of the museum. It came from her series of works called "fallen paintings". These works spoke to every part of my being with the vibrancy of color, the near OCD placement of pieces, and the gorgeous designs.
Her work showed me that there is such a thing as controlled chaos. Her work has a free nature by using fabric instead of paint and the floor instead of the wall for display. More importantly, they reminded me of the Tibetan Mandalas in the way that so much painstaking time is taken to make a large scale painting that will be disassembled in the end.
Polly's work is freedom and happiness and just plain fun. If you ever get the opportunity to see an exhibit of her work you should do it!!
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