Madeleine Lord’s ‘Critters’ come to Center Sandwich

CENTER SANDWICH — “Critters,” a new, creative and humorous exhibit of wire drawings by Madeleine Lord, will open at Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery on Saturday, June 30. There will be a meet-the-artist reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

Inspired by the work of  Alexander Calder at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where she teaches, Lord has created drawings made from one  piece of bent wire. Unlike brush strokes, that can be all lengths, the wire has a beginning and an end. As Lord twists, bends and knots the wire, unique critters take shape: Donkey’s curly mane adds sass to its body, while Camel ambles through the desert to visit a pyramid. The Critters make you smile while their ingenious fabrication gives pause for thought.

Lord is no stranger to Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery; she has been exhibiting here since the gallery opened in 2002. Her original sculptures were pieces cut with a blow torch from the sides of old refrigerators, dishwashers and stoves. Lord used them to create fashions, figures, flowers and animals before moving on to her welded pieces made from carefully selected morsels of scrap metal found in the metal yard in Readville, Massachusetts.

Lord said she is influenced by many artists, including Giacometti, Brancusi, Parthenon friezes and John Chamberlain. She studied under Leonard Baskin at Smith College.

While she is a gifted painter and printmaker, her real fascination is in creating assemblages out of scraps, interlacing empty spaces with metal shapes to create art that, in her words, “wakes you up.”

Patricia Ladd Carega Gallery, located at 69 Maple St. in Center Sandwich, is open Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. For more information, see www.patricialaddcarega.com or call 603-284-7728.