Tantalizing Terrains
Magical Thinking 
Ceremonial 
Ebullience 
A Glimmering Shift 
A Stone from the Sky 
Talk Talk
By Tom Wachunas
“…I work in a wide range of images, sometimes
recognizable and sometimes abstract. The world between the two is where most of
my work resides. Narratives weave loosely through this process and… images
coalesce and collapse almost simultaneously.” – Randi Reiss McCormack
“… incorporating fiber-based materials and techniques
into a painterly vocabulary and dazzlingly beautiful objects, Reiss-McCormack
enlivens and enriches the art world’s most exalted medium, and imbues it with
hospitality, domestic tradition, diversity, and accessibility.” - Cara Ober, May 2022
EXHIBIT: Magical Thinking / work by Randi
Reiss-McCormack on view THROUGH SEPTEBER 22, 2023 / at The
Lemmon Visiting Artist Gallery, in the Fine Arts Building at Kent State
University at Stark, 6000 FRANK AVENUE NW, NORTH CANTON, OH / Gallery hours
Monday – Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
https://www.randireissmccormack.com/
During and after looking
at this mesmerizing exhibit of 14 abstract works by Baltimore-based painter and
fiber artist, Randi Reiss McCormack, a thought kept returning like a chant,
embedding itself in my memory. It is this: The picture wants what the picture
wants.
Think of the initial gestures of placing
formal elements (lines, shapes, colors, textures) on a surface as a realization
of the artist’s will to voice a message, feeling, or story with a particular
visual vocabulary. Yet as time progresses,
the distinctive grammar of the curious creature we call abstract art is
such that another agency can often enter the process of picture-making, spontaneously
investing the vocabulary with new nouns, verbs, objects. This agency is the
most ineffable of motivators. The closest term that comes to mind in describing
it is intuition. Something other than pre-learned or overt consciousness.
You might also call it magic, or enchantment. It
has a will of its own, even a desire, to be heard. It can push, pull, compel, or
constrain, as if conversing with the artist’s hand. The picture wants what the
picture wants, and seemingly instructs the artist.
In responding to this uncanny coalescence of
wills, Randi Reiss McCormack is equal parts bold, resourceful speaker and responsive
listener. She expands the parameters of painting beyond actions of the brush
with an array of impressive skills that include fiber techniques such as rug
tufting, needlepoint, embroidery and punch needle. Spinning yarns, weaving
tales… and sew it goes indeed.
Her resulting imagery is an elaborate,
practically sculptural balancing of dualities at once earthbound and ethereal. The
entire exhibit is a sumptuous tactile
metaphor, or allegorical suggestion of forces and forms inspired by nature, all
in constant, simultaneous states of becoming and dispersing. Here is a gripping
confluence and an alluring dialogue between matter and spirit in flux.
The enticing
bravura of Randi Reiss-McCormack’s artistry is wonderful to behold. And be held,
as in… touched. And so I confess to tasting the forbidden fruit of art show
etiquette by letting not only my eyes but also my fingers gently saunter over
the luscious and intricate diversity of these touchable terrains. I simply
couldn’t resist. I feel only a little guilty. After all, Reiss- McCormack
started it. She made me do it. She’s something of a shaman, you know. A
magician.
