Review

"Industrial Beauty," Fiber.

Deana Winter
Delicate Manufacturing

4-10 p.m. (estimate; see below)

Corridor Art Space
Office of Gould Evans Associates
4041 Mill St.
Kansas City, MO
816.931.6655

Regular Hours: 8 a.m.-10 p.m. daily.
Runs through: Jan. 19.

Gallery site: http://www.gouldevans.com

Yet another coincidence, which must be observed before we can move on: Yes, the featured artist for Christmas Day is named "Winter."

And yes, you can see Deana Winter's Delicate Manufacturing today, even though nearly everything in the area is closed for the holiday. Tivoli Cinemas' site indicates that there will be film showings starting at 4:15, and the Manor Square corridor will be open if the theater is.

(That said, I realize that the weather outside is nasty and you might want to stay in being festive. Nothing wrong with that, but make sure you catch the exhibit before it closes in mid-January.)

Winter's show title, a seeming oxymoron, is actually more than fitting. The artist, who holds a degree in fibers from the Kansas City Art Institute, combines industrial shapes and imagery with soft materials.

Winter writes that she finds inspiration from my surroundings; from the overall skyline, to the geometrical shapes of buildings within it, to the grid of the streets they are built on; from the rust on the buildings, to the oxidization on copper roof tops, I am partial to utilizing nature’s own elements in my work.

It shows.

Industrial Beauty, today's featured work(and another seeming oxymoron that isn't) typifies Winter's approach.

There's an undeniable softness to the piece, but it also evokes the gritty sidewalks of a busy city: the gray of well-worn concrete, marked by rust stains from ancient metal fixtures. Even the circles add to that feeling; they could be places where signposts have been sawed off at ground level, with the embedded rings left exposed to oxidize.

The effect is both bleak and lovely ... worth seeing any time, but especially appropriate for an icy Christmas day.

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