Ruth Borgenicht is someone whose work in clay has interested me, and this trip to Philly provided me with a chance to see some work in person, as well as to meet and talk briefly with her. I first came across photos of her elegant chain-mail wall pieces and found their soft, light-absorbing surfaces and limited, white-gray-black palette to be pretty seductive. She slipcasts these ring shaped elements, then builds other forms and volumes from their combination. Up close, more traces of the making are apparent. As she shifted around a basket-like piece, I realized there was a sound element too: something along the lines of strolling the pebble-lined path of the Tuileries, or lazing around in a beanbag chair in your parents' basement, or maybe swirling dry chickpeas around in a big pot of water. Not a fragile or glassy sound, kind of grating, but in a soothing way. From her website, I learned that she has also used pieces in collaborations with dance performance.
There were some smaller things, and I was pretty happy about getting a light gray circle of interlocking hourglass / drumlike shapes that she called a study.
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