Artists of all kinds will descend on Delaware July 27 and 28 for the Rose Squared Art Show at the Chase Center, including, from left, Karen Caldwell, Robin Sesan, Gretchen Bidic and Philip Roberts.
The Rose Squared Art Show returns to the Chase Center on the Riverfront July 27-28 with 125 regional artists, including three from Delaware.
This will be the 40-year-old company’s second show in Delaware, and organizers hope to build on last year’s 2,500 visitors.
The show slipped into the Chase Center’s summer slot after a Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen vacated the window, said Rose Squared director Robin Markowitz.
Most of the other Rose Squared shows are outside in the spring or fall, in places like Rittenhouse Square in Philly or Brookdale Park in New Jersey.
“We wanted to have a show somewhere between November and March inside, because our artists were like, we want to come but obviously, nobody stands outside in the Northeast from November until March,” Markowitz said.
Because so many of their artists are from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, the Chase Center is close to being a central meeting point.
That gathering is one thing Wilmington artist Robin Sesan likes.
“I think it’s really important that artists have a community,” Sesan said. “And one of the things that Rose Squared shows do is they pull a community of artists together to support one another, and that’s the feel at these shows.
“I love doing shows, because I get to meet all these great people, talk to people about my work, develop relationships with people. But there’s also something very special about being connected with the other artists.”
Many of the artists have been with Rose Squared for years.
“All the genres are represented. We have everything,” Markowitz said. “We have something for everybody at every price point.”
Items on sale range from little glass trees to $20,000 pieces of jewelry, she said.
Philip Roberts’ “Collusion” is an example of a young artist embracing new technology to create, organizers say.
In a time when artificial intelligence is a threat to artistic expression, handmade art needs to be nourished, Markowitz said.
At the same time, today’s artist can embrace materials and technological advances.
“A lot of our artists are young and completely at the top of their game and creating this work using technology that wasn’t available even 10 years ago,” she said. “Whether you’re talking about digital artists or you’re talking about this young man who’s cutting these magnificent, magnificent wood pieces, absolutely stunning.
That would be Philip Roberts, who creates intricate wooden sculptures that have as many as 12 layers.
Rose Squared history
Rose Squared Art Shows was started 40 years ago in New Jersey by Janet and Howard Rose. They named it after Howard’s grandmother, whose name was Rose Rose, hence the Rose Squared.
Janet and Howard produced four fine art and fine crafts shows a year until 2018, when they asked Markowitz to take over as they were approaching retirement.
She had been running art shows in Maryland and in 2019 took over Rose Squared.
They weren’t able to have shows during 2020, but because most of their shows are outside and naturally socially distanced, they came back in 2021.
Since then, they’ve increased the number of shows from four a year to nine.
Markowitz herself is a glass and metalsmith artist, and associate director Carol Heisler-Lawson is a fiber artist who makes uber-modern quilts designed for beds that are nothing like the ones your grandmother may have used or made.
None of their work is in the Rose Squared shows, though.
“It’s virtually impossible to run a show and attend a booth at a show,” said Markowitz.
While they have a sizable stable of artists, they are always seeking new ones.
Sesan, a psychologist by day, finds a connection between that and her art.
She makes clay monoprints.
“I create my art on a flat slab of clay, and then I layer it with different colored clays. When I’m ready to make a print, some of the clay, which is colored with permanent pigments, transfers onto my print surface,” she said. “I can use all sorts of images and textures, and there’s many, many layers to my work. You can achieve a piece of art that really is hard to achieve in any other way. So it makes it very unique.”
Because of the way the clay transfers, no two prints are alike.
Sesan has been using monoprinting for 15 years and has a studio at Aston Mills Arts in Aston, Pennsylvania.
“I’ve done art as a second kind of vocation for most of my life, but it’s really been in the last 10 years that I feel like I’ve entered the world of professional artists,” she said.
She said the overarching theme in her work and art has to do with what is beneath the layers.
“I’m always working to help people look under the layers to find their inner strength and their kind of authentic voice,” Sesan said.
With her art, she said, “We look at the top layer, the surface layer, and we’re drawn in by colors or images. But with my work, because it’s so multi-layered, the more you look at it, you see what’s underneath the layers.”
When she’s in the studio, she starts with colors, maybe a group of five.
“As I start layering the colors, something comes to me that I want to say,” she said. “Out of that, I might then bring in a figure, or I might bring in a botanical image. I might say, I want this to look more like an abstract landscape. So it’s like I start working with colors, and then what starts to emerge tells me the direction to go.
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At shows, Sesan sells her art already framed. She’s happy to sell the prints alone in her studio.
Many of the artists will customize pieces for clients, Markowitz said.
“What I’m trying to get across here is that this is a class of artists that are basically a dying breed,” Markowitz said. “It’s not easy to find this professional quality artisan who is willing to move from place to place to showcase their work. It’s very different from an artisan who’s in a museum or in a gallery.
“They’re much more engaging and want to have discussions about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, and their inspiration, and what that means to you as the patron. Frankly, in a world which is becoming increasingly homogenized, this is the place to go now, this is the place to go.”
IF YOU GO: Rose Squared Art Show, July 28-28, Chase Center on the Riverfront. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door. Allow two hours to walk through the show, organizers say. Early Sunday mornings are the least crowded time.
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