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| K. Gretchen Greene |
Somerville's K. Gretchen Greene: An artist happy with
soot in her face and steel at her feet.
By Doug Holder
In Gretchen Greene’s
artist statement she writes: “ I am a sculptor; and in that work I see all the
other things I am, all the other things I have done. As I carve and twist
steel, face covered in soot, scraps of golden steel at my feet, I know I’m
home.”
Forty something Gretchen Greene does not look like someone who
works with steel. Tall, slender, with a slight build—she seems like someone who
is cerebral rather than physical. Yet, this accomplished woman is both. Greene
was educated at Yale, Princeton and Oxford among other institutions of higher
education. She also has a work history that includes work as a government mathematician
and a corporate lawyer for the tony
Boston firm Ropes and Gray. But Greene left the corporate world to pursue a career as a sculptor of steel. She often includes
fragments of poetry to soften the hard surfaces of her medium.
Greene has a small studio at Somerville’s Artisan’s
Asylum, an innovative warehouse of artists and creators in the Union Square
section of our city. Of Somerville Greene says: “ I love the mixed zoning
aspect of Somerville. By this I mean the mix of shops, residential space and
industrial space at reasonable rents. I love the concentration of creative
people who live in this area, and their impressive educational backgrounds. Of
course this might change in a couple of years with the gentrification of Union
Square. In that case people will have to move to cites further away from the hub
of the action.”
Greene told me that she left the Brooks Brothers- corseted
world of law to pursue the development of her own business. While she majored
in math at UCLA, she also took courses on sculpting on the side. When she
attended Yale Law School she took classes in printmaking as well. She told me that she uses her mathematical and legal analytical/
research skills she picked up from her education in her work. Such challenges
as how to bend and manipulate forms are met with her knowledge of Geometry and
other skills in her formidable knowledge bank.
I asked Greene about the process of making her
abstract steel sculptures. She said: “ First I get a 4 foot by 8 foot
sheet of
steel, which is only about a sixteenth of an inch wide. I then take it
to a
welding bay and use a plasma cutter to heat the surface. Then on the
surface I
sort of make an abstract painting on the steel. I have been trained in
traditional brush painting and I need to have a very fluid motion to
make it
work." The text or poetry she places on her pieces are abstract,
fragments of her memories. One work is titled "Tide Tables." Greene
said: The poem concerns the ebb and flow of the tide. I used to live on
the coast of Rhode Island with my partner. The poems are visceral
reflections of my memory."
Greene
said that the Artisan's Asylum is a great place for her to make things;
it provides the resources and access to creative people essential for
her business, as well as media exposure. All of these are elements
needed to fertilize the seed of her nascent enterprise.
Greene
has had exhibits in Somerville at the Nave Gallery, Artisan's Asylum,
Brooklyn Boulders, as well as the Todd Merrill Gallery in New York City,
and other venues across the country and internationally.
