In the world of art, an assemblage is much like a collage, but it’s a three-dimensional piece of work.
The artist uses found materials to create sculptures. They look for things in antique shops, rummage sales, junk sales or even just on the street.
BROWNE: I find something that just intrigues me to the point where I want to do something with this. I want to build something with this.
That’s Lucy Browne. She has a show this First Friday at Indaba Coffee on west Riverside.
Browne says she studied graphic design at California College of Arts in San Francisco, but was worried about being a starving artist. So, she went into the financial industry and worked in marketing.
BROWNE: I think I’ve got to give credit to a dear friend of mine who I worked with back in the Bay Area, and she saw how after the pandemic I just sort of shut down. I wasn’t doing anything, and she started talking about assemblage.
That’s when Browne remembered a show she saw when she was 19 or 20. It was a visit to the Museum of Modern Art, which had an exhibit by Joseph Cornell, an artist known for assemblage.
BROWNE: It was so magnetic and so beautiful and it was achingly wonderful for me and I never forgot that.
She retired from her day job and then discovered she had the time to create.
Browne’s work starts on a wooden, white background. She adds cans, wood, funnels or whatever speaks to her. It’s the kind of art that doesn’t lie flat on the wall. It jumps out at you.
She joined the River Ridge Association of Fine Arts and created with friends.
BROWNE: We call it RAFA, is a group of people who…oh, there are painters, people who draw, digital art, sculpture, collage, printmaking, all kinds of things. These folks get together and offer artists who are part of that organization different places to exhibit their work.
Which is how she got to Indaba. The coffee house exhibits two artists at a time. Browne’s pieces went up on the walls in September and will stay through October. Her friend Nancy Huck will add her art to the walls this First Friday and exhibit through November.
While looking around Indaba with Browne, she’s curious as to how others interpret her art.
BROWNE: It’s best that people interpret it the way they do, and I don’t want to guide it with sadness, joy, a walk in the park, or any of those things. I think it’s a lot more effective, and I think it brings the viewer in just a little bit more.
The exhibit is called “In Plain Sight.” A plaque on the wall says the work “brings together found objects, stripped of their original purpose, rearranged into something different and less familiar.”
Her work is for sale. She started the exhibit with 16 pieces, and she’s sold four.
BROWNE: It’s such an honor to think about someone looking at my work and wanting to own it. Wanting to put it someplace where they can…It’s just an honor beyond words to have my work in someone else’s realm. It’s amazing.
First Friday at Indaba runs from 5 to 7 p.m. tonight.
For more information about First Friday, visit firstfridayspokane.org.
