Carly Glovinski alters perceptions with 3S Artspace’s inaugural exhibition
words and photos by Chloe Kanner
There’s a folding lawn chair with a rainbow motif, a rag rug, and a plaid blanket. A puzzle, a book on geology, a map of the lake. It’s an assortment you might expect in a vacation house you can rent by the week.
But, look closer. The chair is weaved from long strips of paper instead of nylon webbing, and lines have been drawn in ink and correction fluid to look like threads. The book on the chair is made of wood and painted in acrylic. The rug is drawn on paper, the blanket is made of wood, the puzzle is cut from Plexiglas, and the map is folded aluminum.
This is no lake house. It’s the adaptable new gallery space at 3S Artspace, filled for the first time by Dover artist Carly Glovinski. An exhibition of her site-specific installations, drawings and paintings, called “Land-Line,” opens with a reception on Friday, March 20 at 5 p.m., and remains on view through May 17.
Common objects inspire Glovinski’s art, and she’s recently been recreating things found in domestic settings. Her intention is not to deceive the viewer, but rather to heighten visual awareness. By making art based on things we live with and often overlook, she encourages us to assume less and to look closer at everything. She helps alter our perception.
“I’m basically trying to train people to look,” she said.
detail of “Evolving Coast,” wood painted to look like a book on a lawn chair
Her genius is revealed in the details for the people who slow down to really see them. The painted map of Lake Winnipesaukee has creases and a rip that make it look like paper, as usual, but the body of water is actually etched into metal that glistens in the sunlight coming through the large overhead doors of the gallery.
The time it takes to appreciate the artwork is a mere echo of the time that goes into making it. Although Glovinski’s one-of-a-kind pieces might mimic something mass-produced, her creative process is time-consuming, purposeful, and, by her own admission, tedious. “My art is made slow,” she said.
Glovinski said that repetitive mark making, the kind that adds up to a 15-foot-long drawing of a rag rug, has a meditative quality. But it brings mindfulness, not an escape.
“A deliberate act like that makes you present and aware of being in the right now,” she said. “You’re conscious of your own experience in the present time.”
“The process of it is really all of it to me.”
— Carly Glovinski
Just like the objects she replicates, some of her work risks being overlooked. People might assume her artwork is an assemblage of found objects, or even just trash. In the past, one of her sculpted drawings made to look like a cheeseburger wrapper was accidentally thrown away, she said.
Some installations only exist for the length of the show they’re in. Fortunately, the experience of creating is enough for Glovinski. “The process of it is really all of it to me,” she said.
She spent about a week, working on site, to complete the installation titled “Landline Stack (New England).” It’s a 9-foot-wide wall drawing of phonebooks made with thread strung between two columns of nails. Phonebooks are a recurring theme in her work, since she’s fascinated by systems of organization, and especially the way the pages make patterns based on populations in different places.
Glovinski also utilized the gallery space and its high ceilings by making a 25-foot-tall sculpture that is based on the player piano sheet music of “Home on the Range,” which she bought at a yard sale. The music is notched into maple veneer and the lyrics are written in colored pencil.
Dover artist Carly Glovinski at the 3S Gallery
Her aging dog, named Kitt, was the inspiration for “Invisible Dog,” which is made from copper wire wrapped in red thread to look like a tie-out lead. It holds up an exact replica of her dog’s collar, cast from plastic and painted to look like leather and metal.
The non-commercial 3S Gallery plans to present five to eight exhibitions every year, encouraging experimentation that is typically limited by space and sales.
Glovinski said her work is a result of her long-held interest in objects and materials, and her resulting observations and experiments. She questions how materials work, and their limits. She wants to know how many repetitive marks it takes to add up to a whole new image. She asks, “What is art? What has value?”
“These are the things I think about,” she said.
Glovinski is participating in a panel discussion on “The Past, Present, and Future of Art-Making in the Seacoast,” along with Gordon Carlisle, Kirsten Reynolds, and Jennifer Moses, on March 22 at 1:30 p.m. in the 3S performance space. There’s also an Artist Talk with Glovinski on March 29 at 2 p.m.
The 3S Gallery is located at 319 Vaughan St., Portsmouth.