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BETTY BRANCH BETTY BRANCH THROUGH THE CROW’S EYE, A RETROSPECTIVE SEPTEMBER 17 TO NOVEMBER 21, 2009 CURATED BY AMY G. MOOREFIELD, MUSEUM DIRECTOR THE ELEANOR D. WILSON MUSEUM AT HOLLINS UNIVERSITY 4 King of the Crows by Betty Branch CONTENTS 6 Betty Branch: Through the Crow’s Eye by Amy G. Moorefield 20 Heart of Stone, Wings of Bronze: The Paradoxical Work of Betty Branch by Deborah McLeod 34 Exhibition checklist 36 Artist biography Betty Branch: Through the “Through the Crow’s Eye” Photographers: This catalogue was printed four- Crow’s Eye, a Retrospective © 2009 Amy G. Moorefield Richard Boyd, Roanoke, VA color process with a dull aqueous was published on the occasion Amy Nance-Pearman, coating on 100# McCoy Matte 40 Acknowledgments of the exhibition organized “Heart of Stone, Wings Roanoke, VA cover and text. by the Eleanor D. Wilson of Bronze: The Paradoxical Work Richard Braaton, Roanoke, VA Museum at Hollins University of Betty Branch” © 2009 Polly Branch, Roanoke, VA All rights reserved. No part of this from September 17 to Deborah McLeod Kathryn Wetzel, Richmond, VA publication may be reproduced, November 21, 2009. Saba, Lucca, Italy stored in a retrieval system or “King of the Crows” Channel 15 Productions, transmitted in any form, or by Curated by Amy G. Moorefield, © 1988 Betty Branch Blue Ridge Public TV, any means electronic, mechanical, Director of the Eleanor D. Roanoke, VA photocopying, recording, or Wilson Museum at Hollins ISBN-10: 0-9823025-1-7 otherwise, without the prior University ISBN-13: 978-0-9823025-1-4 Printer: Worth Higgins and permission of the publisher and Associates, Richmond, VA copyright holder(s). Published by the Eleanor D. Publication Director: Wilson Museum at Hollins Amy G. Moorefield All works are courtesy of the The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum University, Roanoke, Virginia. Design: Anstey Hodge artist Betty Branch and Lenders at Hollins University © 2009 Eleanor D. Wilson noted in the checklist. Post Office Box 9679 Museum at Hollins University Biographical information on 8009 Fishburn Drive artist Betty Branch compiled by Front, back, inside front cover, Roanoke, Virginia 24020 Stephanie Vrobel, curatorial title and contents pages image: 540 362 6532 intern. Detail from Passage, 1994, www.hollins.edu/museum India ink on tracing paper. KING OF THE CROWS THIS MORNING, gloriously alone quiet, still, silver sun on patio THERE’S AN AWESOME DIN I lay down to peace and IN THE MEADOW… THE RAUCOUS SOUND OF CROWS THE CROWS ARE MOURNING NOT IN THE MEADOW, NOT IN THE FRONT YARD THEIR KING. BUT IN THE SANCTITY OF MY FENCED THEIR BULLET CRIES LODGE LOCKED SUNLIT TERRACE. IN MY HEAD. ENRAGED, I WENT FOR THE GUN I KNEW ALL ALONG THAT PREJUDICE WAS LICENSE TO KILL. THE SLAMMING DOOR DISLODGED I KNEW IT WHEN I EXPLAINED THE CROWS FROM BACK TO FRONT TO BILL & TOM AND I IN HOT PURSUIT. WHY I NEEDED A GUN Down the yard & out of range TO SHOOT CROWS. they flew I KNEW IT THE FIRST TIME I stopped. RAISED THE GUN FROM THE BLACK—UGLY—UNGAINLY ANTAGONISTS KITCHEN WINDOW AND BONNY ON THE FRONT SLOPE. WAS SITTING IN THE DINING ROOM Into the car, gun & I (THAT TIME—BECAUSE SHE WAS Down the drive for better THERE – I COULD NOT PULL aim & FIRE! THE TRIGGER.) THE BIG BLACK CROW BUT THE GUN WAS THERE FLEW UP THEN FALTERED AND A TARGET TOO WE HAD FELL BACK. SPORTED A BIT FROM THE I AIMED & FIRED AGAIN LONG BENCH ON THE FRONT PORCH AT DUSK- THE PELLETS HIT THE STIFF TO SEE WHO COULD HIT THE BULLSEYE. THE GUN BLACK FEATHERS – ABSORBED, OR WAS NOT THE GREATEST—NOR FELL AWAY. WE AS MARKSMEN—NO ONE THE CROW HALF HOPPED SCORED HIGH EXCEPT BY ACCIDENT HALF DRAGGED HIMSELF DOWN WE PRETTY MUCH AGREED. THE HILL… ME FIRING & HEARING Bill carried the gun THAT DULL DRY FEATHER THUD in his car a few times to the of pellet still the crow mailbox and back or out on would not fall. Sunday morning to 6:30 THERE WAS NO SOUND IN THE Bible Study, but he didn’t MEADOW AND NO WAY FOR ME kill any crow. TO FINISH WHAT I’D BEGUN Betty Branch, 1988 4 5 Betty Branch: Through the Crow’s Eye by Amy G. Moorefield, Director Betty Branch claimed her artistic nature at the age of forty—by way of the mythical phoenix—a creature that casts off its old life to begin anew. She did not close the door completely but instead sloughed off the fetters of the ordinary and traded it for the extraordinary. In translation, her devotional approach to artistic pursuits is done with Above and opposite: Betty Branch in her studio July, 2009. a zealot-like tenacity. Branch’s force of will in carving out a unique place in the larger art world has served her well. 6 7 BETTY BRANCH: THROUGH THE CROW’S EYE BETTY BRANCH: THROUGH THE CROW’S EYE This exhibition showcases over thirty years Branch has stayed resolute to lifelong Claudel and Gaston Lachaise, evident in the and death. Liminality—when one is on the of the celebrated artist’s work from sculptures tenets that define her work: the body, rites of swelling thighs of Branch’s variegated alabaster threshold between two existing planes—is a strong and drawings to performance documentation passage both traditional and unorthodox, Mountain Woman (1987) or the twisting torso of catalyst played out in her work Mothers (1984) and works influenced by the land. It is not a the intersection between land and form, and the black-hued Fire Dancer Nero (1988). and the performance Ritual Fire. In Mothers, nine conventional retrospective. It highlights decades’ the Crow. Her media is diverse; she sculpts earthy burlap straw-filled forms hover together worth of experimentation and perseverance with marble, clay, bronze, stone, porcelain, terra Her relationship to the Crow is paradoxical. forming a cluster that looms protectively by the artist and is the physical manifestation of cotta, earthenware, and straw. Each medium is Is it a spirit guide or metaphor? Branch describes over the viewer. When the temporal forms began the primordial ideal of life’s constant recreation a talismanic touchstone for her art; Branch her initial relationship with the Crow in her to decay, Branch set the Mothers aflame in a of itself. Displayed in a non-chronological ferrets out the essence of every one of these for poem “King of the Crows”: quarry inspired by the Hindu Sati tradition in format, the exhibition calls attention to Branch’s exploitation. Her first foray into the medium “This morning gloriously alone which widows would immolate themselves fluidity throughout her artistic career between of clay transpired in an introductory pottery quiet, silver sun on patio on their husbands’ funeral pyres. In turning naturalistic and abstract modes of expression. course. In a cathartic moment, Branch felt I lay down to peace and the patriarchal Sati tradition on its end, Branch She is constantly reinventing herself. its attraction and henceforth began her lifelong the raucous sound of crows found a fitting conclusion to her dying Mothers. love of the tactile medium. She states, “Once not in the meadow, not in the front yard In All Fall Down, porcelain cylinders are formed I touched the clay, a powerful force came over but in the sanctity of my fenced into prepubescent faceless figures made me …. I knew what I had to do, what I was locked sunlit terrace helpless sans hands and feet. Referencing an compelled to do.” 1 Enraged, I went for the gun.”2 act of brutality committed against a woman Branch looks to impressive Cycladic Greek Originally perceived as an antagonist, the fertility goddesses and other sources of feminine Crow became through its death a metaphor genesis to form complex and substantial for Branch: a nagual. In its physical sacrifice, sculptural works that exude power and energy. the Crow became one with the artist. Haunting Paying homage to the multiple generations Branch, the Crow has revisited her through Journal sketch for Ritual Fire of sculptors before her focusing on that subject, the years as the subject in majestic work Throughout her career, Betty has culled visual Branch pulls on that rich history to form work such as Raven’s Gate (2005), Survivor (1995), and references from ancient matriarchal civilizations that is joyous and earthy as displayed by her the monumental Honor Guard (2004). When to current cultural events, from Greece to series Maternitas. In the marble work Maternita questioned about the symbiotic relationship, the foothills of the Blue Ridge. One looking in Rustica (1987), the pregnant torso swells and dips Branch also refers to the Crow as an archetypal her studio would be inundated with layers of to a vulvate epicenter. She takes advantage image for aging. In looking to find subject matter ephemera, references to abundant cultural of the marble form by carving into the block to in her work to mirror her own aging process, groups, and sketches of her own work in progress emphasize the veining over the swollen belly. Branch sought solace in the ideal of the Crow. interspersed with the tools of her trade. Her female forms’ proportions vacillate between Cumulatively it bears evidence to over thirty the lush and the lissome, channeling artists of Rites of passage have always interested Branch, Ritual Fire, 1986 Video documentation of performance years of intensive production. the Belle Époque Art Noveau era such as Camille particularly ceremonies addressing subjugation Collection of the artist 10 11 Survivor, 1995 Bronze, 13 x 13 x 5 inches Collection of J.

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