Stamford Artist Looks Back

Through February 23, Stamford-based artist Phyllis Peckar Clamage will have her work exhibited in the ArtPlace Gallery @ The Watermark at 3030 Park.

The Watermark at 3030 Park, located at 3030 Park Avenue in Bridgeport is a retirement community comprised of independent living, assisted living, skilled rehabilitation and memory care. Since the summer of 2009, ArtPlace Gallery and The Watermark at 3030 Park have collaborated to bring residents a new art exhibit in the rotunda every two months.

“They look forward to the lecture with the artists,” Clamage said. “The people really enjoy it and they ask good questions.”

Clamage recently celebrated her 80th birthday and her exhibit, “Looking Back,” is a collection of pieces that reflect the past 30 years of her art.

“My work seems to grow by itself,” Clamage said. “I chose pieces that had a relationship to one another — the diagonal and the square. I love the geometry of abstract art.”

Clamage has been a part of the ArtPlace Gallery collaborative — currently a group of fifteen local artists — for twelve years. The artists work in a variety of media including printmaking, painting, sculpture, drawing, and watercolor.

Clamage herself has explored a variety of media  —working with paint, printmaking, papermaking, and in recent years, prints on silk.  In 1983, she traveled to Japan for the Kyoto International Paper Conference where she was captivated by the history and the beauty of paper making.

“There are still villages that make handmade paper from mulberry,” Clamage explained. “We were taken by the elderly people there. The young people don’t want to make paper, they want to work in the factories — there’s more money in that. So it’s all the older people keeping the tradition alive. I hope it doesn’t ever die out.”

Ten years ago, Clamage suffered a back injury that forced her to stop making pulp for her paper. She quickly turned to silk and found the perfect way to transform her art through printmaking.

“Artists are problem solvers,” Clamage said. “They look at their situations and say, “How can I solve this problem?” I couldn’t make paper anymore, so I turned to printmaking.”

The transparency of silk provided new opportunities to add layers to her work in a way that was difficult with paper.

“All my work has layers,” Clamage said. “I like having that depth in my work.”

Clamage may be using this exhibit to look back at her past work, but there’s no shortage of art in her future. She plans to continue working with silk and exploring her signature bright colors and vivid shapes.

“It always interested me how color can express joy. I have very colorful pieces in this show and I hope they’ll convey that joy,” Clamage said.  “For me, it’s like visual music.”

Clamage’s exhibit will be on display through February 23. The opening reception will be held on January 11 at 2 pm.