Introvert

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For Barbara Stanczak, wood and stone are more than materials. They are partners in the creative process and guides toward new understanding. She explains that these substances are constantly “teasing, tempting and provoking me to see more, to see beyond, to see the micro and the macro of the universe.” Stanczak finds these universal qualities not in immediately recognizable forms like wooden branches and stone boulders, but rather in dense rings and layers, subtle features formed over decades or even thousands of years. As she exercises her artistic impulses, Stanczak aligns herself with these natural processes. As the artist and the materials harmonize, it is as if two forms of intelligence are working together—as if spirit and matter are not so separate as one might expect. Stanczak committed to working with wood and stone only after a long process of discovery. Born in Germany in 1941, she came to the United States in 1960 to assist her grandfather in painting church frescoes, and she later worked in handmade paper, metal, and a variety of other media. She has also used photography to sharpen her awareness of the natural world, and examples of this work appear here, in company with her sculpture. Additionally, she worked alongside her husband, Julian Stanczak, whose paintings and prints have also been celebrated in the Isroff Gallery as well with a one-artist show in 2013. As her own career evolved throughout her 37-year tenure as a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Barbara carved her first wooden sculpture in 1992. She recalls: “I was tired of searching; it was time to arrive!” About Introvert, Stanczak has stated: “Here are two more pieces of the same deceased elm that I used for the upright sculpture In Rhythm. This wood fought me for every inch. It must have been drying for decades! I cut it into smaller pieces and used pegs to join them, with a focus on the undulating bark and the emptiness it surrounded. It is called Introvert because it has a brother called Extravert, one focusing on the interior shapes, the other exploiting the exterior rhythms. A friend of a friend had to cut down an old elm tree that must have been rotting from the inside for several decades until it succumbed to Dutch Elm disease. My daughter came with a horse trailer and helpful friends to load up several pieces of the elm to bring to my garage. Most pieces were empty or rotted inside, but when it came to chiseling it was shockingly hard—harder than most of my stones! I sawed the pieces vertically in half and formed each half into two curving shapes, reminiscent of leaves. As you can see, I used three sections of tree trunk for this sculpture, giving them new life with ascending warm colors.”