Bonnie Sennott, Orange Edge, 2026, pearl cotton on linen, 10 x 10 inches
“Tune In,” the Berkshire Art Association’s biennial juried exhibit, presents work by 30 New England artists at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts, 28 Renne Ave., in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, September 4–25. Three of my abstract embroideries were selected for the show (including the piece above, titled “Orange Edge”).
There’s an opening reception 5–7 pm on Friday, September 4 and a closing reception, also 5–7 pm, on Friday, September 25. Hope you can make it!
Bonnie Sennott, Breathing Space, 2024, pearl cotton on linen, 8 inches x 8 inches
My piece titled Breathing Space is part of Too Hot! at Kingston Gallery, at 450 Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End. Curated by Jessica Roscio, museum director and curator at the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts, Too Hot! features work by 31 artists that relates to “the turbulence and anxiety of our times.” I chose to submit a calm and meditative piece that could give viewers a quiet respite, a moment of peace.
The opening reception is Friday, July 5, 5–8 pm. There will also be a curator discussion on July 25 and a second reception on August 2. More info at Kingston Gallery.
Bonnie Sennott, Red Rover, Red Rover, 2024, pearl cotton on linen, 6 inches x 6 inches
At the other end of Massachusetts, you can see my new piece Red Rover, Red Rover in Field Trip, a group show at Elusie Gallery at 43 Main Street (Old Town Hall) in Easthampton. For this show celebrating the feelings/moments/places of childhood, I created a playful piece inspired by memories of the freedom and joy of summer and games played outdoors with kids in the neighborhood. Red Rover, Red Rover is a scraps embroidery—I stitched it using threads from my scraps jar (short lengths left over from other embroideries).
Field Trip opens with a reception on Saturday, July 6, 4–7 pm, during Easthampton’s monthly Art Walk. More info about the Art Walk can be found at Easthampton City Arts. The show continues through July 27.
I hope you can make it to one or both shows!
Too Hot!, a juried show at Kingston Gallery in Boston, will include one of my recent abstract embroideries. Curated by Jessica Roscio, museum director and curator at the Danforth Art Museum in Framingham, Massachusetts, Too Hot! runs from July 3 through August 11. The opening reception will be Friday, July 5, 5–8 pm.
Here’s the show postcard. I’ll share more details soon!
Effervescence, by Bonnie Sennott, 2023, pearl cotton and linen, 10 x 10 inches
This piece, titled Effervescence, is in the Small Works exhibit February 4–26 at Sawmill River Arts in Montague, Massachusetts. There’s an opening reception Sunday, February 4, 1–4 pm. Stop by if you’re in the area! I plan to be there, probably towards the beginning of the afternoon. The gallery is located next to the Montague Bookmill, at 440 Greenfield Road.
For this daily embroidery piece that I made last year, I aimed to create a joyful, playful image by using a “chance and choice” approach. I began by selecting six colors of pearl cotton. I chose one color at random each day to stitch with. That was the “chance” element of the piece.
The “choice” elements were what stitch to use each day and how dense. The constant: the shapes were circles only.
I entered Effervescence into this show because I thought we can all use a bit of joy in dreary February. The show continues through February 26 at Sawmill River Arts, 440 Greenfield Road, Montague, Massachusetts. Gallery hours are Thursday–Monday, 11 am to 5 pm.
Bonnie Sennott, A Leaf-Sized Space, 2017, pearl cotton and linen, 10 inches by 10 inches
“Revelry” at the Northampton Center for the Arts opens Friday, April 14, with a reception from 5 to 8 pm during the monthly Arts Night Out. My embroidery shown here, A Leaf-Sized Space, is among the artworks by more than 35 local artists in the show. The exhibit is a fundraiser, with half of all sales going to support the center, located at 33 Hawley in Northampton, Massachusetts.
A Leaf-Sized Space is part of a series of negative space embroideries called “Presence/Absence.” For the project, I used found objects—in this case, an oak leaf picked up during a walk—as a starting point for freeform embroidery exploring the beauty of ordinary, lost, or overlooked objects. I surrounded the leaf with a rich mix of embroidery stitches and spots of fall color as a way of celebrating its brief but beautiful appearance in this world. The stitches hold the leaf aloft and give it—or rather, its absence—a second life.
Bonnie Sennott, Daily Embroidery (56 Days), pearl cotton on linen dyed with walnuts, 2022
This Saturday, September 17, I’ll be at Easthampton City Arts Gallery from 10 am to noon, working on a new piece. I’ll be happy to answer questions about my process and work, so please stop by to chat! I’ll also be bringing a “community hoop,” prethreaded needles, and an embroidery stitch handout, so you can try your hand at stitching if you’d like.
My solo show of abstract embroidery and watercolors continues through September 30 at Easthampton City Arts Gallery, 43 Main Street, Easthampton, Massachusetts. Gallery hours are Wednesdays and Fridays, noon–2 pm, and Saturday, September 17, 10 am–noon. More information
Shown here is Daily Embroidery (56 Days), a negative space embroidery that I completed in August.
The seventh annual juried show at Gallery A3, located in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts, includes one of my recent “stones and water” watercolors. The show opens with a reception on Thursday, August 4, 5–8 pm, and continues through August 27.
Stones and Water 6, watercolor on paper, 2022, by Bonnie Sennott
This piece is one of 25 that I painted during a 100-Day creative project launched by the Isolation Journals and author Suleika Jaouad. From April 1 through July 9, 2022, I worked each day on a small abstract watercolor inspired by my walks on trails around Amethyst Brook and the Mill River in Amherst. I posted many in-progress photos on my art Instagram (see the stones&water Stories highlight).
Rather than re-create the appearance of stones and water, I used the experience of observing water flowing over and around stones as a jumping-off point for creative play. The soothing sound of water, the infinite variety of the shapes and sizes of stones, and the ever-changing play of light—I kept all of these in mind as I began painting. As each piece developed in its own particular way, the journey of painting became less about literal stones and water and more about a search for balance and harmony.
I love that watercolors can be built in layers, by painting a bit each day and contemplating where you’ve gone before going further. In this way, they’re a lot like my embroidery work. They demand patience and a light touch, because moving ahead too quickly, making rushed decisions and overworking the image, can ruin a piece. I found it best to work slowly and allow the watercolors to “do their thing”—to let them surprise and delight me.
The Seventh Annual Juried Show at Gallery A3 includes work in a variety of media by 41 area artists. The gallery is located at 28 Amity Street in Amherst (between Amherst Coffee and Amherst Cinema). Summer hours are 3–8 pm Thursday–Sunday. See the Gallery A3 website for more about the show and the juror, Daniel Kojo Schrade.
During 2020, I completed several new negative space embroideries. Like my wrinkle embroideries, the negative space pieces are abstract and improvisational — I develop the compositions as I go, rather than planning them in sketches beforehand.
Daily Embroidery (19 Days), by Bonnie Sennott, 2020, perle cotton on linen, 8 x 8 inches, private collection
Negative space is an embroidery technique in which you stitch around a shape rather than the shape itself. For these pieces I used templates of circles and ovals to trace shapes with disappearing ink pen. Sometimes I stitched completely around a shape, other times just partially around.
Daily Embroidery (24 Days), by Bonnie Sennott, 2020, perle cotton on linen dyed with oak galls, 8 x 8 inches
These pieces have been a way for me to create something positive out of the loss and fragmentation of 2020, during which so much of “normal” life was disrupted. I limited the palette in each piece and kept the types of stitches employed to a minimum, hoping to find a balance between the empty spaces and the positive areas of color.
Scattered (39 Days), by Bonnie Sennott, 2020, perle cotton on linen dyed with oak galls, 10 x 10 inches
The three pieces shown above were stitched with Valdani threads. I love this particular brand of perle cotton because the colors are rich but not quite as saturated and bright as other brands. For a piece I’ve just begun (below), I’m using DMC perle cottons. I want this new piece to have a warm, sunny color composition, and the DMC yellows I already have on hand are perfect for it.
If you’re interested in purchasing a piece, please visit the Artwork section of my Etsy shop. Or, click on the email icon on any page of my website to contact me.
To view work in progress, follow me on Instagram — I’m @bonniesennottart there.
Two of these negative space embroideries are part of POST PAUSE, the inaugural exhibition of the Easthampton City Arts online gallery. Curated by Maggie Nowinski, POST PAUSE presents works created during this time of pandemic by artists in western Massachusetts. Each artist's work is accompanied by a statement about how their creative practice has been impacted by COVID-19; here’s a direct link to my work.
Two of my furlough daily embroideries are in POST PAUSE, the inaugural exhibition of the new Easthampton City Arts online gallery. Curated by Maggie Nowinski, POST PAUSE presents works created during this time of pandemic by artists in western Massachusetts. Each artist's work is accompanied by a statement about how their creative practice has been impacted by COVID-19.
Bonnie Sennott, Daily Embroidery (19 Days), 2020, perle cotton on natural linen, 8 x 8 inches
Bonnie Sennott, Daily Embroidery (24 Days), 2020, perle cotton on linen dyed with oak galls, 8 x 8 inches
These abstract embroideries employ the technique of negative space embroidery. The unstitched spaces speak of all that’s disappeared from my life this year — I’ve had two shows canceled when the galleries closed. I’ve lost income due to being furloughed from my job. I’ve lost my sister Jackie, who passed away due to cancer. Daily embroidery has been a way to create something positive out of the loss and fragmentation of 2020.
I hope you’ll have a chance to visit the new Easthampton City Arts online gallery and see the exhibition. So far as I can tell, it’s not searchable, so here’s a direct link to my work.
“Fiber and Fashion,” an exhibition at #LOCAL Gallery featuring 16 artists working in a variety of textile media, closes this Sunday.
The show includes three of my wrinkle embroideries — works that I begin by purposely wrinkling linen, then stitching along the wrinkle lines with back stitch or running stitch. I then add other colors and other kinds of stitches to the resulting “map” or “armature” of wrinkle lines, gradually building up areas of greater texture and density. This collage shows the piece titled Winter Flame in progress and finished, stretched over a canvas.
#LOCAL Gallery is located at 40 Cottage Street in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Gallery hours are Thursday–Saturday, 12:00–7:00 pm and Sunday 12:00–5:00 pm