Join contemporary artist Jesse Harrod for an afternoon of demonstrations and discussion inspired by the exhibition Françoise Grossen Selects. This in-gallery encounter is co-presented by the nonprofit arts institution SculptureCenter in Long Island City, NY, where Harrod’s work will be featured in the exhibition In Practice: Material Deviance from January 29–March 27, 2017.

Beginning at 1 pm, Harrod will conduct an in-gallery macramé demonstration as she works on a new suspended artwork created using paracord. Harrod’s artworks are built through the interplay of many brightly colored paracords knotted and shaped into suggestive forms. For this demonstration, Harrod will be adding new elements and details to an in-progress artwork, allowing viewers the opportunity to see the techniques and physicality of macramé processes. 

At 2 pm, Harrod will be joined by MAD’s Windgate Research and Collections Curator Elissa Auther for a co-led tour of the exhibition Françoise Grossen Selects. Together, Auther and Harrod will offer interpretations of Grossen’s artwork from the complimentary perspectives of a historian and contemporary artist.

This Encounter will be followed by Knots, Plaits, Links, and Loops: The Art of Françoise Grossen, a Talk by Elissa Auther in the MAD Theater at 3 pm.

Jesse Harrod has an MFA from the department of Fibers  & Material Studies at the School of The Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. She is currently the Head of Fibers & Material Studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Harrod's solo exhibitions include Low Ropes Course at NurtureArt in Brooklyn, Toxic Shock and Hotdog at Vox Populi in Philadelphia, and Soft Hardware at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA. Her work has been exhibited in numerous group exhibitions throughout the United States. These include the traveling exhibition Queer Threads: Crafting Identity and Community, Towards Textiles, Material Fix at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI, Feminism (n.): Plural at the Women Made Gallery in Chicago, and String Along at Antenna Gallery in New Orleans. She has been awarded residencies at the Fire Island Artist's Residency, the Open Studio Residency at Haystack Mountain School of Craft, the Icelandic Textile Center, the Vermont Studio Center, Ox-bow, and RAIR Philly. Harrod's work will appear in two forthcoming edited collections: a book-length catalog to accompany the exhibition Queer Threads and an edited collection of essays about Harrod’s work published by Publication Studio: Hudson featuring contributions from Jenni Sorkin, Danny Orendorff, Allyson Mitchell, Laurel Sparks, Anthony Romero and JD Samson.