USEFUL? // 6:00pm-10:00pm

Friday, March 7th, 6:00pm-10:00pm

Eonta Space

34 Dekalb Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07306

Everything made by humans is designed using creativity, experience and a thirst for the joy found in making. But when and how does the creative spark cross over into utility and functionality? The coexistence of beauty and utility happens simultaneously within the creative process, the one the partner and source of inspiration of the other. — *Dan Peyton*

USEful?

The space between art and function.

Bayard, Cheryl Gross, Dan Peyton, HAMEWS, Jill Scipione, Tina Maneca

Artist’s Reception: Friday, February 28th, 6-10pm

OPEN:

Saturday, March 1st, 4-8pm

Sunday, March 2nd, 3-7pm

OPEN for Jersey City Friday:

Friday, March 7th, 6-10pm

Saturday, March 8th, 4-8pm

Sunday, March 9th, 3-7pm

OPEN for Garden State Art Weekend

April 24-27th, 2025

Everything made by humans is designed using creativity, experience and a thirst for the joy found in making. But when and how does the creative spark cross over into utility and functionality? The coexistence of beauty and utility happens simultaneously within the creative process, the one the partner and source of inspiration of the other.

USEful?, our show for Late Winter 2025, offers the work of six artists who, by chance or intent, work within this constantly-changing space, making work that blurs the line between function and frivolity, usefulness and absurdity, the quotidian and the fantastic.

BAYARD creates a must-have throne for every living space. Using his trademark fabric strips over a pipe frame, his monumental piece challenges our idea of what seating represents. Scale, materials and finding comfort all compete to elevate the seated person towards an alternative state of being.

CHERYL GROSS takes her illustrations into a new space with concertina books with her trademark strongly narrative scope. Or are they table-top folding screens, existing within a venerable historical tradition of creating an instant, intimate space on a table with visuals that transport, delight but also shelter?

DAN PEYTON continues his voyage of multimedia discovery with his first forays into stained glass. Named ‘nightlights’, these glass houses push the boundaries beyond simply providing a comforting light in the dark of night. They recall Wardian cases, reliquaries and jewel boxes yet have little real functionality.

HAMEWS continues her upcycling of furniture and fabrics with a furniture suite that might have been pulled from a surburban home yet is embellished and ornamented using traditional embroidery and patch-working techniques. Her tools are the tactile world of ‘home sewing’, now seeing a resurgence, and the physical experience and creative freedom of being a disciplined dancer. JILL

SCIPIONE uses crochet to make statements about such diverse subjects as injustice, scale and humor. Her ‘Umbrella for Robinson Crusoe’ packs botanical detail into a highly impractical package that spins with quirky delight. Her approach is the slow creative arc where each stitch becomes a note in the music or a step on the journey.

TINA MANECA confronts materials up close and personal. Using huge amounts of physical energy and a hammer, her cold forged baskets are symbols of resilience and determination. Steel sheets are cut and pounded into shape, seemingly defying their original intended purpose. But in choosing this elemental approach of using the resources of the body to transform metal, Tina creates objects of alchemical beauty.

We welcome this opportunity to show the work of six artists whose work inhabits this amorphous space between art and function. As with all original work, the stated purpose between conception and final product encapsulates two worlds. The ‘real’ world of the tangible and grounded and the far-flung, impossible world of the mind.

Additional events to be announced.

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