exhibiting Artist

Viola Bordon

 March 6 - July 26, 2026

BA Harrington

April 3- July 26, 2026

Exhibiting location

Museum of Art in Wood

The Museum for Art in Wood comprises the gallery for changing exhibitions, the permanent collection, the Fleur & Charles Bresler Research Library, the Len Scherock Museum Store, and the Earl Powell Artist Research Files. It also organizes arts residencies, which are held on an annual basis, and provides in-person and virtual talks and activities.

Since its inception in 1986, the Museum for Art in Wood (formerly the Center for Art in Wood and the Wood Turning Center, respectively) has been widely recognized by artists, collectors, scholars, and the public as a critical resource for the study of art, craft, and design in the material of wood. Emerging from biannual symposia and exhibitions held between 1976 and 1986, the Museum serves an international community as well as its home city of Philadelphia and environs. Under the leadership of founding Director Emeritus Albert LeCoff—a studio woodturner in his own right—the Museum supported and documented the developing field of woodturning as a tool for artistic expression as well as artisanal production.

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Muliebrity

Since the American Revolution, the Roman goddess Libertas has personified the nation’s ideals, embodying evolving definitions of freedom and belonging. The 1886 dedication of the Statue of Liberty, however, unfolded amid national conflict over the boundaries of liberty, including the end of Reconstruction, debates over immigration, and the rise of women’s suffrage. Drawing on archival research at the American Historical Society, textile artist Viola Bordon examines “Lady Liberty” as a fragmented American icon. Her triptych Muliebrity, composed through appliqué and found textiles, invokes a distinctly feminine power grounded in endurance and embodied knowledge, prompting us to consider how figures of womanhood have been repeatedly mobilized to serve patriarchal institutions.

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Artist Statement on piece Weather Conditions: 

I was thinking formally about the shape of the flag and how it shifts under different weather conditions. Wind completely reorganizes the stripes, collapsing and distorting their relationships to one another, in a way that feels similar to how our national relationships change so quickly. As citizens, our sense of belonging is often unconscious, yet it conditions us into a system that can be easily pulled, bent, or redirected.

I am interested in reducing national identity to a repeating pattern whose context is constantly shifting. Although this work does not contain a flag, the image is so dominant that the implication feels sufficient. The flag’s meaning is ambiguous and unstable, capable of holding many things at once. I choose not to define it further, allowing the viewer to bring their own associations into the work.
 

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About the artist

Viola Bordon

Quilting traditions form the foundation of my practice, where domestic labor speaks quietly yet powerfully, evoking care, histories of reuse, survival, and resistance. I draw inspiration from anonymous quilters, Mennonite Action, and the Gee’s Bend quiltmakers, whose work embodies these principles. My fiber sculptures reflect this legacy, using soft materials that shift and transform, resisting rigidity. As a fiber artist and sculptor, I engage with natural cycles of change, allowing materials to breathe, evolve, and dissolve. My work highlights the impermanence of materials and the fluid forces that shape landscapes. Projects like weaving water hyacinth and cattail fibers in Nepal explore resilience and reclamation, entangling ecological and historical narratives. Through ephemeral installations and quilting techniques, I create pieces that explore the intersection of craft, labor, and transformation, aiming to make nature's ongoing cycles tangible.

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Research Location

Historical Society of Pennsylvainia

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, founded in 1824, is one of the nation’s largest archives of historical documents. We are proud to serve as Philadelphia’s Library of American History, with over 21 million manuscripts, books, and graphic images encompassing centuries of US history. HSP serves more than 4,000 on-site researchers annually, as well as millions more worldwide who use its online resources. HSP is also a leading center for documenting and studying ethnic communities and immigrant experiences in the 20th century, and one of the largest family history libraries in the country. Through educator workshops, research opportunities, public programs, and lectures throughout the year, we strive to make history relevant and exhilarating to all.

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Suite Américaine

In this exhibition, Harrington not only remakes the original forms with her own hands, asserting her technical skill, but also highlights the revolutionary potential of furniture to self-actualize the creative endeavors of women. This body of work references late-seventeenth through early-nineteenth century dower chests, writing desks, and sewing tables, which were designed specifically for women but historically made by men. However, where these objects once stored and concealed the labor and craft skill of women, Harrington opens them. The use of French in the exhibition’s title, Suite Américaine, is both a nod to the eighteenth-century term for a furniture set and a phrasing that allows the artist to feminize the word “American.”

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Suite Américaine

BA Harrington

Since 2012, Harrington has been a Professor of Woodworking in the Department of Art and Design, and Director of the Wood Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She continues to write essays, speak at conferences, and build sculptural work in reference to early American furniture forms. She has held Windgate Artist Residencies at San Diego State University and SUNY Purchase and was a recipient of the Center for Craft’s inaugural Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. Each year this substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists who are revising, reclaiming, and advancing the history of craft through their work. Harrington graduated from the Cabinet & Furnituremaking program at the North Bennet Street School in Boston. She also holds an M.F.A. in Wood and an M.A. In Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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Research Location

Winterthur Museum, Gardens, and Library

Today’s creativity can be inspired by objects from the past. Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library is a historic mansion featuring one of the most significant collections of American decorative arts in the world. These objects and our library collections help us broadly understand the artistic, cultural, social, and intellectual history of the Americas and everyday Americans in a global context from the 17th to the 20th centuries. As part of the Radical Americana initiative, Winterthur offers an experience to inform or inspire your own creative process, to provide respite and an opportunity to observe the natural world, and to encourage historical research that enhances the contemporary meaning of current work.

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Exhibiting partner

Radical Americana

For the Semiquincentennial, The Clay Studio is leading Radical Americana, a series of exhibitions organized by a consortium of Philadelphia’s arts and cultural institutions. Each celebrates how artists today are continuing the city’s robust legacy as a center for art, skill, and civic engagement. The 45 artists researched and were inspired by the art and history of Philadelphia in 1776, and the subsequent commemorations in 1876, 1926, and 1976. The artists' new work will add their voices to current dialogue about our nation’s present and future, inspire civil dialogue, celebrate Philadelphia's diversity, and continue the rich tradition of creativity in our city.

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