The Arts Center at Duck Creek will open its 2025 exhibition program in Springs on Saturday with “Black and White and Red All Over,” a collaborative exhibition in the John Little Barn by Louise Eastman and Janis Stemmermann, and “Commuter Drawings,” a solo show of work by Ralph Stout in the Little Gallery. A reception will be held Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.
“Black and White and Red All Over” brings together Ms. Eastman’s textile works and “Flying Geese,” an installation, while Ms. Stemmermann will be represented by ceramic vessels and “Note to Self,” an installation.
The show’s title draws inspiration from the classic riddle, “What’s black and white and read all over?” a reference to newspapers, as well as a traditional quilt pattern and broader themes of storytelling and cultural inheritance. The two artists have collaborated and exhibited together often over the years.
Ms. Eastman, a multidisciplinary artist working in ceramics and textiles, will show six 90-inch-square log cabin quilts in black and white and red. Her “Flying Geese” features a hearth made of glazed slip-cast bricks and quilted cloth. Also included will be a series of collaborative prints by the artists, incorporating the log cabin motif.
“When Louise and I were discussing the potential of this exhibition, we both had key important pieces that we decided would be the anchor for the show,” Ms. Stemmermann said in a conversation with Jess Frost, Duck Creek’s founder and executive director. “We were talking about the log cabin pattern that she’s using in her work. The meaning of the log cabin pattern is really home and hearth, a safe place. My pitchers are sort of this placeholder for containers for water — water as life or hospitality — a very sort of primal domestic object, so I made 12 ceramic pitchers and glazed them in red in response to Louise’s log cabin quilting pattern.”
An ongoing project, “Note to Self” centers on a rediscovered note the artist wrote to herself 30 years ago, which she carved in reverse into maple trees that had fallen outside her studio. In the version on view at Duck Creek, the carved trees are inked and pressed by hand into quilted fabric that hangs on the wall above the inked trees.
Mr. Stout, a longtime Springs resident who moved last year to Greenport, had a successful career in computer science. It wasn’t until his retirement in 2006 that he was able to devote himself fully to painting and drawing.
His abstract “Commuter Drawings” were made with a felt-tip pen on newsprint during his daily subway commutes in New York City. Each drawing, approximately four and a quarter inches square, was executed on pages of The New York Times.
“The newspaper was the perfect canvas,” Mr. Stout has said. “Each piece is almost exactly the same size, but each captures a different moment in time, with fragments of the day’s news still visible beneath the drawing.”
His work explores the tension between natural forms and mathematical precision, the latter a nod to his degree in mathematics from Bucknell University. His compositions reveal visible underdrawings and a process marked by layering and revision.
The exhibition, organized by his daughters, Georgie and Sara Stout, features more than 120 of the commuter drawings, installed in grid formation. “This wonderful thing happened where Ralph’s work is on newspaper and the theme of the show is black and white and red all over,” Ms. Frost said. The grid motif is another coincidental link between the two shows.
On Sunday afternoon at 3, Sara Stout will lead a workshop inspired by her father’s art making. The class invites participants to consider how art can emerge from the simplest tools and the smallest slices of time. Supplies will be provided.
Now 86, Mr. Stout continues to create daily, often sketching on the morning paper over breakfast. “Commuter Drawings” is his first solo show on the East End.
The exhibitions will continue through June 8.
