Tuesday, 25 February 2025 at 1:00PM ET
This is a virtual event via Zoom
hosted by Pucker Gallery.
This event will be recorded and
uploaded to our YouTube channel.
Join us Tuesday, 25 February 2025 at 1:00PM ET for a conversation on the cloth paintings of Pucker Gallery artist, Ali Clift.
This WebinART will be an opportunity to enter the magical world that Ali continues to fabricate. The Pandora's Purse series provides Ali and her viewers with a rare and mysterious moment to enter her kingdom of visual delights.
Together with:
Ali Clift – Pucker Gallery Artist
Anita Ruthling Klaussen – Friend and Art Collector
Mara Williams - Brattleboro Museum Curator Emerita
Dr. Carl Herbert - Gallery Associate
Caroline Staller – Gallery Associate
Bernard Pucker – Gallery Director
The exhibition Other Worlds will be on view at Pucker Gallery from 1 March through 4 May 2025.
About Our Panelists...
Ali Clift’s unique and mysterious cloth paintings are delicately crafted using fabric. Born in 1949 in Nova Scotia, Ali is a graduate of Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her first cloth paintings were inspired technically by a picture composed of small cloth pieces at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Throughout her artistic career, Ali has been fascinated by the challenge of creating an authentic sense of space through the illusion of fabric. As she continues to expand her creative process, each new body of work introduces distinct subjects and a notable change in her exploration of cloth as a medium for painting. An ardent and engaged traveler, she shares, literally and figuratively, fragments of her experiences in new environments. Ali’s earlier works inspired by Mexico are featured in the book Paintings of the Last Decade: Still Life, which is the second publication featuring the artist. The first, entitled Beyond the Big Top: The Cloth Paintings and Graphic Works, explores her successful circus-themed works. Ali’s art has been represented by Pucker Gallery since 1977 and is included in public collections in New England, New York, Canada, Israel, Vietnam, and Bali. She resides in Chelsea, Massachusetts and Naples, Florida.
Anita Ruthling Klaussen grew up on a ranch in Tesuque, NM just north of Santa Fe with no electricity or running water. In order to be bilingual, her family spoke only Spanish at home. They slept outside, even in the winter snows, raised their own vegetables and fruits in a large garden, had goats for milk, chickens for eggs and the occasional roast. They were also home schooled. Her life revolved around the seasons, local festivals, and travel. She eventually went to Boston University, graduating in 1960. The Peace Corps in 1962-63, in Caracas, Venezuela followed college. In 1994, she married Bud Collins, whose life covering tennis took him to amazing places all over the globe. It has enabled her to photograph beautiful places. Bud died in March of 2016, but she is continuing to travel and hopes to experience more of our planet.
Mara Williams assumed Emerita status in 2021, after curating exhibits at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center for thirty-three years. Her area of expertise is modern and contemporary art. As a partner in Arts Bridge LLC, Williams leads exhibition teams for institutions developing new large-scale museum projects. She holds an A.B. in theatre from Boston College; an MFA in museology from Syracuse University and has completed doctoral course work and passed comprehensives in comparative arts at New York University. She is Chair of the Wolf Kahn Foundation. She has served as chair of the Vermont Arts Council and as a board member of the New England Museum Association, as well as three terms on the Senate Curatorial Advisory Committee for the U.S. Capitol.
Dr. Carl Herbert is a fourth-generation physician whose career has been devoted to helping infertility patients overcome a wide spectrum of obstacles to create their families. Early in his career he participated in the founding of one of the first eIVF centers in the United States. For more than forty years, Dr. Herbert has contributed to the growth and development of assisted reproductive technologies, continually implementing the evolving techniques and optimizing their clinical applications for care. The ambiguity of a socially awkward accolade, “You got me pregnant!”, has become a recurrent reward, both humorous and joyful. By serendipity, Dr. Herbert walked into Pucker Gallery for the first time in 1985 when visiting Boston for a medical conference. From this point on, his nascent interest in art grew under the generous tutelage and encouragement of Mr. Pucker. A close personal friendship evolved as they visited artists and exhibitions around the world; exchanged thoughts on the experience and intrinsic value that art, in all its many forms, can provide individuals and society; and shared writings which illuminated these principles.
Caroline Staller is a ceramic sculptor and educator. She attended New Mexico State University in 2011 and graduated in 2015 with degrees in Fine Art and Biology with a Biochemistry minor. She completed her MFA in Ceramics from the University of Missouri in 2021 where she studied under artists Bede Clarke and Joseph Pintz. Her small-scale tableaus and carvings of horses are peaceful and reflective with a focus on the beauty she sees in ‘simple’ objects both made by hand and found, which is reminiscent of her childhood exploring the desert on horseback and finding unique objects aged by the harsh elements. She has taught ceramic sculpture at Harvard Ceramics where she encouraged students to focus on a close conversation with clay through color, texture, and form. Caroline currently works at her home studio as well as Pucker Gallery.
Bernie Pucker is the director of Pucker Gallery, which he founded with his wife, Sue, on Boston's historic Newbury Street in 1967. Pucker Gallery represents over fifty artists from around the world, presenting approximately ten exhibitions annually, often paired with artist talks, virtual “WebinARTs,” and Gallery receptions. Bernie is currently a Board Member at the Japan Society, Boston, and the Jewish Publication Society. He also serves on the Leadership Council for Facing History and Ourselves as well as the Artistic Advisory Board for the Terezin Music Foundation. Previously, he has served as President of Solomon Schechter Day School, President of the Newbury Street League, and Board Member for the Friends of Copley Square and The Unity Project, among others. Bernie received his MA in Modern Jewish History from Brandeis University and his BA in History and English Literature from Columbia College.