Anne Crumpacker

Exhibitions

• Let's Get Lost - June 30, 2015

Statement

Twenty years ago, in Tokyo, I stepped into a freshly cut, monumental bamboo installation created by Hiroshi Teshigahara. In that moment I experienced a palpable elevation, the sense of deep order and connection present in a sanctuary or sacred place. Since then bamboo has enchanted me, as it has artists and artisans for thousands of years.
My work interweaves scale and proportion—thin, medium and thick crosscut bamboo sections, the interplay of light and shadow—to create living topographies. My long immersion in Japanese aesthetics guides me as I work intuitively, following a path of discovery.
In developing the crosscut bamboo technique, I am contributing a new approach to a venerable material. Deconstructing bamboo into crosscut slices reveals its cellular makeup and illuminates its natural beauty and strength. Assembling the pieces allows patterns and rhythms to emerge that reflect the interconnection of forces in nature, from microscopic life to wave movement.
Interconnectedness is the source, the revelation, and the energy I seek to express in all of my work.
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Anne holds a bachelor of arts from Scripps College and a master of arts in liberal
studies from Reed College, as well as a teaching credential from University of
California, Berkeley. She is a member of the first graduating class of the MFA program
in Applied Craft and Design from Oregon College of Art and Craft + Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Her wide-ranging arts administration and curatorial experience includes professional and volunteer work, primarily at Contemporary Crafts, Portland Center for the Visual Arts, and the Portland Art Museum. In June 2010 she interned with Doug and Mike
Starn on the acclaimed Big Bambú installation on the roof of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. Anne has been a student of Ikebana for over 15 years. Her passion
for travel, exploration and learning has taken her throughout Asia, Europe, Africa and South America. She credits experiences in Japan as a profound influence on
her art and life.
Anne has recently received the American Bamboo Society 2012 Arts and Crafts Award.