Anchors in Time: Dominic Di Mare

Dominic Di Mare pioneered dimensional weaving in the 1960s and forgednew sculptural directions with cast paper in the 1970s. He receivedfurther acclaim from the 1970s through the 1990s for expanding the useof mixed media in intimate sculptures: first by combining knotted linenwith clay, and later by combining branches with delicate feathers,beads, paper, and horsehair. Though these are simple materials, in DiMare's hands they were transformed into works seen as intensely poetic,enigmatic, or relaying a spiritual presence. In the past few decades,the object maker reset his compass to explore luminous watercolor onpaper in a singular way. He made precise cutouts in his unique artist'sbooks to provide alluring clues for subsequent pages, while in the flatwatercolors of his surreal self-portrait series, he painted such densecompositions that there is an illusion of dimensional realms. While hismastery in a wide range of media is stunning, it is the continuity ofpersonal references-his very own sea of ideas-that makes Di Mare's workso compelling, relevant, and meaningful. His materials, processes, anduniversal symbols poetically encode memories of early life as the eldest son of a Sicilian-born fisherman in Monterey, California. In Di Mare'sartwork, a uniform Greek cross bears meaning both as the cruciform mastof his father's boat and as a symbol of Mediterranean Catholicism, while his ever-present triangles allude to the boat's pointed prow carvingthrough the sea as a place of vision. A line, a strand, a string, apiece of fiber-they all represent his metaphoric, connective thread tothose early experiences and, by extension, to ancestral experiences. The very name Di Mare translates as "of the sea" and is the legacy of hisforebears. This handsome coffee table book consists of 176 pages filledwith beautiful images featuring the artist's work in a number ofmediums.