Atticus Adams knew right place for his work was, but didn’t know how to get there. His series of hanging mesh sculptures, Catching Sunbeams from the Porch Swing of Wisteria Castle, needs light and space that a traditional gallery might not provide. Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council CEO Patrick Fisher visited his studio and asked him what he saw the ideal environment for his work was. “A greenhouse,” Adams answered. “But who do I know who has a greenhouse?”
Atticus Adams Explores Memory in The Frick’s Greenhouse
Fisher suggested the Frick Pittsburgh. “I thought ‘no way could I get in touch with someone at the Frick,’” Adams said. “Patrick said he could get me in touch. I thought to myself ‘oh, sure you will.’” Adams figured it was an empty art world networking promise. But the very next day, Fisher put him in touch with curator Dawn Reid Brean. The show soon came to life in the free greenspace on the Frick grounds.
The Frick turned out to be the ideal place for Adams’ work. “Helen Clay Frick made a time capsule of a place where she was really happy, which is also what I’ve done,” Adams explained. “My grandmother’s things are gone, but the memories are there.” His grandmother lived in Morgantown, West Virginia, in a home that’s still in his family. However, they renovated it in the years since, leaving him with only the memories. Where he remembers a wooden porch draped in wisteria is now mostly concrete. But Helen Clay Frick had the opportunity to do something of a reverse renovation where the space became a shrine to her memories. (Those who go on the Clayton tour can see the room where she grew up in, which she still slept in as an adult).
Clouds of Memory
Adams and Brean decided that Adams would make one sculpture specifically for the Frick. He based it on Helen Clay Frick’s memories of her mother’s beautiful bright pink and gold sequined gowns. The reference to Adelaide Frick’s dresses also aligns with Adams’ own memories of playing with the dresses in his grandmother’s trunk as a child. Inside the mesh sculpture, Adams placed four golden nests and one silver one, representing the Frick parents, the two adult children, and then Henry and Adelaide’s daughter, Martha, who died at age six. “Helen was a real bird lover, and I also wanted to use the nests to call back to the idea of nesting in your home,” Adams explained.
He called that particular sculpture a “cloud of pink memory.” One of the technical achievements is to make mesh, a metal material, into something light and almost soft. Some do look like clouds, others like gossamer portals or offerings from some sort of woodland fairy—the kind of thing you’d see on a long hike as evidence that the local fae is watching out for you.
Art Open to the Public at the Frick
Adams’ exhibit coincides with the closing of Frick’s main museum space over the summer. Brean described the project as the “very glamorous” work of installing a new fire alarm system. In spite of the closure, “our site is so varied, and there’s so much to see,” Brean said. Another major draw for Catching Sunbeams from the Porch Swing of Wisteria Castle: entrance into the greenhouse is free. No museum admission required. Adams’ work shares space with the flower collection and the Frick’s edible garden partnership with Grow Pittsburgh. He likes it that way. His sculptures now get to live alongside flowers, in a space where the air smells like orchids, marigolds, and roses.
Adams has been making what he calls “neo-Appalachian folk art” for his decades-long career, but this specific body of work came about during 2020. He was often alone in his studio in Lawrenceville and thought of the things that made him happy as a child. “I was trying not to get depressed,” he said. “I would see this little profusion of rainbows and think that things were going to be okay.” Despite all of his years of formal training at Rhode Island School of Design, Yale School of Art, and Harvard School of Architecture, making that body of work taught him that art’s deepest value is as a source of healing and comfort.
“Resilient despite being delicate.”
And though the sculptures look soft, they can weather the elements. “They’re really resilient despite being delicate,” Adams said. He hung them high up in the greenhouse so they float slightly above eye level and don’t disturb the plants. Catching Sunbeams from the Porch Swing of Wisteria Castle will be open through October 26, and while the museum space is closed, the Frick grounds remain entirely open. “I’m sure some things will fade, but I’m cool with that,” he expressed. “It was just an amazing opportunity. It’s a rare thing as an artist that you get such a great fit.”
Story by Emma Riva
Photography courtesy of the Frick Pittsburgh
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