“hearth, frame, foundation” explores the textures of urbanism through the lens of five artists, Francis Beaty, Cimone Kind Berman, Annette Cords, Michael Morgan, and Rita Scheer, who draw materials and inspiration from the built environment. Found materials, patterns, textures, and abstraction give visual expression to the dialogue between cities and the people who live in them. The included artists play with diverse methodologies from fields including architecture, construction, archaeology, and botany, exploring the links between construction, inhabitation, and the passage of time in cities. The parallels between construction in the built environment and the artist’s studio are seen through the included series of maquettes and drawings, highlighting how, in architecture, sculpture, or installation, the process of shaping physical space is a translation of ideas from inner worlds to outer expression.

Each artists’ use of familiar forms, materials, and images emphasizes the collaboration between human construction and the weathering forces of nature in shaping our cities and our daily lives. Michael Morgan’s brick and found artifact assemblages consider the city as a material collage that reflects our patterns of living. Annette Cords’ Jacquard tapestries draw inspiration from the codes engraved city surfaces and planetary bodies alike. Cimone Kind Berman’s glassworks echo the textures of aged silver mirrors in imagined lunar landscapes, while Rita Scheer meditates on the flows of materials and energy in greenhouses and textile looms, where architecture encloses the operations that produce the materials of our lives. Francis Beaty’s site-specific works respond directly to Park Towne Place’s North and West Tower galleries, embracing the movements of light and air within each space’s volume.