November 2025: Mar Goman - Buttons with Mixed Media

Sometimes I make artwork that really is not about communicating meaning, and this is one of those shows.  The button pieces are (pretty much) purely visual/decorative.  On one level they are about the craft of arranging and sewing on buttons, but their main reason for being is O MY GOD WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE BUTTONS I HAVE MANAGED TO COLLECT???  I do love to collect things, usually with the idea that someday the collected objects, whatever they may be, will be turned into art.   Well, I am getting on in years and it’s time to start using all of these collected objects that I find hard to part with, and transform them into something that someone else might enjoy.  Aside from all of this, I simply love the process of making things—-of handwork.  Sewing on buttons takes a long time, and despite my arthritic hands I very much enjoy the slow process of selecting buttons one by one and sewing them on by hand.  Sometimes it is a meditative process and sometimes I am listening to music or to the news or thinking of other things.  No matter, the process of handwork is always enjoyable (even with the deadline of a show breathing down my neck).  Now….what about those hundreds of old bottles, or dozens of vintage cigar boxes, or jars full of scrabble letters, mahjong tiles, old keys, dead bees…..