Making Art of the Unexpected

Two gifted local women have spent a lifetime making a virtue of the unexpected. Carolyn DiNunzio, 91, of Lexington, and Barbara Buono, 93, of Waltham, both in their 90s, have a printing and quilting show up at Munroe Center for the Arts--Dual Reflections--that demonstrates their skills at turning serendipity into art. The two women, and Buono's daughter, Sally Santosuosso of Lexington, explained their methods during a recent interview.

Barbara Buono & Carolyn DiNunzio

“You're never quite certain what's going to appear on the paper,” DiNunzio said of her printmaking process. She uses a collograph press “like an old-fashioned clothes-wringing machine. She assembles atop a metal plate inks and flat objects like fabric or bits of rubber, and on top of that comes fine paper. Then she sends this a big roller over this combination.

“Very often you'll put your heart and soul into making the plate,” she said. “I'm always looking for texture. Sometimes [the result] is hopeless, but you can often rescue them. You can use gauche and watercolor on them.”

“Some of your mistakes have turned out wonderfully,” Buono commented to DiNunzio.

DiNunzio agreed, explaining that she's turned 22 of these collographs into images of angels, several of which are on display at the show.

Japanese Angel by Carolyn DiNunzio

            Serendipity also influences Buono's quilts. She has 40 boxes of pieces of fabric that she's found all over the region. “It's not ‘found art,' “she laughed,” but ‘found fabric.'  I go to stores and thrifts, and sales, not just to fabric stores. I have taken gowns and dresses and taken them apart. I never used a piece of fabric as I found it.”

Infloresce by Barbara Buono

            Buono uses pieces of fabric of many different textures and kinds and materials. Sometimes the bits have images on them, such as in her work In the Company of Angels, a centerpiece of the show. The piece includes imagery from different religions, including angels peering from behind a ridge of fabric. The piece incorporates the unexpected in other ways, too. It was a process work, a work of meditation after the death of her grandson (Santosuosso's son), Matthew Santosuosso, eight years ago.

            “In the Company of Angels is a patch out of sorrow,” Buono said. But the images in the work don't necessarily represent her grandson. “I didn't look at the work thinking of Matt,.” she said. Her daughter added an explanation.

            “There's a big difference when you do it as an act of prayer,” Santosuosso said. “That's why the subject matter is not important; it's all internal, you would choose things you wouldn't normalyl choose; you just do it. You don't have a form in mind; the art informs you.”

“I'd see something on my [fabric] shelf,” Buono agreed. “It morphs into something. It's intuitive.”

            Both artists work with the unknown; both incorporate angels—how did they find each other?

            Santosuosso explained that she brought the two women together because they both use a similar color palette, but more because the two women are kindred spirits.

            “I knew the very minute that I met you that there was a connection,” Santosuosso said to the women. “The personalities of the two artists—there is a certain energy, a lightness, a life energy, an interior feeling that comes across when both of them talk and carry themselves. When you see the show, you'll see how well they work together.”

            The two-person show, Dual Reflections,” curated by Munroe artist Sally Santosuosso, runs through March. The Bob Adams & hall galleries at Munroe Center for the Arts, 1403 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington, are open 9-6, Monday through Friday. Call (781) 862-6040 for more information. Please join us for an artists reception, Sunday, March 14, from 2 to 4 PM.