Essays

Venue: Manhattan Graphics Center, NYC

Exhibition Title: Larry Schulte
Years: 2009

Author: Dale Kushner, Poet and Novelist

The Mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find;
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas;
Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.            Andrew Marvell, “The Garden”

“I start with a story. It’s 2003. I’m cozied in on the couch in the living room of Ragdale Foundation’s Barn House about to view a presentation by one of the visiting visual artists. The lights click off, the projector whirs, an image fills the screen. Five minutes pass, ten minutes, and the artist, Larry Schulte, I talking about the images on the screen, but I have more or less stopped listening, my curiosity dissolved into rapt visual attention as I feel myself being pulled into an unnamable country, a terrain that exists somewhere between the mimetic and imaginal, a world both foreign and familiar with which I sense affinities. At the end of presentation, tears stand in my eyes.

Carl Jung called the experience participation mystique, a psychological condition below the level of consciousness in which objects and people interact in a mystical manner – in Buddhist terms, an awakening of awareness to our interconnectedness with all life through the interpenetration of natural and human realms. This is exactly the phenomenologic engagement called forth by Schulte’s work.

How many of us have not thrown a stone into a still pond and watched ripples spread from the epicenter? How many of us have not coveted pine cones, shells, feathers, tide-marked rocks/ The perfect symmetry of these objects, the harmony between form and function amazes even as it consoles. This consoling aspect, which arises mysteriously from within, is the gateway of empathy through which knowledge of the world enters. If “consoling aspect” seems a confusing term, it might be because we think of consolation as an act by which a person is allayed of sorrow. But art that consoles is more deeply connected to the collapse between subject and object – between I and Thou – what a Zen master might call the condition of kensho. As Jo Hoshi said, “Heaven and earth and I are of the same root. All things and I are of the same substance.”

With disclosive wonder, Larry Schulte depicts psychic depths using the non-representational language of Matter: color, shape, pattern. Basho exhorts us to “learn about the pine from the pine, learn about the bamboo from the bamboo.” Without losing fidelity to the real, Schulte excites our imagination. The central theme of pattern repetition suggests our ongoing existence, repetition pointing to what is infinite and eternal. The movement and dynamism of his images mimics our inherent, life-sustaining élan vital. Thus, when we recognize ourselves in the non-human, the burden of our isolation from the universal order is dispelled.

What could be more hopeful? More joyous? The wonder induces by the kaleidoscopic show of repeated patterns in Larry Schulte’s work affirms the generative play of the universe. If the earthly demand of the soul is play, then Larry Schulte is an artist harboring a fully engaged spirit.

Venue: 499 Park Avenue, NYC

Exhibition Title: Patterns and Progressions
Years: 2009

Author: Steven Alexander, Artist
Publisher of Steven Alexander Journal
Associate Professor of Art at Marywood University

The universe in which we live is largely a homemade affair, carved out of the given world by our vocabulary and our syntax . . . There are in reality no separate substantial things, there are only merging events and interacting processes in space-time.
Aldous Huxley

“Human history is marked by myriad monuments to the recognition of our existence as part of a larger cosmic whole. Primeval shamanic practitioners employed symbolic images and movement to invoke heightened interaction with natural forces. Ancient cultures constructed their earthly domains in correspondence with celestial configurations, placing themselves in integral relation with the cosmos. Ancient philosophers derived mathematic, aesthetic and architectural principles from fundamental relations perceived in the natural world. Renaissance artists rediscovered correlations between scientific and aesthetic investigation, setting the stage for modern culture. In painting, Cezanne’s intensive study of patterns and repetitions in the fundamental shapes and spaces of the landscape opened the door to pure abstract painting as a form of ontological research. While it seems obvious that the pe4rpetual state of the cosmos is one of metamorphosis and infinite complexity, we are nevertheless constantly driven to differentiate its nuances. Intense observation of natural occurrences through time has allowed us to glimpse fundamental relations, repetitions and cycles that we have come to regard as indicators of systemic order. These small glimpses are portals through which we enter into a dialogue with the universe, paths by which we explore the nature of our relationship with the vastness of reality.

Trained as a mathematician, Larry Schulte brings to his endeavors as a painter and printmaker, a keen sense of the seamless fabric of reality, of the universal ramifications of fundamental relations, and of the metaphoric relationship between art and the world. His paintings are physical constructs that utilize mathematic formulas to not only stand for unifying cosmic principles, but to actually demonstrate their dynamism. Built out of multiple images that are fragmented then literally woven together, Schulte’s paintings form a physical embodiment of simultaneous realities merging, interacting as one encapsulated perception – one glimpse. Using the Fibonacci sequence of numbers as a structuring device, Schulte sets up grid patterns of sequentially varying intervals, articulated by physically interweaving two or more fragmented images. The results are stunning, optically vibrant patters of color, texture and gesture that pulsate in a pixilated dance.

The large horizontal bands of orange/pink, white and black in Coral Eve (1992) are interrupted by a central area of gold, then subdivide into smaller and smaller segments with each color making an appearance within each large color band. There is a distinct landscape reference in the horizontality of the image, which might resemble a digital analysis of a Cezanne painting. However, the optical effect of kinetic undulations caused by the mathematically derived grid sets the image in perpetual motion. Fibonacci Cantor: Circus (1986) features Pollock-like drips and energetic gestures of paint in a predominately pink, blue and white scheme with bits of red and yellow. In this bright and celebratory piece, the gesture is the dominant feature, made more potent by the tension and release provided by the grid.

A much more somber tone is evoked by the two largest paintings in the exhibition, Look Around Gone: Christopher, Peter, John and Dark (both 1990). The former has alternating horizontal bands of black and white with salmon and blue/gray interspersed throughout. Compared with other works in the show, the grid divisions here are much smaller in relation to the overall format, causing highly complex color interactions even within the limited palette range. There is a certain gravity in this work that is not evident in most of Schulte’s paintings. The bands of black and white roll like waves across the picture plane; and rather than an internal optical kineticism, we sense in this piece a density – a weighty presence. Dark again works with a muted palette of various grays with a touch of ochre, but has much more subtle horizontality, and relies on a dizzying display of close-value contrasts to create a sense of muted overlapping translucent planes and vibrating optical radiations – an effect not unlike staring at the back of one’s eyelids.

Perhaps the most glorious painting in this exhibition, distinctive for its radiant color as well as its pronounced asymmetry, is Fibonacci Roses (1989). In this small painting, a blue/gray field contains an intense red area that forms a slight diagonal from the left edge center to the bottom right corner, with exquisite interruptions of yellow/green, light blue and deep ultramarine within different sections. The surface is both gestural and voluminous; and the lushness of the color is heightened by the optical grid. This painting, as it breathes with life and shines with effulgence, brings to mind Huxley’s hallucinatory exclamation – “This is how one ought to see!”

In recent years, Schulte has been deeply involved in serigraphy, approaching the screen printing process with the same intensity and physicality that he applies to his paintings. Two important series of prints are represented in this exhibition, the RC 12 group from 2006, and the most recent Moiré pieces. The RC 12 prints are densely layered diagrammatic images that feature multiple levels of grid structures, some articulated with line, some with small color spots, some as color bands. Over these numerous grids, or integrated with them, is an actual mechanical diagram, indicating circuitry, or paths of movement, or energy flow. This introduction of a “found” utilitarian element gives these pieces a concrete connection to the physical world of technological infrastructures, and invokes the complexity of information overlays in contemporary culture. The Moiré series, from 2008, is a group of layered serigraphs in which Schulte achieves a new level of optical complexity with the simplest of means. By overlapping ever finer grid patterns in close-valued colors, he has created optic situations in which the components breathe and pulse together as one teeming whole.

This comprehensive selection of Larry Schulte’s paintings and prints reveal his deep commitment to the art object as an enabler of heightened experience. Implicit in all of Schulte’s work are the fundamental assumptions – that human creative endeavor, whether it be mathematic or aesthetic, is capable of opening a portal, allowing us to glimpse the essential nature of reality – that human constructs are capable of embodying the universal – that the vastness of the cosmos is ultimately contained in every particle, in each small glimpse.”

Venue: Hudson Guild Gallery, NYC

Exhibition Title: Math + Weaving = Art
Years: 2014

Author: Ann Star, Author, Starr Review of Contemporary Art

New Math, the Distaff, and the Broken Mirror

If Larry Schulte’s paper weaving be mathematics, let them introduce a bright, new curriculum – newer than new, beyond extra-curricular, the way math should be taught to those of us whose school days were wasted on numbers instead of on riot and love.

Schulte’s weaving is applied math – formal structures bound to memories and emotions as ancient as myth: faithful Penelope, waiting twenty years of Odysseus to return, weaving the whole time. Philomela, her tongue cut out, revealing the horror of her violation by weaving it into a tapestry; the myth of the three Fates figuring life itself through images of thread and weaving.

In Western tradition, textile arts are women’s work. Schulte’s art often brings to mind vernacular textile traditions as practiced by generations of American women. It is difficult not to see the New England and eastern seaboard woven coverlet in “Modulation,” “Into the Depths,” and “Beneath.” Knitted stitches appear in “Woven in Lace,” and the design of “Flag 24” resembles a Shaker baby quilt.

Geometry, repletion, and pattern in themselves do nothing. But they are mighty means for containing and revealing content, especially content of such warm emotion as Schulte’s is. On the simplest level, the dominance of red, yellow, and orange creates constant hot spots, His frequent introduction of blues and turned-down violets doesn’t so much cool the heat, as transfer it into the underground fire for which the wise are always alert.

What are these works about? “Luke,” and “Brandy’s” are clearly portraits, “Clearly,” I say? The weaving warps the images, displacing and repeating elements to image them – or our viewing selves? — askew.

Look into “Red, Yellow, Blue,” where the paper weaving seems to be covered with still another woven layer, this one of beautifully balanced, bright paint splashes. What lies behind all that distracting color? Is there a disassembled person lurking? Someone fallen to pieces? Or do we see ourselves in a broken mirror”

“Red, Yellow, Blue,” like most works in the show has not only visual depth, but the depth of a masterful short story, wherein disguise and revelation exist in many layers. Some of this is on the paper; some is where your anxious expectations of the unknown fill in the blanks. Are these stories like Philomena’s, stories with no tongue to tell them, stories silently coded in burning color?

Schulte works in a traditionally feminine, ancient medium. He embraces vernacular expression to create work that is blindingly contemporary. His weavings are made a loom as genuine as the Fates, where lives are revealed or hidden in complex, beguiling, and interrupted patterns.

Venue: Tortuga Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

Exhibition Title: Two Worlds of Larry Schultez
Years: 2021

Author: Lara Goldmann, Artist, Poet, Art Historian

“The not quite conscious is the realm of potentiality that must be called on,
and insisted on, if we are ever to look beyond the pragmatic sphere of
the here and now,
the hollow nature of the present.”
(Jose Esteban Munoz)

Recently…or was it…recently has changed. As recently always changes but this time there are
marks to mark points to pin thought fixed in time a different recently but those points and
marks fixed thoughts again you thought again you had them down and now they are shifting

is this joy are you crying

cages silence is the unseen realm of sound you cannot escape and the strings and scratches
and the air through a trumpet and the key missed is this joy are you crying, unseen no, but it is
crying, unseen yes, warm escape that is the recently you hold and release and hold.

you hold.

we are invited

see there, the weaving and stitching, layers of colors, it’s the industrial space filled with what
escapes, indulgence but no, do you remember what you read, did you look up the image that
told the story, it is yours now, textured into the past a present see there,
do you understand now, but you do, yes, as you don’t,

because that is not the point, it never is but everyone is trying so hard, but trying is not
getting them anywhere

and you have been there all along, long, never trying, just seeing and hearing, there is a wonder
beyond the certainty the number gives you and they try and you are entertained but turn, there
is more

and that is there, recently, the inside of life, the fabric of layers and lives had, having and to
be, be/hold, you hold, recently and I wondered is this joy or are you crying, recently the silence
outlasted 4.33 minute, and then, now it was all woven and stitched into the math that will be
the forever of numbers making sense of what you know but do not, because that is not the
point, now, it must have been, it was recently but recently has changed, now and again,
someone watched you see one of those afternoons, sometimes we call them perfect, one of
those afternoons someone broke the quiet, disrupted, broke the quiet

‘why do we make pies?‘

but we do

and you went and made pie

not an answer but all that could be said, a gesture, defeating that which we build to mad
reason, why do we make pies but we do and see there that is all that can be said

the other day someone now said something about

‘a je-té out of the window’

this is a quote the someone is not anymore but recently, it still seemed to capture that which is
your world in two and three and others

the world of larry schulte

‘a je-té out of the window’ if one could capture that moment, that body that beauty released
from all suspension for a second the dancing body in perfect harmony expanding
defeating gravity for a second

life
life so beautiful
so quiet
exploding

anyway

and you went and made pie because

you hold

and then
to think of the work of larry schulte is to think of that which we understand, neither knowing
what really, or why, to stand and look and understand and in that understanding is a beauty a
wonder a quiet smile and the exuberance of silence like that
other image, recently, that star exploding somewhere and how can an explosion be so quiet?

to think of the work of larry schulte is to think of and wonder what makes us beings, filled with
complexities in which language fails but we insist and we continue, we layer the languages.
unheard

what then would it be
we could hear but not
perhaps there are three things (numbers are good0
the three things needed, perhaps that is all it takes, three ingredients to make that which is and
beyond the wondrous complexities of days lived, lives had, being had and the lives to be had.
the wondrous complexity of that

there are many numbers in the work of larry schulte but what if really,
perhaps all it needs are three
at least to make the worlds, so many, of larry schulte
three things

to see
and to hear
and to care

you hold

we are invited

Written on the occasion of the exhibit Two Worlds of Larry Schulte.
By Lara Goldmann

Venue: Fusion Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

Exhibition Title: Made in Albuquerque
Years: 2024

The Moonweaver
(for Larry Schulte)

I stand before
a square of canvas,
an easel  holding a tapestry
made of line and color,
a view into worlds
within worlds,
shifting patters,
a prismatic confusion of light
that overwhelms the optic nerve,
images cascade out of control,
dendritic synapses short-circuit,
and the mind struggles
to make sense of these
psychedelic patterns,
this beautiful
sensory overload.

But underneath
these visual contradictions
is a numeric perfection,
a mathematical sequence
extended exponentially,
a sequence of pure logic
woven into the
warp and weft of design,
the poetry of numbers
turned into an art form,
a visual display that tricks the eye.

And so we end, where we began,
hypnotized,
lost
in worlds within worlds  . . .

Venue: Fusion Gallery, Albuquerque, NM

Exhibition Title: Made in Albuquerque
Years: 2024

Author: Patricia Malarcher, Artist, Writer
Smithsonian Institution Renwick Fellow
Editor, Surface Design, 1993-2012
Honorary fellow, American Craft Council

“Larry Schulte combines a mathematician’s sense of order with an artist’s engagement in open-ended play. Those contrary characteristics are manifested in two different bodies of work. Schulte’s signature series of painted paper weavings has been in progress over decades; his prolific output of stitched paper collages is relatively recent.

In the woven pieces, colors, shapes and patterns flicker in and out of interlaced strips, their variations in width based on Fibonacci sequences. Whether the process yields a bold central image, such as a circle, or a patchy field of random design elements, the effect is that of a vibrating surface in tension with structural stability.

The handprinted papers in Schulte’s sewn collages are subtle in color but texturally rich, and achieve a variety of visual results. Some printed textures resemble tweedy fabrics; skewed stripes or plaids produce eye-dazzling patterns; one subtle repeat overlaid on another creates an illusion of fluctuating planes. A formal arrangement of geometric shapes can suggest an ambiguous architectural rendering. An overall grid might allude to a screen or multi-paned window, concealing or revealing forms with organic implications in a space beyond it.

Whether or not it was Schulte’s intention, the see-through grid is an apt metaphor for an artist who views the world through a mathematical lens. “