Along the Tidelines of History: Three Decades of WARP Wood
October 23 @ 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Free
Along the Tidelines of History: Three Decades of WARP Wood | Thurs. Oct. 23, 2025 | 6:30 – 7:30 pm ET | In-person
Join us for a gallery talk with the 2025 WARP Wood Scholar Fellow, Holly Gore. This talk approaches WARP Wood 2025 as belonging to a continuum extending through the three-decades-long duration of the program and further—through Philadelphia’s long history as a city that has supported artists and craftspeople in unique ways.
About Holly Gore
What does it mean to build and who can be a builder? The very language of construction is saturated with moralism: angles are “right” and boards “true.” In artist homes and intentional communities, the ability to construct one’s own living environment has assumed cosmic dimensions of world-building. Sometimes, though, the liberative potential of woodworking is limited by gendered and racialized norms whose deconstruction is overdue.
As a writer and curator, I excavate histories of art, craft, and design toward illuminating the present. My recent focus has been on modernism and the work of building—in wood, metal, earth, and stone. During the WARP Wood residency, I did research in the Museum for Art in Wood archives on the beginnings of the program as a residency for woodturners. In the process, I found that this turning legacy persists in shaping WARP Wood today, even as the residency has changed dramatically over its thirty-year lifespan.
I am based in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I am Director of Interpretation and Associate Curator at the Wharton Esherick Museum. Prior to earning a Ph.D. in art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, I had a first career as a museum cabinetmaker and exhibition designer.
This event is free to the public. The Museum for Art in Wood interprets, nurtures, and champions creative engagement and expansion of art, craft, and design in wood to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of it. A suggested donation of $5 per person enables us to provide programs and exhibitions throughout the year.
Questions? Please contact Katie Sorenson, Director of Outreach and Communications, at [email protected].