July 4 - July 17, 2002      Vol. 2 No. 5      Page 45
 
  SHOUT OUT:  The emotional paper chase.

 When,three years ago, Nancy Rubens (uninvited) brought her work to show Sally Nerber, director of the Cherry Stone, Wellfleet's most respected gallery, Nerber warned Rubens that she was not taking any more artists. But when Rubens took out the work to show anyway, Nerber told her, "These really should be seen" and has carried Rubens' work since.

Warning to other artists: Do not try this yourselves. Yet every once in a while an artist comes along whose work reveals sophisticated and consistent awareness that can't be dismissed. Rubens' work, which was inspired by Provincetown's Leo Manso's teachings and developed over years of exploration, requires of the viewer a certain tuning in to the subtle decisions she's made at each step along the way. Inspired, as she says, by "the infinite range of possibilities in found papers," Rubens collects from the world around her, thin, red Chinese papers, sheets from old books and music, then searches out the rich contradictions, the links, "what is hidden, what is seen, what's softened, where the deep color is," made by paper against paper. She looks to express multi-levels of emotion and metaphor in pure abstraction.