'We’re more insular' but more aware of 'interconnectedness'

“My Letterman Yantra’’ by James Bassler, in the show “Adaptation: Artists Respond to Change,’’ at browngrotta Arts, Wilton, Conn., May 8-16.

(Yantra — a geometric diagram, or any object, used as an aid to meditation in tantric worship)

— Photo by Tom Grotta

The gallery, which specializes in textile art, says: “The exhibition looks at the myriad ways artists change direction or their practice in response to changed circumstances like a move, a health issue, a shift in personal circumstances, or, more recently, a global pandemic.

"‘Over the last year, by necessity, we’ve grown more introspective, more insular and more aware of our interconnectedness,’ note the exhibition’s curators, Tom Grotta and Rhonda Brown. ‘We’ve had to acknowledge our permeable national boundaries, shared air, the limits of personal space.’

“The artists who work with browngrotta arts have coped with the changes the pandemic has wrought in various ways — moving locations, taking up art photography, taking new inspiration from nature. Their responses were the impetus for the theme the gallery will explore in the exhibition but these recent adaptations reflect just some of the many reasons artists make changes in their art practice.’’

Even the police headquarters is well landscaped in the very affluent Fairfield County, Conn., town of Wilton.