Wire cloth never looked so good.
Usually this material essentially a heavy-duty version of the stuff of screen doors — is used to make filters for industrial applications. But in the hands of Ruth Rotenberg, a Chicago fashion designer the stainless steel or brass cloth has been transformed into dramatic sculpture that doubles as baskets.
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Rotenberg gathers, pleats and tucks gauzy pieces of the wire cloth into perforated sheet-metal bases. The results are compositions in “silver” and ” gold” that are ethereal and elegant, yet strong enough to use as serving pieces She has also devised a line of sachets out of the wire cloth that look like fragile origami flowers but are decidedly more substanial. The sachets, not for use with food, are painted in a wide range of colors.
Rotenberg tried all sorts of media before she settled on wire cloth, but “nothing else allowed me to be as innovative,” she says
Rotenberg’s baskets cost $28 to $104, her sachets cost approximately $20. Find her work at Pentimento, 1629 N. Milwaukee Ave., 312-227-0576; Ancient Echoes, 1003 W. Armitage Ave., 312-337-7733, Material Possessions, 54 E. Chestnut St. 312-280-4885 and Adesso, 600 Central Ave., Highland Park, 708-433-8525.