“Such a beautiful and powerful art piece.”
Nancy Mendez, Teaching Artist-in-Residence
October 11, 2024
No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor, curated by Alva Greenberg
Hudson River Valley Museum, Yonkers, New York
“This one stands on its own.”
Alexa MacCrady, Juror
September 18, 2024
Soiled Linen, Hand Embroidery on Linen, 14”x40”
Guilford Art League’s 76th Annual Juried Show
Guilford Art Center, Guilford, Connecticut
“Central to Marsha Borden’s work is the duality of modern mass production….by manipulating plastic shopping bags with stitch and embroidery, she treats them as precious objects to be cherished, emphasizing the hypocrisy of single-use objects’ durability and cheaply manufactured textiles’ low quality.”
Lisa Lynch, Curator and Widener Gallery Director
Austin Arts Center, Trinity College, Hartford, CT
“I am so excited Marsha is sharing this collection with us here at Kellogg. I hope others take the time to come and see her imaginative work and skill at weaving and sculpting with a variety of materials…fascinating to see and very informative, too."
Susan Quincy
State Parks, Education Outreach
Kellogg Estate
A very special solo exhibit, The Tides They Are a-Changin’, on display now through June 14, 2004.
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Kellogg Environmental Center, Derby, Connecticut
“Thank you for this tender work. Beautiful work and words.”
Kendra, Visitor
February 25, 2024
Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut
”No Bodies: Clothing as Disruptor,” Curated by Alva Greenberg
“Borden’s lush, deeply patterned works invite us to contemplate the powerful impact of HAB’s (Harmful Algal Blooms) on our coastal environment.”
“…visually exciting, thought provoking and very well attended by the public and the UConn community.”
Press, Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art
December 2023
University of Connecticut, Avery Point
Waterbodies: Works by Marsha Borden, sTo Len,and Etty Yaniv
“…the art out of plastic is stunning in its condemnation of us all in what we are doing to Mother Earth. Thank you for this powerful exhibit.”
E. Epperson
November 2023
Marie Louise Trichet Art Gallery at Wisdom House, Litchfield, Connecticut
Three Person Show, By Water, Air & Fire: Artists Explore Environmental Issues
“…the..pieces in the show, taken together, remind us that oases are physical places, creating space for relaxation and reflection — but they only work if people are able to create the same space in their minds, for themselves.”
Brian Slattery, Arts and Culture Editor, New Haven Independent
June 13, 2023
Click HERE to read the full article.
Oasis, Group Exhibition at The Institute Library, New Haven, Connecticut
“Trash becomes art at Recycle 2023 exhibit in Brooklyn.”
Fox 5 New York - NYC
May 12, 2023
Click HERE to watch the news story.
Brooklyn Waterfront Arts Coalition, Brooklyn, NYC
Juried show “Recycle 2023”
SOLD
“The submissions we received this year were very strong…congratulations on the funding of your proposal!”
Syma A. Ebbins, Research Coordinator, CT Sea Grant
July 6 and September 13, 2022
Winner, 2022 Connecticut Sea Grant Arts Support Awards Program
“Guilford fiber artist Marsha Borden is…translating microalgae occurring in Long Island Sound into works of art.”
Pam Johnson, Senior Staff Writer, Guilford Courier, Guilford, Connecticut
September 2022
“…artist Marsha Borden has piled nipple-less breast pads, such that the soft, rounded discs look like they’ve been torn from a bra and discarded on the side of some strange road…It’s not just the objects that work, but the way they take up space, creating an alternate narrative through the very fact of their existence.”
Lucy Gellman, Editor, The Arts Paper, Arts Council of Greater New Haven
September 5, 2022
Click HERE to read the full article.
Decoys and Mimics, Group Exhibition at The Institute Library, New Haven, Connecticut
“…(her) work is very strong and compelling.”
Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, Connecticut
February 2022
Open Call 2022 - 2023
“A few works emphasize the “Our” in the exhibition’s title [Our DNA]—the characteristics we share. Marsha Borden’s companion pieces WE (Cut From the Same Cloth) I and II are literally so—patchwork pieces labeled “Us” and “Them” stitched together into a doll and a ball. The titles emphasize our similarities, while the pieces ironically point to an impulse to differentiate and divide that is sewn into us.”
Kathy Leonard Cezpiel, Associate Editor, The Daily Nutmeg
July 8, 2021
Click HERE to read the full article.
Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Juried Show “Our DNA”
“…Borden’s [work] calls out to a viewer, pulling them in as it hangs on the wall…{she] has embroidered a small ocean of self-doubt. If they are her personal tattoos, they are also deeply relatable; Borden taps into the history of domestic craft to give viewers a piece that can at once be a mirror and a challenge to keep making despite that inner critic.”
Lucy Gellman, Editor, The Arts Paper, Arts Council of Greater New Haven
August 12, 2020
Click HERE to read the full article.
“Marsha Borden, meanwhile, lets her art playfully express the anxieties so many artists feel. Written on the fabric of her piece are a series of questions many artists can surely relate to: “Is it really art? I am faking it,” one sleeve reads. Down the chest are three increasingly uncomfortable questions: “What if they laugh at my work? If they think I don’t know what I’m doing? What if I don’t know what I’m doing?” Borden ponders these thoughts and still produces art; after all her queries, the existence of the piece is perhaps the answer.”
Brian Slattery, New Haven Independent
August 6, 2020
Click here to read full article.
Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut Juried Show “I AM…”
“…Borden’s installation is provocative and off-putting at the same time.”
Joy Pepe, Professor of Art History and University of Hartford
May 1, 2020
Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, Connecticut
Juried Show “Witchy”
“The marriage of media and message is…evident in the work of Marsha Borden, whose material of choice is the plastic bag. In her Plastic Planet series, the horizontal weave of a single color—blue newspaper sleeves, yellow or gray shopping bags—creates a flaglike field, in each case punctuated by a single emblem, a lopsided earth made of tightly braided bags. The message is undeniable: We are a society made of, even patriotic about, plastic.”
Kathy Leonard Czepiel, Associate Editor, The Daily Nutmeg,
March 3, 2020
Click HERE to read the full article.
Perspectives Gallery at Whitney Center, Hamden, Connecticut, 5 Person Show “Harmonious Discord”
“…textile artist Marsha Borden stuns with her disarmingly simple [work]; visceral…deeply empathetic…thought provoking.”
Lucy Gellman, Editor, The Arts Paper, Arts Council of Greater New Haven
October 4, 2019
Click HERE to read the full article.
Hilles Gallery, Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven, Connecticut
“Sanctuary Cities and the Politics of the American Dream”
“…Borden has worked with materials from Barbie apparel to aged quilts, along the way defining the humanity that has been sewn into each stitch.”
Maxim Schmidt, Gallery Coordinator, Ely Center of Contemporary Art
August 2019
2019 Artist-in-Residence
Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, Connecticut
“Connecticut is implementing a plastic bag ban, but not before artist Marsha Borden could transform what we might otherwise throw away into an intentional meditation on waste. Her exhibit in the Ives Gallery, Remixed: A Kaleidoscope of Plastic, featured creative re-uses of the ubiquitous plastic bags: strung like beads, shaped into recognizable objects, and woven like yarn.”
2019 New Haven Free Public Library Annual Report
Solo Show at Main Branch, New Haven Free Public Library, New Haven, Connecticut
“Lost at Sea…depicts the world floating in an array of blue, suggesting that the amount of plastic on earth has surpassed even the planet itself.”
Karen Marks, Reporter, The Arts Paper, Arts Council of Greater New Haven
July 20, 2018
Click HERE to read the article.
Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Juried Show “Home”
“Artist Marsha Borden examines, with equal parts playfulness and pensiveness, the strange dynamic in the way we casually acquire and dispose of single-use plastic bags in our day-to-day lives.”
Brian Slattery, Arts and Culture Editor, New Haven Independent
July 16, 2018
Click HERE to read the full article.
Solo Show “Remixed: A Kaleidoscope of Plastic” at Main Branch New Haven Free Public Library, New Haven, Connecticut
“(Your) work caught our attention, both mine and our arts editor Richard Malinksy’s. It’s innovative and thoughtful (and colorful! Quite fun).”
Sandra Tyler, Editor-in-Chief, The Woven Tale Press September 2018
Wearable Art, 20th Annual ArtWalk Festival, Westville, Connecticut
“(Her) work is excellent – immediate, poignant, well-thought out.”
Mark Krueger, X.po.zur Gallery
January 2017
Kehler Liddell Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
“Inaguration Nation ART”