On the walls of the Trustman Gallery, shadows from plastic wire, fiber and thread constructions hover over the soft grey texts of blown-up poems, plaster and paper reliefs and white-and-black print-collages. “Linger and Shift” is a collaboration between Boston sculptor Julia Shepley and Scottish-born poet Audrey Henderson. Their separate, yet deeply intermeshed works grew out of monthly conversations begun over a year ago. The longtime friends were spurred to parallel play by a Boston Sculptors Gallery exhibition featuring verbal-visual collaboration. It intensified their psychic bond to discover that, as children undergoing family vicissitudes and illness, they both developed artistic sensitivities in an enforced solitude. “Being alone in rooms without adult intervention, life goes on, and you’re left to survey the passage of time,” Henderson mused. “You don’t know about time, so you … [Read more...] about POEMS, PLASTER & PAPER: MORE THAN WORDS AT SIMMONS
Issue Articles
Cornered: Heather Ferrell
As August was coming to a close, Heather Ferrell, curator and director of exhibitions at Burlington City Arts, took time from her busy schedule to discuss her vision and process for integrating the thriving downtown Burlington City Arts Center into the greater regional arts scene. In this discussion with Artscope’s Marta Pauer Tursi, she explained what constitutes the 21st century museum experience, how curators engage the community, how she views diversity beyond national or regional identity and the intersection of art and technology. Ferrell came to Vermont in 2016 from Doha, Qatar, where for more than five years she worked with the National Museum of Qatar and the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art as deputy director of programs and exhibitions. Originally from Boise, Idaho, she also worked as director at the Salina Art Center, Kansas, and the Salt Lake Art Center, Utah. MPT: … [Read more...] about Cornered: Heather Ferrell
Traversing the Imagination: Wagner at Burlington City Arts
Burlington City Arts in Vermont is our own small-scale Centre Pompidou. I lived in the Marais district of Paris for close to seven years and the Pompidou, a short walk from my apartment, always offered up an experience of art that stayed long after I stepped back into the streets. Burlington City Arts is situated on Church Street, a four-block-long pedestrian downtown vibrant with cafes, local shops, bistro-style outdoor restaurants, pastry shops, street music and the occasional personal street drama. Like the Pompidou, it offers up experiences of art that leave you lingering in the three floors of gallery space, sometimes for hours. Under the direction of Heather Ferrell, the curator since 2016, the galleries demonstrate and reflect her international experience and vision. (See interview on page 9.) The current installation on the main floor is Crystal Wagner’s “Traverse,” a … [Read more...] about Traversing the Imagination: Wagner at Burlington City Arts
Welcome: From Brian Goslow
While most of our writers get to view the shows and work that they write about in person, our fall issue comes with the challenge of previewing shows that have yet to open. In some instances, the work has yet to be fully selected, while galleries, artists and writers are in the midst of their summer vacations. This, coupled with our short lead time, brings a level of difficulty to our intention of timely and relevant content that is not present in other months’ issues. As our main goal as a magazine has always been to encourage our readers to get out and see the work we write about in person, we ask our writers to do whatever they can to preview an exhibition we’ve identified as worthy of your attention. Sometimes we have to resort to looking at digital images and artist statements, and other times, conduct an interview about work “you just have to see.” At times, it can be hard to … [Read more...] about Welcome: From Brian Goslow
KEEPERS OF THE FLAME: ROCKWELL AND FRIENDS IN STOCKBRIDGE
I first saw him standing beside the pool at a hotel in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. Wavy grey hair, a slender, erect posture and his trademark cravat were unmistakable. It was Norman Rockwell. The year was 1972 and I was on my honeymoon while he and his wife Molly were vacationing. My husband and I greeted him with trepidation, marveling later at his cordiality. That evening, we had drinks with the most famous illustrator of his time and his wife. The next day, Molly told me they were leaving their holiday early because Rockwell couldn’t stand being away from his studio for long. That explained, in part, how the artist I had loved as a child for his Saturday Evening Post magazine covers could be so prolific. The current exhibit at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, “Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition,” explains a great deal … [Read more...] about KEEPERS OF THE FLAME: ROCKWELL AND FRIENDS IN STOCKBRIDGE
FUNCTIONAL OR FANCIFUL? BROWN’S SCULPTURAL CONGLOMERATIONS
The motion and glint from the mirrors are the first things to catch your eye. Then you see it: a big metal fish — a yellowfin tuna, in fact — with a propeller in its mouth, gently revolving in the breeze in front of the granite monuments, just past the U-Haul place as you drive west on Tenney Mountain Highway in Plymouth, New Hampshire. “It’s sort of an eclectic combination of working with what I have to make something new,” Pete Brown said of his sculptures. “I like to take items that don’t really belong together and put them together. It might be a usable item or not.” Brown grew up mechanically inclined. “I was a mechanic for many years,” he said, adding, “I even had my own shop in Franklin for five years.” Today, his primary career is building street rods, also known as “rat rods.” Brown says these are made from a “conglomeration of parts from different makers — Ford, Chevy, … [Read more...] about FUNCTIONAL OR FANCIFUL? BROWN’S SCULPTURAL CONGLOMERATIONS