A Visual Conversation With Nature by Alexandra Tursi Cameron Davis is a painter and senior lecturer at the University of Vermont. Her work includes paintings, installations and community art projects exploring the human-nature relationship. Her paintings are currently on view in Burlington at the Robert Hull Fleming Museum, University of Vermont Medical Center and Burlington International Airport. Alexandra Tursi: Why did you become an artist? Cameron Davis: I have a childhood memory of twirling round and round while the wind danced through these huge white pines and feeling a sense of presence. I have been trying to engage with that presence through my painting ever since. That day, I made up a song. I came inside, picked the notes out on the piano and wrote the notation. It is my first memory (at 6 or 7 years old) of making the connection between an experience and … [Read more...] about Cameron Davis
Issue Articles
I Will Go On…
Koren's Capricious And Compelling Voice by Molly Hamill “Keep Calm and Carry On.” This motivational phrase produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for the Second World War has had a massive revival in pop culture recently. You see the message on everything from t-shirts to tote bags. But what relevance does this notion of perseverance have for us today? Pam Campanaro, associate curator of exhibitions and programs at Montserrat College of Art, has curated an exhibit showcasing artists who persist. “I Will Go On…,” on view at the Montserrat Gallery through April 2, exhibits artists whose processes “parallel the characteristics of a marathoner: endurance, repetition, and focus.” Inspired by a passage from Samuel Beckett’s novel The Unnamable, in which the author talks to himself — “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” — the show gathers the work … [Read more...] about I Will Go On…
Message In The Madness At Fairfield
Koren's Capricious And Compelling Voice by Kristin Nord In this era of incivility there is something wonderfully touching about the inquiries of Edward Koren’s often clueless hairy creatures. Whether they are urbanites transposed to the rural outposts of Vermont, or are among the artist’s many loony flights of anthropomorphism, the challenges and aspirations of flora or fauna are often interchangeable. Edward Koren himself describes his cartoons as “frozen moments of storytelling” and his work as that of a cultural anthropologist. The renowned New Yorker cartoonist drew a full house recently at Fairfield University’s Bellarmine Museum of Art for a talk preceding the unveiling of “The Capricious Line,” his traveling retrospective. The show, which runs through April 8, features 49 of the artist’s works created between 1965 and 2010. Taken together, they offer running … [Read more...] about Message In The Madness At Fairfield
Grants and Residencies: ARTISTS GO FOR IT
GRANT AND RESIDENCY APPLICATION TIPS by Laura Shabott (Laura Shabott is a Provincetown artist, writer and actor. An SMFA graduate [1995], she has returned to painting and drawing after 23 years in other mediums through a Romano Rizk Scholarship from the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. In this feature, she shares her tips for successful grant writing) Most creative people tend to focus on the process of art making and ignore the money part. But receiving a grant isn’t only about the cash; it is a public acknowledgement of excellence, and we need that validation in order to sustain and thrive as serious artists. So why not go for it? Someone is going to get that grant — it might as well be you. Below are best practices for applying along with a compilation of resources. RESEARCH WHICH GRANTS ARE RIGHT FOR YOU Monies for artists often have specific … [Read more...] about Grants and Residencies: ARTISTS GO FOR IT
NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT
A POST-MODERN DREAMSCAPE by Kristin Nord New Canaan, Connecticut - It is during the fallow months in New Canaan, when the trees are a constellation of trunks and branches, that many of the town’s modernist houses come readily into view. Boasting one of the most significant collections of such homes in the United States, New Canaan now counts 91 structures still standing from the estimated 118 that were built from 1939 through 1979. At the center of this collection are works by “The Harvard Five,” a band of architects whose only similarity, truly, was that they each studied under Walter Gropius at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Philip Johnson used his New Canaan estate as his personal archi- tectural laboratory. Marcel Breuer and one-time students Eliot Noyes, John Johansen and Landis Gores set up shop for what became an architec- tural industry. Many other … [Read more...] about NEW CANAAN, CONNECTICUT
PEDAGOGY AND PLACE
100 YEARS OF ARCHITECTURE AT YALE by Kristin Nord New Haven, Connecticut - Later this spring, after almost 20 years, Robert A.M. Stern will be passing the torch as the dean of Yale’s School of Architecture to Deborah Berke, architect and founder of the New York-based Deborah Berke Partners. The exhibition on view through May 7 in the school’s Rudolph Hall gallery was developed in large part from a renowned spring seminar taught by Stern that looked at various studies of architecture — and the at-times tempestuous relationship with the building in which that education has taken place. The exhibition draws upon a large body of work, including video with cameos of the school’s legendary teachers and examples of student projects, fanning out to trace the chronological development and spaces of more than 30 other major schools of architecture throughout the world. Stern’s … [Read more...] about PEDAGOGY AND PLACE