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ELIZABETH MICHELMAN: WHERE TO BEGIN
It seems a good omen that the director of the ChaNorth International residency program, Hungarian sculptor Brigitta Váradi, has offered me the studio she’d once occupied in the old Dutch Colonial “Farmhouse.” Through the south window of the former parlor, the February sun arcs over a leafless hogbacked mountain. To the north, a sweep of high-tension electrical wires crosshatches the rolling rows of stubble in the ice-bound pasture.
I’d visited this Hudson Valley residency once before, as a guest critic. Now I was returning to rescue my own art. After the challenges of a recent move from Boston to Portland, Maine, I needed a respite. For many months, the routines mooring my inner and outer worlds had been disrupted. ChaNorth offered four weeks simply to make art in the company of artists. I invited along sculptor Suzanne Volmer, my Artscope colleague, to continue a series of chats and artmaking that we’d labeled a “collaboration.” To broaden the conversation, I self-curated three other artists to join our band who had withstood stress and loss during the pandemic years. Perhaps a pastoral interlude would hasten our recoveries and rekindle dreams in an unstable world.
I unload boxes and bundles into the studio. The black Aeron chair and leather armchair get shoved into opposite corners. I drag two long worktables toward the center, hinge them in a broad “V,” and climb on top to adjust the floodlights. Now I can stand at the center of the “V” and turn to reach either table or stroll around them. I nestle into the nearest armchair and survey the room from corner to corner. I feel at home.
For several days, however, I’m revising a review, trying to account for the blunt grace with which Boston painter Mira Cantor channels deep political feeling through abstract technique. Each morning, I listen over fresh-ground coffee to my fellow artists’ tales and travails in the studio, then head out to explore the nearby nature preserve. One day, a deer’s clean-picked ribcage arrests my transit of a frozen clearing. Another afternoon, I surprise stone-age beavers hidden behind shoulder-high cattails who have been shredding half the forest. I make a lucky guess in the ancient sands edging the lake and unearth a trove of stone arrowheads. Ever the procrastinator, I allow myself to wander in the new, unfamiliar landscape while my thoughts gather force.
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SUZANNE VOLMER: NEW YORK STATE OF MIND
The clean air at ChaNorth in February and the raking sunlight inspired me to make an accordion book that explores environment and identity of place. A short residency and my first, it was perfect to alleviate accumulated stress from the pandemic years. I needed it to recharge, orient, strengthen and deepen my creativity after significant personal loss. My mother died of complica- tions caused by COVID-19 in 2022. She was an accomplished artist. We lived together and discussed creative ideas at a high level, and it’s been a long mourning process.
I have made large immersive installations with titles like “Aquatic” and “Clouds” and sculpture installations such as “Sea Change.” However, these take time to plan and execute. For this situation, small was best. I liked the idea of hand-held scale, as that portability fits the context of my “Talisman Series.”
Accordion books don’t have a spine or bound pages. They simply unfold like a pleated ribbon to relate story in panorama. I chose this format to help bring audiences divorced from nature closer to it.
Meticulously worked to convey a rawness of ideas, my accordion book is an object made of paper, fabric (including silk), stainless-steel straight pins, thread, string, metal wire, plastic, masking tape, pen, pencil and glue. One could view it as an abstract impression of a map as well as a talisman with compressed meaning.