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New England's Culture Magazine

Artscope Magazine | January/February 2021

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New Hampshire

ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Olivia MacDonald

Natasha Stoppel’s thirst for travel and adventure seeps into her illustrative and whimsical ink drawings, watercolor pieces and wood-burned jewelry. Also known as Artist Explores the World on her blog and social media platforms, she tells small stories through her artworks of landscapes contained within animals, a collage of ink-drawn cats and cascading waterfalls painted on bamboo earrings. The places she has visited whether backpacking solo through Asia or exploring the canyons and mountains of the United States, are a part of her when she speaks. Her intense passion feeds her artwork, giving her compositions movement and life. As a New Hampshire native, Stoppel’s studio is located in Exeter’s Art Up Front Street, an inviting space for artists to practice their craft. Yet, Stoppel’s artistic roots spread further as she graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, … [Read more...] about ART IS HER WORLD AND THE WORLD IS HER ART: NATASHA STOPPEL

Unfoldingobject at Concord Center for the Visual Arts

// Artscope Online, Featured, Visual Arts

by J. Fatima Martins

On view now through August 11 at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts, “unfoldingobject” collage is a formidable exhibition, featuring the work of 50 artists, presenting an expansive understanding of what collage art is physically as well as conceptually while also highlighting the meaning of uncollage. Curated by collage artist, writer and intellectual, Todd Bartel, who is also a participating artist, the collection of works on view range from standard cut-and-paste on flat surfaces to three-dimensional forms of collage-layering and three-dimensional assemblage and sculpture, and painting, that takes on collage as a style. “unfoldingobject is a neologism created to describe the quality in a particular work of art that provokes discovery upon each encounter,” Bartel writes in the curator’s statement. “Despite the ceaseless innovation that it provides, collage is often overlooked or … [Read more...] about Unfoldingobject at Concord Center for the Visual Arts

HUDSON RIVER REVISITED: FRUITLAND’S PASTORAL PRESENT

// Current Issue, Issue Articles, July/August 2019

by Flavia Cigliano

Step out of your car at Fruitlands, look across the Nashua River Valley covered with the lush mixed forest so typical of New England, then gaze west to Wachusett Mountain, and there will be no question why the transcendentalists sought to make this corner of Harvard, Massachusetts, their utopia. Now under the aegis of the Trustees of Reservations, the Fruitlands Museum preserves the buildings and landscape of the short-lived Transcendentalist colony while providing year-round art and cultural offerings. The exhibits currently on display, “Floating Between Two Worlds” and “A New View” and “Pastoral Present,” offer summer visitors the opportunity to see both new works by contemporary artists and venerated paintings from the permanent collection. Commissioned by the Trustees to design and construct an outdoor installation, multidisciplinary artist Esther Solondz created “Floating Between … [Read more...] about HUDSON RIVER REVISITED: FRUITLAND’S PASTORAL PRESENT

Ethan Murrow, “Hauling,” 2019, view of exhibit with kinetic scroll sculpture and wall drawing, at Currier Museum, Manchester, New Hampshire.

WEIGHT OF THE WALLS: ETHAN MURROW’S “HAULING” AT THE CURRIER

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, News, Visual Arts

by Olivia MacDonald 

With approximately 900 fine-tipped Sharpie pens, Ethan Murrow blends storytelling with history, community and labor on the white walls of the Currier Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire. In his new exhibition, “Hauling,” globular collages of hundreds of tools including a saw, wooden wheel, speedometer, nail, net and modern high-tech machinery, tower over visitors. Alongside them, drawn people hold ropes and play a kind of tug-of-war with the mechanic entities, while some carry the weight of them in their hands or on their shoulders. The diagonal tugging of ropes creates movement across the walls, where visitors stand in the center of a laborious scene. The exhibit draws upon the industrial history of Manchester, which during the mid-19th century, held the largest cotton mill worldwide. Today, old mill buildings house restaurants, shops and art galleries. Murrow combines the tools that … [Read more...] about WEIGHT OF THE WALLS: ETHAN MURROW’S “HAULING” AT THE CURRIER

Shavon, Justin, and Santa, Mount Vernon, Georgia, 2012, inkjet print. Courtesy of Benrubi Gallery. © Gillian Laub.

Gillian Laub: Pioneering Southern Rites at Lamont

// Issue Articles, November/December 2018

by Linda Chestney

It was 1971. I was 18. My dad had recently been installed as the new pastor of Wisconsin Avenue Baptist Church in Washington D.C. I’d moved from my home state of South Dakota to be with my family and attend college at the University of Maryland. I’d transferred my job as a telephone operator to a nearby Maryland suburb while establishing residency prior to starting school. I quickly accumulated new friends, many of them black as the D.C. area has, according to the most recent United States Census Bureau report, a 50 percent black population. By contrast, my home state (again according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau report) is only 1.7 percent black. My black friends would often attend church with me. And sometimes we’d hit the beach and boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey. That’s when I first noticed that a casual walk down the boardwalk with my tall, attractive black friend, Tony, … [Read more...] about Gillian Laub: Pioneering Southern Rites at Lamont

Moon Over the Beach

RiverSea and ArtDover-NH

// Current Issue, September/October 2016, Visual Arts

A Hive of Artistic Activity by Greg Morell A grand vestige of New Hampshire’s industrial past, Dover’s One Washington Center, a glorious old red brick mill of enormous size and height, is being re-invigorated as a hive of entrepreneurial enterprise and creative invention, serving as the new home of the RiverSea Gallery and headquarters of its companion organization, ArtDover-NH. The genesis of this new arts endeavor is the partnership of Rebecca Proctor and John Arens, long-time tenants at One Washington Square. Proctor ran her RSP Studio Custom Framing shop in one unit of the building while Arens had a fine arts studio, Frederickson Fine Art, on the fifth floor. They combined their resources earlier this year and rented out a 4,000-foot space on the third floor that serves as their gallery, art laboratory and office space. Proctor and Arens have a shared vision to … [Read more...] about RiverSea and ArtDover-NH