week 21 final rush to parade

I am intent on doing a forth of July float with my installation on land use and access, "Zoning is Sexy!?" One mannequin and the backdrop are finished. Two mannequines are near finish. I acquired large quantities of glitter to make my pageants and I am experimenting with pastic paints to make jewelry resembling the game tags which I requested from the state but the Maine Game Wardens have not replied to my letter or calls. Fun.

week 20 University of Maine Bangor Museum of Art opening

Exciting week with a second outing to see work and discuss art. Jemma Goscoine kindly informed me of the opening at the UME Bangor Museum of Art. A good reason to venture south. The opening included Ceremonies of Mud New Paintings by Alfredo Gisholt,
Both Sides of the Camera Photographs from the Collection of Judith Ellis Glickman, and
Cloudscapes: A Selection from the Permanent Collection. Gisholt's painting speak of Mexico in a fantastical vernacular of popular icons, color, and references to Picasso and Goya, but the work is not just the sum of reflection. He pushing painting into cinematic motion with modernity through exhaustingly busy compositions. The layers of meaning go on infinitely. The selected photographs from the Ellis Glickman collection showcase the twentith century photograph greats. The collection is impressive but the printing of some of the images is shockingly poor. My favorite part of the opening was the Cloudscapes. The unexpected findings in the museum's permenant collection were impressive and curated a smart theme. The curator George Kinghorn is a great addition to the Museum as director and curator. I enjoyed an engaging conversation with Micheal Alpert about the Cloudscapes' piece by Manuel Alvarez Bravo. I was very impresed by the Univeristy of Maine has this piece in their holdings. The evening was a pleasure.

week 19 Center Maine Contemporary Art

Took a break from the studio and shooting to visit the Maine Center for Contemporary Art. The 2010 biannual offered a spectacular selection of Maine artists. Curator Bruce Brown's happy obsession with Maine artists shows. Sunday 20th the Center offered a talk on the importance of the Center and its biannual to Maine artists with artists Cassie Jones, Todd Watts, and Celeste Roberge asked to discuss their distinctive works and the role the center has had in their careers/lives. Roberge's chairs, Watts' photograph and Jones' installation, offered tribute to the range of talent in the state and how the region attracts people. The politics of the Center were touched upon given their financial concerns over the past few years. The exhibition space is marvelous with high ceilings and excellent light. Jones works were mesmerizing. The graphic color and mark making in full wall installation brought a dynamic dimension to the work. The layout brought reference to the periodic table. I saw the cereal isle with graphic colors in rectangles competing for my attention. Watts photograph of a familiar drykye jam explored the construction of the visual plan with the graphic application of an orange bouncy ball in repetition. The tilting plans forced the viewer to reconcile the viewing with a personal creative experience. Roberge's three chairs, "Chairs for Mining," were an ode to foraging as she explored the politics of metals: sociological, financial and geographic. In the downstairs, photographer Meggan Gould's exhibit, "Retro/Verso" explores the factors of space. I admire the diversity of her work and the examinations of space as theoretical construct.

week 17 fourth artist mentor critique

Reviewed by works yesterday with Natasha Mayers. Great visit, good feedback, questions and discussion. I love going to Natahsa's space. It is welcoming, cheerful and she feds me yummie food. The quality of time is greatly appreciated. I come away reenergized and eager to explore. The instillation juxtapositions the North Maine Woods' elements of land use and access: working forest, tourism and nature. The play is fun and challenging, working through popular culture, commercial and state policy and ideas of wild and natural. I am excited to see community reaction in the parade. July fourth is fast approaching, and the instillation is ablaze working to finish and add final fixes from my critique. The juxtaposition of historical documents, maps, books, brochures, and much more. The beaver and sign will be complementary elements to illustrate the humor of zoning. The installation will also be downtown for July until I leave fro my residency.

I am exhausted from six hours of driving yesterday and generally useless. I am well aware of my distance from all other places I might set as destinations, but when I venture out in one day the vehicle becomes an unfriendly space. I feel spongy.

Starting to consider artist mentors for next term. I would like to explore sound and video. Photography is my passion and I expect always an element of my work and the means though which I journal and explore space and the intimacy of places.

week 16 up for air

The last three weeks followed a different pace. In my last critique Natasha suggested my attentions focus more on my installation. It involves many parts and it all has to come together for the fourth of July parade. I have collected extensive materials and reviewed it all repeatedly to ponder the juxpositions. I stepped back and read for a few days to give the materials time to seep into my senses and play. I scanned newspapers, brochures, magazines, pictures, advertisments, and maps. The North Maine Woods is a space of recreation, the proverbial vacation land. Examination included old LL Bean magaines, the magazines by the Woods Industry Great Northern and the plentitude of twentith century vacation advertisements and the modern discussion of development and conservation. The space is marketed as remote, natural and pristine, but the history of tourism, woods industry, railways and being a small remote communities all play upon the prisim of identity. Each piece uses language and space distictively to define the experience of the North Maine Woods.

In the installation, Zoning is Sexy!?!, I had intended to dress the mannequins in clothing I designed from the resource materials that promote the region. In this pursuit I enjoyed studying the history and applications of lingerie. The project took a turn, no surprise. I decided to taboo or skin the mannequins in the maps used to experience the region. I had asked folks in interviews and general conversation which maps they use. This approach of the manniquin worked. The effect is sexy: it is intimate, it is spacial, it is mapping, it is experiencial. It lays out the questions I started with and asks more [that is how I define sucess!].

I continue to research and examine the ideas and expressions of space and place. I stepped back from shooting portraits for two weeks. The rain helped me make this step. I have read materials to support my installation. I continued to read Lucy Lippard: The Lure of the Local, On the Beateb Track, Ourselves and Overlay. Her writing reinforces the connections I draw between my experiences and my questions for the North Maine Woods. I read Shifting Horizons: Women's Landscape Photogrpahy now edited by Liz Wells and continue to reflect on two books produced by the CLUI, Overlook:Exploring the internal fringes of America with the CLUI and Experimental Geography: Radical Appraches to Landscape, Cartography, and Urbanism. I started MIwon Kwon's One Place After another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity. This book stretchs my frame of thought into the rhedoric of astheitics and role of site in the artist's work. I hope Miwon Kwon returns next term.

Set backs and frustrations? My moss keeps dying on one mannequin. I remove it, gather more and resew it the garmet. Misting it prolongs the life, but I know it will die again. It offers the intimacy of life. It is alive and present with me. The application of maps on the mannequins wa very time consuming. I prefer to interact with people and in dialog. Seeing the finished mannequin makes it all worth while, but the gluing was tedious!

To puntulate the display I am making a sign out of the deer hide. The strangest ideas come to me when I am driving out from the camps. I see animals and interpret their presence in cartoon installations. Strange? I saw the deer skin hammered on plywood with duct tape spelling access. over the letters were 308 ammo. Nice. The deer or lack of deer is an issue in this region. The timber companies cut the deer yards to meet their quodas. These yards are where the deer winter. The past three years have seen dramatic declne in deer population. People like to hunt deer, so few deer makes for few successful hunter that is many disappointed hunters which translated to bad hunting tourism. Sad. This is making me hungry ;)