New Work in Progress 2013
Abstraction, 20 gauge cold rolled steel plate, 36" X 48" (2013), are hand formed steel plates, based on my sketches while traveling in Vieques, P.R. The beauty of this northeast Caribbean islands terrain of rolling hills, azure-colored waters, white sands, lagoons and coral reefs are in direct contrast to its former useage as a U.S. Navy bombing range and testing ground island, the past is still present throughout the island.
New Bedford Harbor in a New Light
A Response Exhibition of Work by Contemporary Artists
Exhibition May 15 – August 8, 2013
Opening Reception will be on Saturday, May 11, from 3 – 6 PM
Curated by Willoughby Elliott, Kim Barry and Lasse Antonsen “New Bedford Harbor in a New Light” draws on the two rich traditions of New Bedford – the fishing industry and the visual arts. More than thirty contemporary artists who work in a wide variety of mediums will exhibit their new work that will showcase issues related to the New Bedford Harbor and the fishing industry. The exhibit is designed to stimulate a community conversation about New Bedford Harbor through the eyes and artwork of these contemporary artists alongside scholars, researchers and humanists. The exhibit will extend past the walls of NBAM with ancillary exhibits in several nearby locations and outdoor venues and a walking map will be available to tie it all together.
New Bedford: The People and their Culture (2013), is a HD MI video movie project collection of six individuals sharing their families stories over several generations of arriving to New Bedford, Massachusetts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I selected a multi cultural approach, with a diversity of cultures and family histories for inclusion. The movie includes interviews and family photographs of each person featuring: Ron Barboza, Michele Bissonnette, Ken Correia, James Flanagan, Noah Griffith and Serina Gundersen.
The individual stories are potent and diverse, yet there is an irrevocable common thread that binds their stories together. Their forefathers arrived in New Bedford with diminutive money, immense dreams, and an infallible working ethic. The whaling, fishing and textile industry provided the catalyst for a better life far from their homelands of Canada, Norway, Portugal, Ireland, Azores and Cape Verde.
A marvelous example contained within this movie, traces a Canadian families entry into the modest textile mills of New Bedford in the early 1900’s, to their grandson’s bold career as a Brigadier General in the United States Army.
This project shares there aspirations of the “American Dream” defined by writer James Truslow Adams, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement, regardless of social class or circumstance of birth”.
Con•nection (2013), is a collection of six individual mixed media pieces composite of wood, glass and black & white painted illustrations measuring 8.5" X 7"
X 3". I created the piece to visually remove the individual’s identity and replace it with the viewers association of people that they are connected to.
We associate a person’s identity in a variety of ways, gender, race/ethnicity, status/class, nationality, age, and any other number of possible groupings. The Con•nection piece removes these groupings, challenging the individual viewer to utilize their own unique concepts of identity.
The textured glass and an accurate calculated placement within the enclosure provides an optimum subdued subject matter that changes with the viewer’s spatial relationship inside the gallery. The pieces utilized old distressed textured glass obtained from the 1903 Cliftex manufacturing mill in New Bedford.
The individual stories are potent and diverse, yet there is an irrevocable common thread that binds their stories together. Their forefathers arrived in New Bedford with diminutive money, immense dreams, and an infallible working ethic. The whaling, fishing and textile industry provided the catalyst for a better life far from their homelands of Canada, Norway, Portugal, Ireland, Azores and Cape Verde.
A marvelous example contained within this movie, traces a Canadian families entry into the modest textile mills of New Bedford in the early 1900’s, to their grandson’s bold career as a Brigadier General in the United States Army.
This project shares there aspirations of the “American Dream” defined by writer James Truslow Adams, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement, regardless of social class or circumstance of birth”.
Con•nection (2013), is a collection of six individual mixed media pieces composite of wood, glass and black & white painted illustrations measuring 8.5" X 7"
X 3". I created the piece to visually remove the individual’s identity and replace it with the viewers association of people that they are connected to.
We associate a person’s identity in a variety of ways, gender, race/ethnicity, status/class, nationality, age, and any other number of possible groupings. The Con•nection piece removes these groupings, challenging the individual viewer to utilize their own unique concepts of identity.
The textured glass and an accurate calculated placement within the enclosure provides an optimum subdued subject matter that changes with the viewer’s spatial relationship inside the gallery. The pieces utilized old distressed textured glass obtained from the 1903 Cliftex manufacturing mill in New Bedford.
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