NBOSS at the Museum,
June 17 – November 12, 2023
This year marks the 26th anniversary of the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show. Originally known as the North Bennington Art Park, the exhibition debuted in 1998 on the lawn in front of what was then Joe McGovern’s masonry shop, adjacent to the post office, in the village of North Bennington. Over the last 26 years NBOSS (pronounced “N”-Boss), as it is now lovingly known, has become one of the region’s premiere arts events of the summer/fall season, featuring work by some of the best artists from the Bennington area, the state of Vermont, and throughout the northeast region.
In addition to sculptures by over 40 artists scattered throughout the village of North Bennington, an additional 25+ artists will display their work on our beautiful 10-acre property in Old Bennington for the third consecutive year, including many who have contributed to NBOSS since the exhibition’s early years.
Meet the Artists!
North Bennington
(featuring 40+ artists, curated by Joe Chirchirillo)
Amy Anselmo, Peter Barrett , Mark Barry, Irene Berkson ,Mike Biddy, Bill Botzow, Steven Buduo, Jo Ann Brody, Anthony Cafritz, Joe Chirchirillo, Nilu Chirchirillo Charlet Davenport, Alisa Del Tufo, Kate Dodd, Walter Early, Christopher Froehlich, Stephan Fowlkes, Jesse Good, Gary Humphreys, Brian Johnston, Justin Kenney, Bob Keating, Kosuke Kawahara, Peter Lundberg, Harlan Mack, Joe Mccarthy, Phil Marshall, Thomas Melvin, James Payne, Anna Radocchia, Laurie Sheridan, David Skora, Gregory Smith, Suprina, Michael Tillyer, Patrick Todd, Daniel Roberts, Andrerw Hamilton Reiss/Heather Cronin, Craig Usher, Max Yawney, Christopher Yockey, Zac Ward, Beriah Wall, and Lee Williams
Bennington Museum
(25 artists, curated by Jamie Franklin)
Amy Anselmo, We Are All Fireflies (2)
Fiber Art/Mixed Media
Artist Statement:
My Italian grandmother taught me to crochet at a very young age and it has carried me through my life as an activity that both centers and calms me and helps me connect with others through the community created around the fiber arts. I grew up in a family of makers. I watched and learned from my parents and grandparents, aunts, and uncles, how craftmaking was an integral part of their lives that was utilitarian and a healing pastime – a way to pass the time when the day’s work was done. I’ve always been drawn to mediums such as clay, glass, metal, fibers, and wood-and the accompanying craftsmanship that entails hours and hours of meditative handwork. Making things that are process-oriented, enjoying every stitch, or sanding and polishing until something glows are what I find to be the healing power in making. The end result is always nice to achieve, but always somewhat anti-climactic for me. I get a lot from just being present during the making process and I love to share these processes with others. Doily and lacemaking are interesting to me right now as they are representative of a craft that is historically female-centric, spanning generations of women as makers, creating intricate mandalas of fiber, made at a time before many women had even fewer rights and freedoms that we are still fighting for today. I have often held pieces of handmade lace and wondered what they were thinking about as they made these meditative circles, bound to protect a mahogany side table from the rings of condensation left by a cold glass on a hot day. By enlarging these lacey artifacts to a sculptural scale I hope to spark others’ curiosities in this age old craft and possibly seek out the healing and calming benefits of craftmaking too.
Artist Bio:
Amy Anselmo (Bo) enjoys art-making, teaching art and craft, doing graphic design, being goofy, and occasionally wrestling with technology, her chartreuse 1978 VW bus (with a crochet tire cover) named Bill, and most of all, Dogs. You may have seen her hand-carved designs and logos around the region such as; the Bennington Farmers’ Market, Livin Local, Bernie, and farmgirl stickers. Bo’s other acts of artistic rebelliousness (artivism) might include; collaborating with children to raise awareness about littering, making maps for our most vulnerable populations so they may find food, clothing and shelter, making a small house out of yarn and poetry (the poets’ shack), creating artful interviews through oral history work, making large-scale crochet butterflies and other creatures with wings, helping with NBOSS for 20 or so years, teaching indigo classes, rescuing tons of clothing from the landfill to mend and give away, and working with students of all ages and all walks of life to use art as a way to feel whole again.
Willard Boepple, Rio, 1984 and Magnus, 2022
Steel 100″ x 72″ x 59″ and Painted Wood 120″ x 48″ x 48″
Artist Statement:
I am an abstract sculptor and I want my work to speak directly without narrative or message other than that which is created by the sculpture’s own form and presence in space. I hope for my sculpture to work via the relations between its parts, like music. Abstract sculpture’s privilege is to be driven purely by the visual experience of it and by that to reach through the eye into the mind and, when it is good, straight into the heart.
Curator’s Note: Boepple’s Rio was the first sculpture installed on the lawn in front of Joe McGovern’s masonry shop, now the Vermont Arts Exchange, next to the North Bennington post office, in the mid-1990s. This was the spark that ignited the idea for the North Bennington Sculpture Park, as it was originally known. Anthony Caifritz, seeing Boepple’s work in the center of the village, was inspired to curate the first NBOSS in 1998, inviting a small group of artists to share their work with the community.
Artist Bio:
Born in Bennington and educated at UC Berkeley, RISD and CCNY, Willard has shown regularly in New York since the early seventies where he is represented by Pamela Salisbury Gallery. He is represented in the UK by Broadbent Gallery, London. He has taught at Bennington College and the Boston Museum School and traveled extensively in Africa and the Caribbean as a U.S. State Dept Visiting Cultural Specialist. He served as Chairman of the Triangle Artists’ Workshop for 20 years and serves on the board of the Vermont Studio Center and the National Academy. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Storm King Art Center and The Fitz-William Museum, Cambridge, Goodwood and Yorkshire Sculpture Parks in England among many collections both public and private. He lives and works in North Bennington and New York and makes prints in the UK with Kip Gresham.
Bill Botzow, Two Waffles
Bittersweet vines, (Round Waffle — 55” d. x 10”) (Square Waffle 50” x 50” x 10”)
Artist Statement:
I am interested in creating work that improves places while exploring sculptural forms. In this case I used bittersweet vines offered by a friend and neighbor of the museum. Bittersweet is listed as an invasive species as it can outcompete other plants. My friend had released mature trees on her property from the bittersweet vines so the trees could grow into their crowns—an effective long term carbon storage strategy. The two “Waffles” are equal in volume by size. They are situated on either side of the path between the museum and the cemetery leaning against maple trees.
Artist Bio:
Bill Botzow lives in Pownal, Vermont. He was born in NYC in 1945 and grew up in Mt. Kisco, NY. He graduated from Princeton University in 1968, moved to NYC and worked in the N.Y. Urban League Street Academy Program for two years. He relocated to rural West Virginia in the seventies, then lived in Vermont, Arizona, Oregon, Montana, and Colorado before moving in 1982 to Pownal, VT with his wife Ruth. He has exhibited regionally, nationally and internationally.
Mystical Images of WAR, 2022
Ira Chipak, Tatiana Moloda, Nina Savenko, Chuna and Alexander Son /// Curated by the BOUNDScollective
Wheat Paste Poster Installation
ARTIST STATEMENTS:
As we move through this incredible period of change, we make time to circle and process. This exhibition is an improvised collaboration organized and curated by Bennington College students from Belarus, Malawi and the United States. Featured artworks by Ira Chipak (Ukraine), Tatiana Moloda (Ukraine), Nina Savenko (Ukraine), Chuna (Russia) and Alexander Son (Belarus). These works are intuitive in nature, streaming out of dialog related to war as an experience and how it alters our spaces, minds, bodies, and collective consciousness. At times these works speak apart from one another. Other times, they appear to share the same insistent voice.
The poster works imbue our feelings of fear, horror, despair, powerlessness and empathy. Both traditional and contemporary iconography has been detailed throughout. The curative theme for this exhibit was inspired by the works of Natalia Goncharova (Mystical Images of War 1914) as well as the street art and pro-democratic posters displayed throughout Minsk during the Belarusian uprising of 2020-21. The MYSTICAL IMAGES OF WAR posters project was conceived of and installed by the BOUNDScollective, an initiative of the Center for the Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College.
ARTIST BIO:
My name is Ira Chipak, I am fifteen years old, and I live and go to school in Lviv, Ukraine. Writing this description and looking back at my poster, I wish I could have done something more creative. It is difficult to have the capacity to create in a war zone. It is difficult to gather my thoughts, sculpt, draw or embroider for hours.
It is still difficult to get used to anxiety, fear, and the idea that my family or myself could be the next to die. I poured my heart and soul into this poster to draw Americans’ attention to the war in Ukraine. My people plead for your continued support to fight for freedom, democracy, and choice.
_______
My name is Alexander Son. The two pieces emerged from the need to exhale, spit, take out of me at least part of the corrosive horror of the new monstrous reality. In this symbolic sublimation, Goya acts as a guide through hell (like Virgil for Dante), and the main interlocutor who knows how to ask the right question. And wait, wait, wait for an answer for a long time.
Jo-Ann Brody, Woman 2014
Cement over expanded metal lathe 59 x 22 x 11 inches
Artist Statement:
It is a matter of self correction in my exploration of what it means to me to be female–earth mother/tree of life. My women vary between very feminine, baroque, and a series of many tree/stick/branch women. Depicted here is Gaia, lush, fertile, strong! Her figures are about gesture and stance rather than individuals. Woman stands, strong, proudly female.
Artist Bio:
Jo-Ann Brody is a sculptor who works with the female form, in clay, cement, and papier mache. She regularly shows with Collaborative Concepts in the lower Hudson Valley at Saunders Farm and now at Tilly Foster Farm and Red Mills Park, Ceres Gallery NYC where she had a two person show in February called Solo/Duo. Here work has been in NBOSS now for the 3rd time. She has shown at the Hammond Museum, Hudson Valley MOCA, ArtsWestchester Gallery, and local shows with the Peekskill Arts Alliance.
Joe Chirchirillo, Twenty Twenty, 2020 and Crooked Crow, 2018
Pigmented ferrocement and Steel and found metal objects,
Over the course of my career I have been concerned with creating work that is drawn from elements found in nature, architecture, and the mechanical world. I am interested in finding architectural order emerging from nature and translating that into sculpture. My goal is to build pieces that are expressive, interesting and also have structural integrity and will withstand the elements. I’m having a conversation with the sculpture as I build them. There is a degree of uncertainty and spontaneity in this approach which keeps the work fresh for me. I am very process oriented and the pieces grow and evolve as I continue to work on them.
ARTIST BIO:
Joe Chirchirillo has been creating sculpture since the early 1970’s. After attending college he moved to the New York Metro area and settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was part of the first wave of artists moving to this outpost across the Hudson, building the budding art scene there. Chirchirillo’s work has been reviewed in Art Forum, Art in America, Vanity Fair and on numerous occasions in the New York Times. He also received a NEA fellowship in 1986. He relocated to Vermont sixteen years ago. Since then he has mainly focused on outdoor sculpture. Besides participating in many exhibits and curating the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show for the last 9 years. He was invited to participate in the Kaohsiung iron and steel festival in 2017, where he created a permanent 17’ tall kinetic sculpture. He has also received many commissions and is in numerous private collections in North America and Asia.
Charlet Davenport, Don’t Go Near the Water, 2022
Four 2-part glazed ceramic components attached to lattice fencing
Artist Statement:
Over recent years I have often included the human body in my work. Most recently work in ceramic and print mediums featuring masks, heads, torsos − even hands and feet. This has not been as “light-hearted” as I intend in this current installation (Don’t go Near the Water). A habit of life drawing has always been part of my art. Recently the subject of women’s bodies has drawn me to more serious themes. My installation at the entrance path to the brook is a cheerful concept. I thought about it walking alongside the wild flowers and on the special paths of the Bennington Museum, when I submitted a more difficult political and feminist installation to this space in 2021. I found just the right spot for a work titled with a line from a nursery rhyme. The only somewhat serious message within this work is the connection involves the discovery of seeing important artists images on such items a dog dishes to t shirts, caps and pillows, offered en masse on commercial sites on the internet.
Artist Bio:
Charlet Davenport has been exhibiting art in Vermont since 1964. Gallery 2 in Woodstock was the first contemporary gallery founded in Vermont by director( and her mentor) Allison Lieberman. Davenport was represented by Gallery 2 for three decades. During that time her paintings were also seen in Central St Gallery in Winter Park FL, which was founded by Hugh McKean a mentor from earlier time at Rollins college where she earned a BA in art and political science. Her work expanded over the years into other mediums and non gallery spaces. After earning a degree of Master of Liberal Arts at Dartmouth . Costume design, land installations, teaching in community college level led to widening the scope of art ( over the last ten years also ceramic art) ,regional reviewer for Art New England and interviewing artists for regional TV led her to become involved in many aspects of art in Vermont. Currently she is co- director with Peter Davenport of Sculpture Fest on the land they live on in Woodstock Vt.
Rita Dee, “Book of Job” Chapter 39: 19-25, Lucy Fury Fire Red
8’x3’x10′
Artist Statement:
One of my most favorite scripture quotes about horses is the one found in the book of Job. Here God is describing all the wonderful creatures He has created on the earth for mankind. I love reading in particular the words about the horse. I have studied the words over and over. How awesome it is for me to read these ancient words… to find that people have always been enthralled with the beauty and strength of the horse.
19 Do you give might to the horse? Do you cloth his neck with strength?
20 Will you lift him up like the locusts? The glory of his nostrils is terror.
21 He breaketh up the earth with his hoof, he prances boldly and exults in his strength, and goes forward to meet the armed men.
22 He laughs at fear and does not turn back from the sword.
23 upon him shall the quiver rattle and the spear and shield glitter.
24 Chasing and raging he swalloweth the ground, neither does he make account when the noise of the trumpet soundeth.
25 When he heareth trumpet he saith, “Ha ha: he smelleth the battle afar off, the encouraging of the captains and the shouting.
Artist Bio:
Rita has always been captivated by the grace and beauty of the horse. Horses have always been a part of her life both in her work and while raising her five children on a horse farm in Tivoli, New York. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Art Education from the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York and taught high school for a number of years before staying home to raise her family. It was then, that she began her postgraduate studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York. Here, under the guidance of the wonderful faculty at Bard College, especially with the encouragement of Judy Pfaff, Rita made the switch from painting to sculpture. Living near the Hudson River where driftwood is plentiful, it became her medium of choice.
Her work is now collected internationally throughout the U.S. and Canada with numerous private collectors as well as major permanent instillations such as Deloitte University in West Lake, Texas and the St. Ledgers Preserve in Saratoga, New York. She was a guest artist for the Calgary Stampede in 2007 and has exhibited at the Albany Museum of History and Art, the Doss Museum in Mineral Wells Texas, as well as at many open-air exhibits and galleries throughout the country.
Rita currently lives in Bennington, Vermont on a horse farm with her husband Tom of forty-four years and her family.
Every Child Matters
No More Murdered and Missing Indigenous People shirt gifted from Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippiwa. 2022.
https://dpi.wi.gov/amind/
MMIW/MMIP Neck warmer gifted from Dine Four Corners MMIW/MMIP Prayer Run. 2022.
https://www.rmpbs.org/blogs/
Every Child Matters button gifted. 2022.
https://nctr.ca/education/
American Indian Movement National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media safety vest gifted Minneapolis AIM. 2022.
https://www.aimovement.org/
Red bandana gifted. 2022.
Turkey Feathers gifted. 2022.
Marble, beebalm, ripcord, yellow ochre and red earth.
Renee Greenlee, “Listen, Are You Breathing?”, 2022
Cyanotypes of water from Jennings Brook on silk panels, approximately 6 ft x 16 ft
Artist Statement:
My goal in making cyanotypes of Vermont’s watershed is to deepen my understanding between the land and its people. Speaking to the emotional and environmental aspects of our watershed, my work channels the landscape and reveals our connection to local water systems. The water used to make this piece came from Jennings Brook. I brought the silk panels dyed with the cyanotype solution and exposed them along the trails, as a site specific marker of time and space, water and air. The title comes from a Mary Oliver poem where she asks, “Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?” Yes. On some days, breathing just a little is what can sustain a life. Meanwhile, the earth can hold us, ground us in the present moment. When I enter the natural world in an intentional way, I feel a sense of both grief and awe, that the earth and those who inhabit it are beyond any sense of my control. All I can do is listen, observe and learn how to do better. The natural world gives me hope that somehow we can regenerate, not that which we have lost and is gone, but perhaps we can find ways to protect what we have and begin again in a new way..
Artist Bio:
Renee Greenlee began her career in the nonprofit sector after receiving her Masters degrees in Communication and Theology. In 2015, after completing an intensive photography program at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, she moved to Vermont and shifted to making work and teaching photography full time. She envisions the practice of photography as communication; a dialogue between light, memory, and the meaning of making an image. In addition to her professional and community projects, she utilizes film and historic processes to explore place, liminality, and the work of being present. To that end, she creates cyanotypes of her local watershed, bringing a blue world to light.
IG: @rbgphoto
Brian Johnston, There is No Planet B, 2022
Found materials and an old wooden limb
Artist Statement:
The piece is made up of found pieces attached to an old limb. Three small tableaux highlight what we are destroying. An egg in a nest suggests that a rebirth is possible, but action is needed now.
Artist Bio:
Brian Johnston graduated from Bennington College in 1973. He has spent the last 40 years as a fine woodworker in New York City and the Hudson Valley. His work has appeared in ‘Interiors’ and ‘Architectural Digest’. Several years ago, he turned his love and understanding of wood away from furniture to sculpture. Johnston was born in Ireland and raised with the primal belief that there is a spirituality to the forest, and that there is an otherworld inhabited by the unseen. It is the integration of craftsmanship and these primal beliefs that inform his sculpture.
Harlan Mack, Bearsuit, 2016
Steel, reclaimed bicycle parts
Artist Statement:
“Bearsuit” is an addition to my ongoing narrative world building project. It is based on a particular long term series of drawings of a person wearing a bear suit and carrying a briefcase while performing advertisement stunts. The evolution into a bear with a briefcase really is more of a distillation to better showcase a character that expresses a complexity of humor and potential dangers. It is very likely that the “Bearsuit” will continue to evolve as it merges with other narrative elements into my work.
Artist Bio:
Harlan Mack is a Vermont born multidisciplinary artist currently based at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont. He employs blacksmithing, steel fabrication, painting, and oral storytelling to build an expanding, constellated narrative that invites viewers and listeners into an imaginary future. This world is generated and inspired by Harlan’s life experience, exploration and thoughts around identity, labor, perception, contemplation, fiction, community, and emergence.
Pat Musick, Eagle Feather Chimes
I began as a painter and transitioned to wall sculpture, then free standing works. Over the years, I have retained my interest in two dimensions by making works on paper, while my art has moved from expressionistic to abstract to conceptual and has undergone a steady reduction to simpler elements and media.
My art is concerned with the fragile nature of the environment and the human/nature relationship responsible for its survival. There has been much growth.
ARTIST BIO:
Musick was born in Los Angeles in 1926. She attended the University of Southern California on an art scholarship and received an MA and PhD from Cornell University. She taught at the University level for twenty-five years, lectured across the United States and appeared in many television interviews. Her work is in over fifty museums and public spaces in the United States. She has written four books on art, one of which was co-authored by her husband, Jerry Carr, a retired astronaut and now her collaborator for many years. A film documentary of their lives, The Artist and the Astronaut, should be released later this year. Musick’s archives are housed in the Cornell University Kroch Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Indiana Nash of the Daily Gazette in Schenectady, NY recently spoke with artist Pat Musick. Read it here.
Matthew Perry, Waiting (for Trayvon Martin)
Trayvon Benjamin Martin was a 17-year-old African American teenager from Miami Gardens, Florida, who was fatally shot in Sanford, Florida by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. He was visiting his dad’s fiancé and was out on a walk wearing a black hoodie and eating Skittles. I have three teenage boys that also wear black hoodies and love Skittles but they are white. This incident got me thinking a lot about my boys, the color of our skin and what that means in our society today. At this time, I was making a series of large-scale sculptures for the Village of North Bennington Train Station of figures waiting for the train. (I still am hopeful that passenger service will return!). I created a piece called Waiting for the Train (Man with briefcase looking at his watch) and Still Waiting for the Train (woman with handbag and her dog on leash). When Trayvon was murdered I wanted to make this piece in his honor. Although somewhat of a departure from the first 2 pieces, Trayvon took his place on the Train platform. I titled it simply Waiting. Maybe waiting for more compassion, understanding, waiting for stronger voices and stronger action all, which is currently happening across the globe and in our own backyard here in Bennington. The tragedy of course is that it takes the lives of Trayvon and so many others to bring upon the change that is so desperately needed.
Waiting for the Train can be seen in North Bennington on the Village train station platform and Still Waiting can be seen also in North Bennington in the Hiland Hall Garden.
ARTIST BIO:
Raised in the 1960s, Matthew Perry immediately began thinking creatively and making art in a household filled with art and artists (mother and father). Always building and painting, Matthew went on to get a BFA in Graphic Design which led to illustration & advertising, the latter which eventually wore him out. In 1994, he co-founded the Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE), a non-profit community arts organization with a mission of “bringing the arts to people of all ages, abilities and income”. At VAE, he and his team of artists work with everyone from Head Start children and youth-at-risk to Veterans and elders, struggling with physical, mental and emotional challenges. Matthew took his art making skills and began teaching art not only to heal, but to build community and to show the impact the arts can make in one’s life.
Matthew lives and works in the Village of North Bennington, Vermont. His drawings, paintings and sculptures are inspired by his surroundings whether in Vermont or through his travels in Europe, Brazil and Central America where he also has exhibited in group and solo shows. Matthew’s sculptural pieces and installations evolve around a “sense of place”. Materials may range from rough cement to soft, natural wood. Each site or environment requires a different approach and feeling. Commission work is favored as it builds not only a physical piece in a physical space but creates a relationship and dialogue between people.
Anna Raddocchia, Reinvention, 2021/22
angle iron, rebar wire, galvanized fencing wire, used band saw blades
Artist Statement:
This piece was originally created for the 2021 North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture show. At the time of installation for the 2021 show, I wasn’t satisfied. The vision in my head eluded me, never coming into fruition as I translated sketch to sculpture. The overall work was lacking in finished form despite my best efforts to see the concept through to the end. I knew I could do better. When artists are asked about their process you often hear about techniques and materials. Not so often do you hear about the struggle, the failed attempts or the push to finish working ideas anyway, vain efforts to follow through. Learn something about your materials and salvage the process.
After vacating my head for the winter, I came back around to this study of lines and circles. If I can erase pencil from paper I can unwrap wire. Start again. I looked at the Circle and Line Study number … some billion and one, challenged myself and stepped up to the plate. I can reuse this. In rebuilding for 2022 I only used what was a part of the original 2021 piece. The bones of the original concept were good, I knew I could find greatness in them. As I dismantled, 2021 brightened up and began to take on new life. It showed me which way to turn and began to build itself up again. I stepped back and took it all in.
Artist Bio:
Angelina (Anna) Radocchia is a 2004 graduate from the Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, Massachusetts with a BFA in fine arts. Abstraction is a blanket theme in Anna’s work spanning the mediums she works; painting, photography, mixed media and sculpture. Her love of nature and the outdoors can be found throughout her work.
A life long horseman, Anna has built a niche offering custom portrait work. She uses hand cut stencils for the foundation while her use of color emphasizes motion and creates lines in the environment her subjects are based in. Text can be found throughout in a play on words, tying disciplines titles from the equine world and connecting title to subject matter.
Since 2015 Anna has sketched, painted and sculpted over 600 variations of circles in her pursuit to push her study of line, color and composition. By 2019 squares, stripes, and hash marks became another recurring theme in her non equine work, tools in her handbag of creative process without expectation. 2019 marked her first year participating in the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show and her return to 3 dimensional work. In 2021 the Waubeeka Golf Links in Williamstown, MA commissioned a circle sculpture permanently residing at hole 13.
The latest addition to themes to be repeated; cutting snowflakes which started as holiday greeting cards. The mark of the artist and no two flakes being alike offers endless possibilities just as her work with shape and line. Her latest snowflake commissioned curtain included over 65 flakes of various sizes from ¼ to 6 inches in diameter, laminated and hung with beading wire.
Rhonda Ratray, Bubble Trouble (Blow Outs)
enamel, glass and gourd. Various sizes from 5″ to 14″ 10 in total
Artist Statement:
THESE are grapefruit to watermelon sized FRUITING BODIES round to pear shaped puff balls. Mature pore mass pale bubblegum pink. Fairly smooth texture characteristic marbleized pattern with a large somewhat fleshy chamber for holding CO2. This organism decomposes in as little as 2 weeks and up to 1000 years.
HABITAT is solitary, scattered or in groups fruiting simultaneously or in succession. These puff balls can appear almost anywhere at any time.
EDIBILITY NOTE: flavor is a combination of banana, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves, and wintergreen. Sometimes noted as a combination of vanilla, cherry, lemon, and orange. Specific flavor may be recreated by combining esters: methyl salicylate, ethyl butyrate, benzyl acetate, amyl acetate or cinnamic aldehyde. This mushroom is reported to have a cleansing effect on the pallet as it is recommended to be chewed and not swallowed.
COMMENTS: Folklore regarding Blow Out Puffballs, as they were seen as giving form to an exhaling breath, this mushroom gives the hunter a reminder to breathe a cleansing breath. Used in folk magic rituals for becoming unstuck.
Artist Bio:
Rhonda Ratray received her BFA from Alfred University School of Art and Design, and her MFA from The School Of The Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Rhonda taught Screen-printing at The School of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA affiliated with Tufts University. Finding inspiration in printmaking, painting, sculpture and design, she has also taught at the MFA Boston, The Maud Morgan Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA, The Essex Art Center, Lawrence, MA and The Brookline Art Center. She currently teaches at the Vermont Art Exchange, North Bennington, VT. Rhonda has exhibited her work in many universities and galleries including Montserrat College of Art, Emmanuel College, The Adikman Gallery at Tufts University, Medford, MA, The Bennington Museum and The Fitchburg Art Museum. Fitchburg, MA. Rhonda is the Artist in Residence and curates The Left Bank Gallery in North Bennington, VT. Rhonda grew up in the Bennington area and also paints under the name Aimee LaPorte.
Erika Senft Miller, Mirror Vision 1787 – 2022
Mirror Vision 1787 – 2022: An Invitation
Curator Mirror Vision Talk
2 convex safety mirrors, each 18 inches diameter, each fastened with 2 wood screws on Sugar Maple with 18 inches between the two mirrors. 2 logs, each 13 inches diameter, each placed 30.5 inches in front of a mirror. Production Assistance: Seamus Hannan, John Miller, Giovanna Jager
Artist Statement:
Mirror Vision 1787 – 2022 spans the distance between two convex safety mirrors installed in mirrored fashion on opposite sides of a tree along the path at Jennings Brook, and several mirrors located in the museum, including an early one from 1787. Mirrors are shiny surfaces. They reflect back to us what we otherwise cannot see. I created this installation as an invitation, a chance to reflect on how we see ourselves, each other, and our surroundings in the context of what lies behind us.
Please take a seat on the log and allow your eyes to relax in front of the safety mirror. You may notice that the mirror’s convexity creates a larger visual field. It allows you to take in more of your surroundings. This is comforting to your primal brain. Knowing that there are no threats to scan for, invites you to relax your eyes, and to calm your breathing.
When we are calm and see with soft focus, our surroundings suddenly become alive. We start to see possibilities to engage and connect on a deeper level. Let your curiosity guide you fearlessly, and let your eyes and hearts relax and wander. On your way back to the museum, having untethered your vision from preconceived notions, you may notice a freshness that expands further as you look for the museum’s mirrors – the wedding mirror, the first safety mirror, and even the bathroom’s vanity mirrors. Are these too part of the collection? If you want to play more, step into the gift shop where you’ll find a viewfinder. What will you do with it? Where will it lead? What will you see?
Artist Bio:
Erika Senft Miller is an interdisciplinary artist who creates collaborative multi-sensory experiences. Her work, set in unique physical sites, employs a variety of art forms that foster exploration and connection within the context of large-scale performance, paintings, and sculptures. Senft Miller has performed in the United States and Europe and has taught in universities, theaters, businesses, and community centers for over twenty years. Her work has been exhibited throughout Vermont.
instagram.com/erikasenftm
vimeo.com/erikasenftmiller
Medium: erikasenftmiller.medium.com
Mariam Shah, Dispossession, June 2022
Mixed Media – plywood, reflective tape. 4′ x 8′
Artist Statement:
As a refugee, my work often focuses on the illusion of “asylum”. While it’s generous of countries to provide so many of us safety, it does come at a huge price. The inability to travel out of the US has been my greatest sacrifice. The loss of my country, my culture, my language, my family continues to tear at me internally. Not being there for the death of my parents or brother is a blessing in that I didn’t have to see them suffer, but I am also left with the worst pain I have ever felt. While this piece isn’t about the glaring reality of what sanctuary really is, it is a continued iteration of loss and in this case, a very personal one as I went through an emergency, radical hysterectomy some months ago. The sense of loss continues, it’s profound, overwhelming and ungraspable. I am no longer who I was, I am a woman in menopause 10 years too early and I have to relearn myself all over again.
Artist Bio:
A Pakistani artist, Mariam Shah’s journey into the art world began as a 3 year old when she used an HB pencil to draw her mother as a circle with four lines, limbs, jutting out of it, a single curl on her head and a very exact bellybutton! In the presence of her mother, a formidable artist, and her father, a genius civil engineer, Mariam was able to explore the artistic world to her heart’s content. During her adult years, Mariam convinced a high school to let her build an art program for them since they had none. She singlehandedly built a curriculum for the entire school and after 10 years decided to realize her dream of attending Bennington College in Vermont to further her knowledge of the creative arts. At Bennington Mariam threw herself into many areas of the visual and performing arts; painting, ceramics, sculpture, photography, music and voice. During her final year, Mariam honed in on sculptural ceramics as her medium of choice and exhibited, gaudy, life size pieces reminsicent of a Pakistani wedding. After graduating from Bennington, life had different plans for her as she entered the culinary world out of necessity. At this point Mariam is creating work only sporadically, when truly inspired and in her words: “When I can afford to!”. Shah is also a chef and Instagram creator sharing recipes she grew up with and furthering her skills as a photographer. Currently living in Hoosick Falls, NY, Mariam is planning to attend SUNY Albany this fall for a Masters in Social Work while juggling art making and food.
Teru Simon, Chrysalis Waiting To Be Born
Ceramic with base: 70 X 26 X 24 inches
I am a ceramic sculptor, a painter and print maker (water color, ceramic paint and oil), ceramist/potter. Although my ceramic pottery work is mostly Cone 10 reduction, salt and wood fire, I have worked with most ceramic techniques, Raku, terra sigillata, pit fire, low fire, burnishing, etc. My inspiration and sources for my art work come directly for the world around me. I am a “humanist” sculptor fascinated by people, their individual spirit, their specific gesture and the human metaphor. The pieces are built hollow specifically to express the spirit of the soul and the fragility of our existence. My ceramic/pottery are influenced by the Asian aesthetic, and although most of my work is utilitarian, I consider each piece singly, usually with a unique mark or markings. My paintings and print making are also concerned with that which is temporal and changing; a specific time or place, the weather, movement of clouds, traces of the wind.
Michael Tillyer, Alice and Pretzel, 2019-2020
Carved & painted pine, with bits of metal. approx: 36 x 36 x 48 inches
Artist Statement:
I am uncomfortable with the title artist. It sounds so European or smart-assed New Yorky. I prefer “creative worker”—it is artwork after all. A recent self-realization is that I am not even a sculptor really, I am more of a 3-D cartoonist. Cartooning is the finest form of art— Honoré Daumier comes to mind. I think art objects should do more than just sit there to sell themselves. Inspiring a smile is a hit for me.
Artist Bio:
M. Tillyer is a graduate of the long-defunct Windham College in Putney, VT, where he studied with Chuck Ginnever, Peter Forakis, and David Rohn. He is the founding director of the Anchor House of Artists, the New England Visionary Artists Museum in Northampton, MA, which opened in 1997, launching the museum wing in 2017. He operates a studio in Conway, MA, where he lives with his wife Susan.
Patrick Todd, Trail Marker. 6-2022
Paper Mache, Wood, Steel, Outdoor Paint, Polyethylene. 8’x15’x6’. LxWxH
Artist Statement:
Sculpture is the most violent form of creation. It is born from thought in the same way other forms are, however, it’s ‘real’ nature has certain requirements that must be attended to. From cutting to fastening, the 3 dimensional sculpture exists and co-habitates with our senses, and hopefully finds harmony with the natural world, even while it tickles the viewer into a dialogue of deconstructive understandings. What is this thing? How is it made? Why these colors? Does it mean anything? Questions that are ultimately private and personal, resound and reverberate in a viewers internal processing. If I do my job right, and I tune the work properly, it will continue to unravel its mysteries even after one has left the sculpture’s presence.
Artist Bio:
Patrick Todd is a Brooklyn based artist working in painting, sculpture, sound, photography, and film. Having travelled around the country in his youth, Patrick has found the chaotic energy of New York City to be perfectly aligned with his multiplicity of interests and intentions. He graduated from Long Island University, CW Post in ‘97 with an MFA in Multi Disciplinary Art, and from Cal State Fullerton with a BFA in Fine Art in ‘90.
Insta @Patrick_Todd_Studio
Jerry Tuckman, (Still) Standing O
55” high x 16” wide x 2.5” deep. Approximate weight: 175 lbs.
I am 76 years old and retired and have been writing poetry since I was 9 years old (that’s quite a few years). I did my first welding (found steel objects) at Snow Farm five years ago and after a number of years networked my way, through Ann Jon and Sculpture Now, to wonderful, accomplished sculptor, Peter Barrett (whose work is also featured in this show). I have assisted Peter in small ways (grinding, steel mesh work) and he, in turn, has allowed me to do my own work (with his assistance). I find all of the work contemplative and creatively satisfying.
“(Still) Standing O” is dedicated to my dear friend, Orlando Bagwell, former tennis doubles partner and co-8th grade girl’s basketball coach and, by the way, prize-winning documentary film maker. I always write one or more poems (works of art provide and produce multiple interpretations) to accompany the idea or physical reality of my sculptures. Below are two related to this work.
ARTIST BIO:
Jerry Tuckman was born in 1946 in Borough Park, Brooklyn, New York. When your “borough” (Brooklyn) is larger than many major cities in your country you always include your neighborhood. Next neighborhood was Flatbush then finished grade and high schools in Lynbrook (Long Island), New York. Bounced around four colleges and finished up at Columbia University in 1970 after working in the Martin Luther King Poor Peoples’ Campaign in Washington DC (“Resurrection City”) and the Eugene McCarthy Presidential Campaign in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Tuckman’s pecuniary working career was with planning and anti-poverty government agencies, universities and non-profits. He was a founding Board Member of the Massachusetts Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) and founded/created the Cooperative Housing Task Force and the first Massachusetts statewide organization of community development corporations. His volunteer work was with LeadBoston, Roxbury Community College, WGBH (PBS) Community Advisory Board, Rwanda Youth Healing Center (U.S. Advisory Board) and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. He is also currently an elected Town Meeting Member in the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts. While working at Tufts University, Tuckman had the privilege of spending a few days with Paul Rusesabegina (the real proprietor of the ‘Hotel Rwanda’, think Don Cheadle”) and his wife, Tatiana, when Paul lectured on morality and genocide.
Currently retired he lives equally in Brookline (Boston) & Otis (Southern Berkshires) MA. He lives with his (wonderfully supportive) wife and has two daughters, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and three enchanting grandchildren.
Find Jerry on Facebook and Instagram.
(Still) Standing O
A Sculpture Built and Poem
Both Dedicated to My Dear Friend, Orlando Bagwell
We walk the sculpture park
With your daughter and grandson,
You, standing tall . . .
As you did behind the camera,
on the tennis court
behind the lectern.
coaching the teen girls
When they’d enter the bathrooms at break
Seemingly never to come out.
Dear friend of many years,
Near or far, one coast or the other,
Unbowed, your look no less intense.
Always a faraway look.
I never knew where it landed.
Now it’s destination even further afield.
It was on the tennis court
We most related,
Easily forward and back,
Side to side,
gliding across seamlessly.
I know where I am to go
But can no longer get there
Or meet the ball to find it’s proper home.
And you are not sure where you are
Or when you are
or who you are
Or what to do with a racquet in your hand.
We are still standing, you and I,
Each shaking in his own way,
A few years past our primes
And yet, a million times removed.
We have proven what we will over past years
As we pondered
The great questions of the day.
It is another day.
We still have more to do or say.
Now there are more questions than answers.
It was so nice to see you,
Whoever you now are,
So much now locked away. . .
A different kind of silence.
It seems the hard drive of your being,
hacked,
My dear friend hijacked
Without a way to ransom.
I remain,
my memory intact . . .
I will always remember you,
Eyes so very focused,
Pummeling the fuzzy yellow ball . . .
(Still) Standing O – Totem
Standing tall,
Erect
Unbending
Totem
Of a life
Well-lived.
What I would
Give
For one last conversation.
You are so still
intense
Same angry stare.
My heart breaks.
There is less and less
Of you there.
John Umphlett, Flipping One Over a Bush
steel race tubing , seatbelts, my body, bush 35 feet x 18 feet x 22 feet,
Artist Statement:
As an artist, I would describe myself as an innovative and inquisitive thinker. Keeping open to the regiment of experimentation, I discover inspiring material relationships. The physical world creates conceptual boundaries ready for discovery and choreography. Through the practice of trial and error, I often express parallel relationships between material and color, idea and images, and concepts and objects. This process further challenges my creativity and novel approach in developing a body of work. I am finding that I have a heightened awareness of social communication. Small gestures and cues of another’s emotional paths lead to large rich personalities. Personalities exist, as a catalyst in extending the important revisited elements. My work can exist as a laborious fabrication that represents the action in which is super quick to view /existing only for a split second or by means of a snapshot of a moment that takes hours to fully view. Time exists as an inevitable and ever-changing constant that can be the most powerful detail of the piece. I have found that my artistic process uncovers a broad range of diverse paths all holding important directions to discover. Mostly what I have found are the most important aspects that my work attempts to touch on are the vulnerabilities and ephemeral aspects of living. To live with relationships, mirror, honor, criticize, show empathy, hate, listen, mock, and forgive.
“ Flipping one over a Bush” was conceived and made in the year 2000. Only a year out of receiving my MFA this work carried a very different meaning to me then as it does today. Most of the elements still exist as they did then physically as they did 22 years ago however the way I construct the thinking around the work today seems much slower in response. I feel when I was younger, I ran almost intuitively on instinct, while always there was a running critical thinking eye, then it seemed as if I would pause much further through the practice of making.
So today I take a look at it. I respect the work then and its life, however, today I like to methodically break the work down further into categories. It has been interesting revisiting this work and deconstructing its parts. While most of the parts seem the same everything has been reconsidered. The pathway, the manipulated living elements, the pause to this sandwich making second and questions left for open conversation.
Artist Bio:
John Umphlett was born in southern New Jersey in 1974. Trained in Richmond Virginia in drawing and sculpture where he graduated with a BFA in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. John continued his education at Bennington College at which he graduated with a MFA in 1999. His work has crossed between many mediums including installation, video, performance and drawing. He would be considered an innovative and an inquisitive thinker; open to experimentation through the love of material handling and repetitive practice. His drive for his work seems to spawn from a simple action… taking one step towards what may seem to be an uncomfortable connection with human nature. Our natural response to a particular action can set up a number of tangents that make sense for a beginning path to form for him to develop a body/ or vein of work. John presently works at Bennington College as a Technical instructor in the Visual Arts in which gives him the opportunity not only to develop his work professionally but also allows him to share his passion for making with the students at the college through a teaching practice. Alongside the work at Bennington College he has also worked with numerous artists, architects, and engineers in New York and around the world, as a fabricator and designer.
“Therein I believe lies the wonderful metaphor to Umphlett’s art: certainty of material, absolute quality of craft, a Spartan title, and then, pow, the slippery trajectory of meaning and intentionality. I think that is what impressed me when I saw those pieces on that night in question. One or two, or maybe three, art works punctuating space with a presence of thought.”—writer Bret Chenkin
It has been said that John asks the audience to consider alternative explanations of commonplace. John creates sculptures and performances that touch on the familiar however with slight shifts in context the viewers own wisdom becomes the thing in question. Umphlett is ever inventing new ways to communicate the significance of those seemingly banal moments whether they be a quiver of a lip, a breath, or the instant before a bug “ splats” on your windshield. By enhancing these moments, often absurdly, Umphlett presses the viewer into a reflection on issues of life, death, and human connection.
Lee Williams, Creeper 2022
wood, thread. 8ft by 4ft by 4ft
Artist Statement:
This piece has been made onsite at he Museum, I am intersested in site/ environment, process and materials. The work engages with the environment and the space surrounding the work is as important as the work its self. the title refers to the vines that creep around the trees and I am exploring the idea of one sculptural form relying on another for support.
Artist Bio:
Originally from the industrial coal mining area of South Wales, UK. Lee now lives in South Shaftsbury, Vermont with his wife, Kim, three dogs and two cats. Lee studied at Cardiff School of Art, Wales, UK: Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, UK: Goldsmith University, London, UK and University of South Wales, Wales, UK; Lee has a Masters degree in Fine Art and has a post graduate teaching diploma. Lee received scholarships to live, work and exhibit in Tuscany, Italy, France, Scotland and Ireland. Lee has been teaching Art and Design at University level for the past 18 years. A consistent aim of his work has been to encourage people to engage with their environment and the natural world. Lee has exhibited his work internationally and has undertaken public, corporate and private commissions, many on a large scale. He has produced work in a variety of media; including drawings, prints, painting and sculpture.
Max Yawney, Bright Spinning Forest Geometric
Acrylic on Vinyl with steel pipe and wood. 118 x 96 x 96 inches
Artist Statement:
The viewer looking at these paintings stands witness to a situation and as the notion of difference and distinction between the paintings, when considered, yields potential for the introduction of the universal or poetic into our lived experiences. This project, as does all of the work I produce, stems from the fervent belief that the differences we experience in life are the electric and the possible. Be those differences in people, cultures, states of mind, phenomena ( color ,scale), context or just – the toaster and the counter top.
Artist Bio:
Max’s formative years were in Burlington, Vermont. He studied at Rochester Institute of Technology ( BFA photography) and moved to New Mexico , living there for 5 years before attending Long Island University ( MFA Painting), and settling in Brooklyn , NY. Max has a studio in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn as well as a Barn / residence studio in Covington Township, PA. He continues to exhibit installations ( 2 distinctly different images/objects comprising one work) of Paintings, Photographs and Sculptural works at galleries, museums and public spaces.
IG: @maxyawney100
Postcards with the map and artist info can be downloaded HERE or picked up at the Museum desk. Click on the links above or images below for more info about each piece!
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*Both locations are fully accessible to the public, free of charge, and all art is available for purchase.
