Faculty Art Exhibit Showcases Talent

 

The thoughtful artist statements accompanying the exhibit serve to illuminate the sources of inspiration and the messages the artists hope to convey to visitors. It’s a testament to the commitment of Rivers’ Visual Arts teachers to their craft that they have carved out the time to devote to their own artistic expression.

 

Department Chair David Saul has been exploring the remote reaches of the Maine coast for years, and the panoramic silver prints in this exhibit include coastal vistas, garden views, and shoreline scenes. “I utilize the broad panoramic format since it approximates how we see with peripheral vision, embracing the whole view and enhancing our perception,” he states. “A challenge of panoramic photography is to consider the range of lighting within your potential composition and then to craft a portfolio print, which conveys the desired details and visual emphasis.”

 

Jeremy Harrison also has a long history of taking to the wilds—as far away as the Arctic Circle—to paint and draw from nature. His contributions to the exhibit include oils, watercolors, dry point, and Japanese color block prints, as well as brilliantly colored inkjet prints. He worked on the prints this summer as part of a faculty enrichment grant he received to study the “color of light” in an advanced digital photography class at the Maine Media Workshop and College. “Over the past year I have worked in a half dozen different media. I have made discoveries, learned new techniques, refined old ones, and I hope, expressed myself creatively. While it is true that spreading oneself too thinly can hinder progress, I gave myself enough time with each medium to have failures and then work to overcome them. Working in one medium will inform and influence how I work in another.”

 

Rindy Garner’s multi-media installation “Stages” addresses her experience of having journeyed through a medical diagnosis that resulted in successful treatment. “Throughout the process I had the opportunity to work with an entire team of people including doctors, therapists, nurses, a physicist, a pathologist, and also other patients.  Being inherently curious, as I went through each phase of treatment I asked as many questions as possible. I observed, researched, and gathered all different kinds of information.  I consciously witnessed my experience from the inside out.  ‘Stages’ is a reflection of my healing process by integrating science, medicine, and the human spirit through art.”

 

Lisa Townley poured her creativity—and love for her children—into paintings and drawings that capture to small moments of childhood and motherhood. “My children inspire and challenge me daily,” said Townley in her statement. “I captured images in graphite and oil paint of [them] being themselves, staying away from posed images.” Of her self-portrait, she says “Painting myself alone would misrepresent my life. When I’m not on campus, I am with my children.” Townley’s work also includes several punctured ceramic bowls, a continuation of her study of positive and negative space. 

 

The artist statement for Tim Clark’s remarkable sculpture “Proceed” is as eloquent as the piece itself:  
“Proceed”

For some, walking through this portal is a daily occurrence…a veritable gauntlet of jabs, snide comments, and subtle remarks with mal intent. Each cuts to the core.

This is not a rite of passage or something to be celebrated. This is not about building character.

This is abuse.

This can be stopped.

Will you?

 

Chris Love’s mixed media work combines vibrant colors with social commentary. “The artwork I create comes out of necessity. I need to express who I am and the time and place in which I am living. My lens has changed dramatically over the last year and this work reflects my affinity for the immediacy of drawing, the power of vibrant color and my need to provide social commentary. My work also reflects who I am and what I have done in terms of working with my hands, working hard, breaking a sweat and striving to not just make artwork but to make statements that will live on longer than I do. I hope this glimpse inspires, intrigues, and serves as a catalyst in your thinking and/or being.”

 

Like Townley, Lily Gillett found inspiration in her daughter as well as in nature for the woodcuts she contributed to the exhibit. “The two prints of [her] try to capture her personality as a high-energy toddler and her love of nature while exploring the world… The other prints are studies of insects—a subject that also has endless possibilities given the complexity of shapes and patterns they have. Woodcuts have a natural texture and energy to the line that serves exploring this theme well.”

 

“While working in the studio I learned that it was good to get caught up in the process of the moment and not fixate on the end product envisioned,” concluded Gillett. “I worked with mistakes and saw them as opportunities to revise my images and welcomed the unexpected outcomes. These are things I constantly tell my students in middle school. It was good to experience firsthand what I hope to convince them is important in their own journeys making art.”

 

Gillett’s comment, in a nutshell, explains why Rivers’ students are indeed fortunate to have such talented and dedicated teachers, committed to being life-long learners themselves.