THE LAY OF THE LAND: Folio Fall 2009

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FOLIO A Biannual Publication For MassArt Alumni And Friends FALL · VOL 10 2009 exploring the inner and outer landscape The LAy OF The LAnd From Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley to the Northwest, from Olmsted’s Franklin Park to Boston’s South End, from the terrain of the Surrealists to Louisiana and the Arctic, alumni, students, and faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design covered considerable ground. In the process they pondered environmental impact, sheltered students from the elements, formed an enduring legacy, and renovated a historic carriage house. No matter where they landed, they made a lasting impression. Embrace the landscape with this fall issue of Folio. eXPLORe

description

From Idaho's Sawtooth Valley to the Northwest, from Olmsted's Franklin Park to Boston's South End, from the terrain of the Surrealists to Louisiana and the Arctic, alumni, students, and faculty at Massachusetts College of Art and Design covered considerable ground. In the process they pondered environmental impact, sheltered students from the elements, formed an enduring legacy, and renovated a historic carriage house. No matter where they landed, they made a lasting impression. Embrace the landscape with this fall issue of Folio.

Transcript of THE LAY OF THE LAND: Folio Fall 2009

621 HUNTINGTON AVENUE BOSTON, MA 02115 USA MassArt.edu

NONPROFIT ORGUS POSTAGE

PAIDBOSTON, MAPERMIT NO. 54162return service requested

FOLIOA Biannual Publication For MassArt Alumni And Friends

FALL · VOL 10 2009

exploring the inner and outer landscapeThe LAy OF The LAnd

From Idaho’s Sawtooth Valley to the Northwest, from Olmsted’s

Franklin Park to Boston’s South End, from the terrain of the

Surrealists to Louisiana and the Arctic, alumni, students, and faculty

at Massachusetts College of Art and Design covered considerable

ground. In the process they pondered environmental impact,

sheltered students from the elements, formed an enduring legacy,

and renovated a historic carriage house. No matter where they

landed, they made a lasting impression. Embrace the landscape

with this fall issue of Folio.

eXPLORe

The college’s Art of Landscape program,

funded by Bank of America, brings fifteen

third graders to Franklin Park’s Scarboro Pond

for four mornings of outdoor art-making with

their parents. Students are selected from the

Patrick Lyndon School in West Roxbury, the

Dr. William W. Henderson Inclusion Elementary

School in Dorchester, and the James M. Curley

School in Jamaica Plain. Amy Sallen, visual

arts teacher at the Lyndon School, art

education students from MassArt, and mem-

bers of the National Park Service guide par-

ticipants in their study of the park’s changing

seasons. “It’s a good self-confidence booster.

Many want to take further art classes,”

says Sallen.

As participants engage with Franklin Park,

they also learn about Frederick Law Olmsted,

the renowned landscape architect who

created the largest jewel in the Emerald

Necklace. “The most powerful part of the

program is students engaging in side-by-side

art-making with their parents,” says Leslie

Wu Foley, director of MassArt’s Center for

Art and Community Partnerships.

Another group of students also derived benefit

from their surroundings, which were altered to

meet their needs.

In Boston’s South End, ten students in the

master of architecture program brightened

the urban landscape as part of its first com-

munity design-build program. They built a

colorful bus shelter for students at the William

Carter School, a public education program for

students with intensive special needs.

“The project really highlighted one of the core

goals of our program, which is community ser-

vice and teaching students leadership through

that service,” says Patricia Seitz, professor of

architecture and head of the master of archi-

tecture program. “The school is thrilled.”

Architecture students learned how to work

with clients, design and alter a design, create

technical drawings, collaborate, and lead a

project. The shelter’s design includes recycled

rainwater, which is channeled into overlapping

pools that create sensory learning experiences

for Carter School students; the water is then

repurposed for the school’s gardens.

“Freshly felled

trees”, Nem

ah, W

ashin

gto

n fro

m th

e series Saw

du

st Mo

un

tain

shAPIng—And BeIng shAPed By—uRBAn And RuRAL TABLeAuX

For centuries artists have engaged with the

landscape around them to reinvigorate them-

selves and deepen their practice. The tradition

is alive and well at Massachusetts College of

Art and Design.

TIMELESS TOPOgRAPhy

“Looking at nature is a very valuable thing for an artist.”

In summer 2009, master of architecture students designed and built a shelter at the William E. Carter School in Boston’s historic South End neighborhood.

Bricks and rocks unearthed during construc-

tion were reused to create pathways and

added to the water features, and bright trans-

lucent panels made of Polygal, a one hundred

percent recyclable material, allow the sun to

be used as a light source. “I hope the structure

will stimulate students in some way,” says

Jonathan Schluenz ’10G.

Eirik Johnson, assistant professor of photog-

raphy, is hoping to galvanize the public not by

changing their surroundings, but by pointing

out how industry has altered them.

He published Sawdust Mountain (Aperture)

in 2009. Through photography, the book

explores the environmental impact of the

timber and salmon industries in the Northwest.

“I hope with the book to use the Northwest to

illustrate larger issues concerning the relation-

ship between environmental and economic

interests within communities that can be seen

in a microcosm there,” says Johnson.

Johnson’s connection with the landscape of

the Northwest springs from how he was raised

in Seattle. “My family would go out into the

middle of the forest hunting chanterelles and

morels. We’d watch salmon come in to spawn,

and we would hike. As an artist, I’m interested

in showing how humans are changing the

landscape. I have an obligation to make work

that deals with some of these issues.”

In October the Henry Art Gallery at the

University of Washington will feature a solo

exhibition of photographs from Sawdust

Mountain.

While Johnson’s Sawdust Mountain may bring

one face-to-face with pressing environmental

issues, two landscape programs set in the

Vermont and Arizona mountains encourage

bucolic escape.

Nancy McCarthy directs the college’s Art

New England program in the pastoral setting

of Bennington, VT. Art New England annually

offers three one-week, in-depth workshops

in a variety of mediums, including three land-

scape painting classes. Participants come from

throughout the United States; many are art

teachers. “Looking at nature is a very valuable

thing for an artist. They can absorb colors

under natural light and stimulate their senses,”

says McCarthy. She also is a painter and a

painting teacher.

In March 2010 Barbara Bosworth, professor

of photography, will teach a ten-day land-

scape photography class at Sunglow Ranch

in Arizona’s Chiricahua Mountains. The

course will help artists develop an eye for the

uniqueness of a place, as well as the ability to

compose images that capture subtleties and

reflect their personal interpretation of the

environment.

“Freshly felled

trees”, Nem

ah, W

ashin

gto

n fro

m th

e series Saw

du

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tain

Art New England, Vermont

Two new leaders are invigorating

Massachusetts College of Art and Design:

Hunter O’Hanian, vice president for institu-

tional advancement and executive director

of the MassArt Foundation, and Karen

Townsend, dean of admissions.

O’Hanian was president of the Anderson Ranch

Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado;

Townsend was director of admissions at Maine

College of Art (MECA) in Portland, Maine.

O’Hanian spent the last fourteen years running

arts organizations. “I’m excited to be back in

a more urban environment,” says O’Hanian,

whose view previously included bears and

herds of elk. “I want to strengthen the good

work that has been done in the development

area and help create more opportunities for

students and alumni.”

Townsend has devoted her career to higher

education and also is an active art practitioner.

“I’d like to build a broader connection with

Boston schools, foster relationships with teach-

ers locally and nationally, and achieve a good

balance of in-state and out-of-state students,”

says Townsend. She works on her painting

when she can.

dReAM

LAVIsh LeAdeRshIPfresh faces bring vast experience

Mark Ferguson ’88 passed away in 2008. His

family, including his wife Eleanor Li ’87 and

her sister Priscilla Li, established the Mark

Ferguson Scholarship to honor his love of

creating sculptures from cast glass and to

enable students to work with cast glass. “We

had such a great experience at Massachusetts

College of Art and Design. We’re hoping the

scholarship will go to someone as passionate

as Mark was about casting,” says Li, who met

Ferguson at MassArt in 1986 when she was

studying fashion design. They married in 1989

and have two children, Leah and Hayden.

Ferguson became interested in glass as a

high school student when his mother began

creating stained glass.

Despite the fact that dyslexia made reading

a struggle, Ferguson also was an ardent — and

non-traditional at twenty-four — student and

teacher. Ferguson relished his relationship

with Alan Klein, professor of fine arts 3D, who,

dReAMsays Li, really encouraged him. “Mark was

hard working, funny, and sarcastic. He was

one of the few people in the country who used

hot poured glass as the main thrust of their

expression,” says Klein.

In addition to being a teaching assistant

at MassArt, Ferguson was a faculty member

at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, NY; an adjunct

sculpture faculty member at Hartford

Art School in Connecticut; and a visiting

artist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign. He earned his MFA from Rhode

Island School of Design in 1990 and returned

to MassArt in 2002 as a visiting artist.

Over the course of a long and successful

career, Ferguson made pint glasses for artist

Matthew Barney, cast glass sculpture for pop

artist Jim Dine, and exhibited nationally and

internationally. “Mark was conceptual and

really into surrealism,” says Li.

Ferguson’s friend Hirokazu Fukawa remembers

Ferguson’s Small Homage to de Chirico. The

work refers to the illogical juxtaposition of

objects in the Italian Surrealist’s painting Song

of Love. “A sense of the absence of man is

present in both de Chirico’s

and Ferguson’s works. Both

descend into subjectivity

beneath a façade/figure;

nostalgic, yet, no one

is there,” wrote Fukawa.

Ferguson’s work is a testament to his talent

for cast glass. A letter he wrote to a friend

in 2002 expresses his spirit: “The important

point to life is not how long it is but rather how

well it is lived … There is no greater pursuit in

life, come win or lose, than the pursuit of one’s

dreams … Far too many live their lives without

a dream,” he wrote.

Ferguson lived his dreams, and, fittingly, the

Mark Ferguson Scholarship will help MassArt

students do the same.

ReFLecTIng A LIFe In gLAssthe mark ferguson scholarship

dOnOR PORTRAIT

“The important point to life is not how long it is but rather how well it is lived…”

FAcuLTy FOcus

Jane Marsching, associate professor,

studio foundation, describes herself as an

experimental media artist. Marsching has a

BA in photography from Hampshire College

and an MFA in photography and related

media from the School of Visual Arts.

cOLd cOMFORT jane marsching addresses climate change

She has been teaching freshmen the funda-

mentals of visual language, video, and digital

imaging, and graduate students contemporary

art practices at Massachusetts College of Art

and Design for five years.

Outside the classroom Marsching is working

on what she calls a “Greek chorale adapta-

tion of the Fourth Assessment Report of the

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC).” Released in 2007, the report assesses

the risks of climate change and includes

predictions about its impact.

Marsching began her career at Aperture

as a book editor, where she worked on

interdisciplinary teams of writers and

photographers. As she developed an interest

in research, writing, and language, multimedia

followed naturally.

Marsching’s recent work has centered on the

Arctic; her current focus on climate change

isn’t much of a leap considering that global

warming is transforming the formerly frozen

frontier into slush.

The IPCC report raised questions for

Marsching that she is addressing in her long-

term work in progress, An Uncertain Land,

which will include twelve-person vocals and

multi-screen video. She will examine how

policy makers try to define the scientific

language of uncertainty. The Greek chorus

will act as translators of the complex transfor-

mations the climate is bringing to our planet

and culture.

“We have gotten better at recycling and using

fluorescent light bulbs … but still, the problem

seems so huge, so out of our hands … that

it’s easier to turn away or indulge in cynical

dystopic visions,” says Marsching, who

believes that most people are scared—yet

bored—by the topic of climate change.

The artist sees a need for something more

catalytic and transformative than the act of

changing a light bulb. She wants to explore

how art, spectacle, and collaboration with

scientists could spark a sense of wonder,

interest, and a desire to take action.

We need the kind of unifying magic, says

Marsching, which President Kennedy

employed to inspire the United States to

reach the moon. “The poetry of his language

and rhetoric was a kind of art form,” says

Marsching. “We have an engine of creativity

today, which we can see in the massive

entertainment industry as well as in so many

other places. Can it be diverted to another

kind of activist effort?”

As diverse as Marsching’s work can be, a

common thread runs through it. “It’s about

stories—putting them together and seeing the

relationships between them,” says Marsching.

“the problem seems so huge, so out of our hands, and getting ever more complex...”

Jane D. Marsching, Mike supervising Naomi building a balloon umiak, Austfonna Glacier, Svalbard, Norway, 2006, Courtesy Miller Block Gallery

esIt’s all a matter of perspective for Weathersby.

As owner of company Environmental Services

(ES), he turns his work as a handyman into art.

The conceptual artist, whose work focuses on

the transcendence of the ordinary, received the

Foster Prize in 2003 from Boston’s Institute

of Contemporary Art.

Where you see a pile of invoices, Douglas

Weathersby MFA ’02 pictures a collage.

And all those tools and supplies you have

lying around your studio? He envisions

an installation.

ALuMnI FOcus

he’s AT yOuR seRVIcedouglas weathersby takes environmental services to the masur museum

The handyman is artist-in-residence at the

Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana,

where as part of The Human Nest Project in

Residence, he’s working with JDE Construction

to renovate the museum’s carriage house,

turning it into temporary living quarters

for visiting artists and curators. As Weathersby

works—and documents his work—he’s unearth-

ing his next work of art. At press time he’s

not sure exactly what will coalesce; perhaps

an installation that depicts the history of

the museum through its advertising. “So

far I’ve found some pretty nice older desk

lamps. Nothing really, really exciting,” says

Weathersby. Yet. There’s still a big pile of

junk to sort through.

ES

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“The show referenced the move because I literally brought everything from my studio and stored it in the gallery for the show.”

Weathersby inhabits a temporary office and

art space in the downstairs of the carriage

house, and in a sense, he himself is an exhibit:

the site is open to the public. His white ES

van, which he parks in front of the museum,

features signage advertising the project.

The artist also is collaborating with Emily Jahn,

the museum’s curator of education, on several

projects for children. “I’ll have them help with

projects in my studio,” says Weathersby. “I’ll

tell the children what I do, talk about it func-

tionally, and then talk about appropriation and

collage. Maybe we’ll make collages out of some

museum invitations.”

Collages are frequently part of his work. A

24-foot long collage and mural of Weathersby’s

former art studio covered in invoices was part

of “Douglas Weathersby: The ES Inaugural

Retrospective and Storage Loft,” exhibited at

the Judi Rotenberg Gallery in January 2009.

The show also included a photo from his

house, which he moved into in January, and

a structure featuring stairs and shelving

made of debris from the studio he could no

longer afford when he bought his home. “The

show referenced the move because I literally

brought everything from my studio and stored

it in the gallery for the show,” says Weathersby.

He’ll cap off his residency at the Masur

Museum with an exhibition, talk, and recep-

tion, after which he’ll return his van to its usual

function: advertising ES and ferrying him to

clients whose homes may later appear as part

of an installation.

ES Virtual Home Office, Atlanta Ed., ink jet prints, office supplies, 2007

Lewis Morris SIM ’11 feels a bit like a prodigal

son. His mother, talented in drawing, yearned

to attend Rhode Island School of Design in

Providence, Rhode Island, where Morris was

raised. She never finished high school. Neither

did Morris’s brother. “If you come from the

inner city, college isn’t really an option,” says

Morris. To have come so far can sometimes

feel scary.

But words comfort and guide the twenty-year-

old, as they have since he was sixteen and

competing in poetry slams across the country.

“My poetry has taken me a lot of places,” says

Morris. He is a four-time member of the

Providence Youth Poetry Slam Team. Their

performances have won the team appearances

at the Collegiate National Poetry Slam, Inc.

(CUPSI) finals at the Apollo Theater in Harlem

(they placed fifth), in San Jose, CA (they

placed second), and in Washington DC.

For five dollars you can purchase his latest

self-published collection, Anatomy of an

Adam, which reflects his current fascination

with religion.

Morris admires African American poet

Patricia Smith — especially her poem

“Skinhead” — which shows her ability to write

from another’s perspective. “They call me

skinhead, and I got my own beauty. It is

knife-scrawled across my back in sore, jagged

letters, it’s in the way my eyes snap away from

the obvious,” reads the poem, in which Smith

channels a neo-Nazi.

POeTRy In MOTIOnfor young artist, words drive filmmaking

sTudenT snAP

“My poetry has taken me a lot of places.”

More than forty alumni, students,

and friends of MassArt joined

President Kay Sloan last month

in the President’s Gallery, as she

thanked the college’s ever-growing

group of scholarship donors and

members of the Longwood Society.

After a welcome from new

Vice President for Institutional

Advancement Hunter O’Hanian and

a college update from President

Sloan, attendees heard compelling

stories from three of the scholarship

recipients:

- a photographer from South Africa

who was only able to attend

MassArt after receiving a new

scholarship specifically for talented

MFA students with financial need;

- a fashion major who spent the

summer at the Paris Fashion

Institute on a full scholarship,

and talked about the fashion

department’s excellent reputation

as well; and

- a senior animation student who

spent last summer interning at

Hasbro and has been able to take a

variety of unpaid internships due to

receiving generous scholarship aid.

Whether you are interested in

setting up a charitable gift annuity

that provides a steady stream of

income now, establishing a named

scholarship in your will, or exploring

other options, we can discuss what

might be best for you. Gifts of all

sizes are welcome. To learn more

about the MassArt Foundation’s

planned giving program, contact

Karin Blum at (617) 879-7080, or

email [email protected].

FuLL cIRcLeLearning — pass it on

Morris writes in what he imagines is Eve’s

voice in “Eve,” from Anatomy of an Adam.

You can see it in the following excerpt:

… I was given the other half of a man instead of

being created as a

whole being. I am ‘half.’ I am incomplete. I’d

rather give the rib

back, and become nothing and revert back

into a mere thought in the celestial conscious-

ness of my creator than be incomplete…

“Eve is every woman’s story,” says Morris, who

says the poem reflects the continued margin-

alization of women.

It is through words that Morris has found

his way into his artwork. Film is his second

favorite medium, and Morris is using

“Eve” to create a video for a SIM project.

Morris’s favorite director is Quentin Tarantino.

“The dialogue crackles and he gets you

interested immediately,” says Morris. He also

counts Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002) as one of

a few films he considers “flawless.”

When he’s not writing poetry or working on

films, Morris focuses on his screenplays.

“I like to create characters that have a dual

nature,” says Morris. “My goal is to get one

of my screenplays sold by the time I turn

twenty-two.”

Cover illustration of Anatomy of an Adam

621 HUNTINGTON AVENUE BOSTON, MA 02115 USA MassArt.edu

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10.30.09Alumni Homecoming Weekend

Generations of alumni return to campus

to catch up with old friends and honor this

year’s award winners at the second annual

Alumni Homecoming Weekend.

12.07.09Holiday Sale

The college’s annual holiday sale, open

December 7-12 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.,

features original works of glass, ceramics,

painting, jewelry, photography, sculpture,

fibers, and more. The sale benefits artists,

and a portion of the proceeds provides

financial support to students.

04.10.10Twenty-first Annual Benefit Art Auction

We are grateful to the generous artists,

buyers, and sponsors who helped raise

more than $500,000 at the twentieth

annual auction last spring. Funds raised

support student scholarships and academic

programs. Mark your calendar for the

auction on April 10, 2010.

For details on these and other events,

visit the alumni online community at

alumni.massart.edu.

Editor: Sonia Targontsidis MFA ’02; Copy: jot*, Kristen Paulson ’96; Design: Moth Design, Dan Rukas ’03; Photography: Jim Ferguson, Jörg Meyer, Anne Marie Stein, and Joel Veak

Holiday Sale jewelry

Homecoming 2008