14 minute read
Cover story
WITH TEETH
In brief
Jillian Abir MacMaster
Residence: Frederick Education: BFA in photography from Shepherd University Day job: Community outreach manager at the Delaplaine Arts Center, where she works with children’s groups and adult recovery groups and engages them through art As curator: “Infinite Growth” (2022, through the Frederick Arts Council) and “She/They” (at Area 31 in Frederick in 2018) What she’s working on now: A portraiture series of queer relationships, and she just started taking a class in oil pastel drawing this month, so she might be incorporating that medium into her work in the future Connect with her: jillianmacmaster.com
WITH TEETH
Staff photo by Bill Green Turning the camera on herself was a departure for Frederick artist Jillian Abir MacMaster. “I found I could actually frighten myself.” Here, MacMaster is with her photographic images, from left, “Universal Burden,” “Practice” and “Forcing a Smile Until I Can’t Anymore.” AT LEFT: “With Teeth.”
: BFA in photography from Shepherd University : Community outreach manager at the Delaplaine Arts Center, where she works with children’s groups and adult recovery groups and engages them through art : “Infinite Growth” (2022, through the Frederick Arts Council) and “She/They” (at Area
When: Daily through Dec. 31 Where: Delaplaine Arts Center, 40 S. Carroll St., Frederick Tickets: Free admission Info: 301-698-0656, delaplaine.org
BY LAUREN LAROCCA
llarocca@newspost.com
Solo sets of teeth smile — grimace? — back at you, one frame at a time.
Larger than life.
Monochrome.
Gritty.
Haunting, even.
These are all the same teeth.
They all show one smiling mouth.
They belong to Frederick photographer Jillian Abir MacMaster, who, during the pandemic, went deep into self study, turning her lens away from others — and her usual colorful portraiture — and onto herself.
The result is a series of photographs on view in the solo exhibition “With Teeth” at the Delaplaine Arts Center through Dec. 31.
Her image titled “With Teeth” began the series in early 2020, just before everything shut down due to the pandemic.
“I was exploring photographing myself in a way that scared me,” MacMaster said recently. “I wanted to turn a smile into a jarring image.”
That initial image is a combination of two photographs of MacMaster overlaid in Photoshop with just a bit of a shift, so that the final version shows a face whose mouth is slightly out of position, enough to be unsettling to the viewer.
She created the initial image as an experiment, without intending for it to become the impetus for a series, but it got her thinking: “How can I continue to work my own self-portraiture and work a smile, which is most commonly seen as a friendly symbol, into something that is not friendly, something that is a symbol of noncompliance or exaggerated self-defense?” she asked.
The result is a series of images created in response to the idea of being told to smile, while also depicting, as she stated, her “fantasy retaliation to sexual harassment, with a massive, grotesque, protective compliance.”
Her solo exhibition includes 13 such images.
The Delaplaine Arts Center accepted her show proposal about two years ago, though a National Endowment for the Arts C.A.N. Recover Grant, which she received through the Frederick Arts Council earlier this year, helped to fund the show.
She also began a role as community outreach manager for the Delaplaine Arts Center in July of this year, after exhibiting her photography in multiple group shows at the art center, including a national juried photography show in 2016.
“I was particularly moved by her proposal,” Delaplaine exhibitions manager Corey Frey said. “I think I was taken aback by the openness of the concept … and the paradox it brings — this difficulty and tension of a smile, something cordial that almost becomes dangerous.”
Though her focus was sexual harassment and assault — from street harassment and cat calls and being told to smile to violent sexual acts — her body of work is broad enough to become a dialogue for myriad reasons we choose to smile in any given situation. Masking can be as simple as showing up to a doctor’s appointment or work function with a plastered smile that is not accurately representing what we’re feeling.
“With Teeth” cuts straight to the heart of this cultural dialogue, unabashedly.
“As a viewer, it allowed me into Jillian’s story a little bit, but the concept was open enough that its allowed my own story to enter it as well,” Frey said. “For me, it [speaks to] the way the outward appearance can deceive the inner life, or the pressure for our inner life to kind of be hidden.”
In most cases, the remaining facial features in the photographs are an after thought, secondary, or removed altogether. The who or where becomes unimportant, as the shadowy smiles take precedence.
“Photography is, more often than not, used as a documentation of outward perception, but this work is documenting something subjective. It kind of flips photography on its head in that way,” Frey said. “It’s not necessarily looking at telling us the facts about things but … the work is documenting this underlying thing. It’s portraying the inner life.”
Visit Jenny Bernhard Hatfield and other artists along this year’s Valley Craft Network Studio Tour
BY CRYSTAL SCHELLE
Special to The News-Post
Creating art can be a lonely process. The art is entirely in the artist’s mind from conception until completion, when the finished product can be shown to others.
That’s why artists like Jenny Bernhard Hatfield look forward to Valley Craft Network’s annual Studio Tour, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 19 and 20 this year.
Hatfield has been part of the free, self-guided tour throughout Frederick and Washington counties for more than a decade. During the event weekend, visitors are invited into the artists’ studios to interact with the artists, see their processes and hold the finished products. And Hatfield encourages it all.
“I think it’s one of the most important parts of the whole reason why we do the tour … to educate people, to share knowledge and to talk to people about who we are,” she said.
Hatfield has had her hands in clay for her entire adult life. She was just 17 years old when she began working for a company in a small New Jersey town that produced traditional spongeware that she said “emulated American pottery.”
“That’s how I learned how to do quite a bit of the business,” she said.
In the days before the internet, the company would sell through home magazines like Country Living and ship merchandise throughout the country. Hatfield said her first role was packing and shipping before eventually decorating the pottery.
“My parents were craftspeople, in a sense, by necessity,” she said. “My father could do everything. My mother could do everything. They did everything on their own.”
What drew Hatfield to work with clay was the physical process. She had always worked with her hands, whether sewing, tailoring, painting or drawing.
“When I found the medium of clay, it’s so malleable,” she said, noting she does work with metals as well, because of her father, who was a metallurgist. “It’s not as hard as other materials. It’s not hard in the sense of forming, so to speak.”
Clay is also versatile, she said. “You have the actual basic material, but then you can also utilize the surface as a palette and as a canvas. You can do lots of different things with one medium.”
Although she attended college with Jenny Bernhard Hatfield
Courtesy photo
the idea of becoming an educator, Hatfield ultimately wanted to pursue her first love: artmaking. She earned a bachelor of fine arts in ceramic sculpture from Montclair State College in New Jersey, and while in school, she started doing apprenticeships with established artists.
She first worked with production potters in New Jersey and made giant vessels that were sold to department stores and designers. Hatfield then became an apprentice for a business that produced fine ceramics using polychrome enamels.
Through her apprenticeships, she was exposed to the business aspect of being a working artist. The businesses taught her how to market herself, which at the time was mostly through galleries.
In 1994, Hatfield landed a job at the Torpedo Factory Art Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia, where she met her mentors, Solveig Cox and Chase Bruns. She became a production potter for Cox and Bruns there and eventually became a juried member, which she continued for 32 years until the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“During those years, I really developed myself as a potter, as a ceramist,” she said. “I had a line of work and started doing American Craft Council shows. At one point, I had, like, 90 galleries that I sold to, as well.”
She was a production potter for herself but was also working with Cox to help her run her business. Cox, who died in 2017, was well-known for her artistic style and was nicknamed “The Cat Lady” for her whimsical pottery featuring cats. Hatfield said Cox “was really one of the people who really introduced me to the arts in D.C.”
About 20 years ago, Hatfield moved to Frederick, where she established a new home for her business, Jennifer Bernhard Ceramics. She continued to work as a production potter and taught classes at the Art League at the Torpedo Factory.
Hatfield’s work has been at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and she’s shown her work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, DeYoung Museum in San Francisco and the Falling Water Conservancy in Pennsylvania.
Each piece is hand-painted and often decorated with circles, dots or stripes. Her work is not glazed but covered in liquid clay, or a silt, that is hand-colored and applied.
“Everything is just done from a block of clay and raw materials,” she said.
Hatfield is most known for her canister set, sought after by fans. Although she has a style that is uniquely her own, Hatfield said she is constantly trying to experiment with designs to continue to make her work fresh.
“They’re functional, but they’re also an art piece, where you could hang it up on a wall,” she said.
She often has returning customers who purchase pieces to gift friends and family.
It’s just one of the many reasons she’s looking forward to the Valley Craft Network — seeing those familiar faces and hopefully new ones as well.
Valley Craft Network Studio Tour
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 19 and 20 Tickets: Free admission Info: valleycraftnetwork.org/downloadbrochuremap-pdf
Studios on the tour:
Foxcroft Pottery, 6640 Remsburg Road, Sharpsburg JRW Creations, 6924 Girl Scout Road, Boonsboro Tameria Martinez Clay, 2100 Tasker Lane, Boonsboro Pathfinder Farm Distillery, 5515 Mount Carmel Church Road, Keedysville M4 Studios, 4803 Mount Briar Road, Keedysville Caprikorn Farms, 20312 Townsend Road, Gapland WoodEndeavor, 2339 Boteler Road, Brownsville Kesra’s Art, 2339 Boteler Road, Brownsville Van Gilder Pottery, 20834 Towsend Road, Gapland Willow Oaks Cider Craft, 6219 Harley Road, Middletown Jennifer Bernhard Ceramics, 7109 Ridge Crest Drive, Frederick Jane Pettit Art, 10002 Baltimore National Pike, Myersville Studio 2 Beth Carney Jewelry, 11425 Harp Hill Road, Myersville
For more
For more information about Jenny Bernhard Clay, visit jennybernhardclay.com or follow her on Instagram @bernhardclay12.
“For some people, this is a big, once-a-year destination event they do with family and friends, and they’ve been doing it for years,” she said.
Because of that, Hatfield said the people who come are more than just customers.
“It’s almost like they’re sort of extended family that you see once a year,” she said. “You get to see how their lives have changed and families have grown. It’s very charming that we often forget in our lives that life is bigger than your little community.”
Crystal Schelle is an award-winning journalist whose work has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She enjoys trivia, cats and streaming movies.
THE LONG BOX
Chatting comics at the Baltimore Comic Con
Yes, Alan Davis was at the Baltimore Comic Con this year, and I’m glad to report that, unlike eight years ago, I swallowed my anxiety and, yes, shook the great man’s hand. Tick one off the bucket list.
In full disclosure, I only managed to attend a few hours on Sunday, due to a range of family stuff, such as homecoming and an invasion of teenagers on Saturday night and not one but three appliance deliveries. Who said middle age wasn’t exciting?
That said, I crammed a lot into those few hours, talked to a lot of good people and scored several incredible comics. Con Sundays are languorous affairs, especially in the morning when tablers are shaking off Saturday-night meet and greets, and the pace is a bit slower. Being old, this is much more my speed.
Audio from those creator interviews is over on the Substack (thelongbox. substack.com), where you can hear from Todd Webb (“The Poet”), Steve Conley (“The Middle Age), Mike Riley (“Irregulordz”) and Kevin Cuffe (“Metal Shark Bro”).
I chatted with Ed Piskor, briefly, and picked up a couple of trades of Piskor’s latest work, “Red Room” (which is so disturbing and viscerally violent, I’ll only say this: Don’t buy it for your kids). He politely declined an interview due to con burnout, but I figured I’d make an approach as Piskor, who’s from Pittsburgh, does have ties to Baltimore, which is in-region for The Long Box.
In 2017, Piskor collaborated with Nike, designing elements of the shoe brand’s Baltimore tribute Air Force 1 high-tops. His mural adorns the former site of the historic store Cinderella Shoes.
Anyhow, enough fanboi-ing about Mr. Piskor. The Baltimore Comic Con is one of those few events that still feels like a comic conference. To give some context, many similar events have moved deeper into media that’s not super comic-related, much to the irritation of my colleagues and fellow comic fans. Now, I understand the economic pressures that require diversification into media such as movies and TV, but are they really comic cons? Not so much. (The New York Comic Con, for instance,
really shouldn’t have “comic” in the title.) But that’s not the case with BCC. Comics still feature strongly, and you can find a lot of legendary creators tabling and surprisingly open to chat. I mean, it takes a lot to get me to travel to Baltimore in any case, and the con has the kind of pull needed to overcome my distaste. (Don’t @ me, Baltimore fans.) Closer to home, Shoff Promotions’ Frederick Comic Con is coming up, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 20 at the Clarion Inn Event Center, 5400 Holiday Drive (near the Francis Scott Key Mall). CLIFF CUMBER Artists alley will feature Angela McKendrick, Jay Taylor, Dallas Prichard, Dan Nokes, Ori Avissar, William Auch, Caitlin Leopold and Laura Inglis, among others. As it’s only $8 (cash only) to attend, I’m going to try to swing by. Next month, I’ll round up the good and the bad of the past year. Thoughts? Send them to me. I’m on Twitter at twitter.com/cgcumber. RECOMMENDS ... “You can’t kill the metal. The metal will live on,” intoned Jack Black of Tenacious D. And he is right. The Metal has long been part of the comics scene — I mean, take the long-running magazine Heavy Metal, for instance — so, when I ran into cartoonist Rafer Roberts at BCC, and he recommended a metal album/comic project on Kickstarter from D.C.’s A Sound of Thunder, well, hell yes, I was in. “Queen of Hell: Initium” is “one massive story intended from inception to be told both in song and comics, produced and released concurrently.” Roberts is writing the comic, with art by Mike Ratera, colors by Diego L. Parada and Max Bayo, and letters by Crank!. The main cover artwork is by Dusan Markovic, with variant cover art by Joseph Schmalke. Find it at kickstarter.com/projects/ asoundofthunder/queen-of-hell-initium. HONORABLE MENTION ... for Karl Slominski, an artist/writer I ran into at the New York Comic Con. I was so impressed with his book, “Evermore Falls,” I spent good hard cash on “Teeter Totter” and The Cult of Icarus limited edition “Ash Can.” Something about the madness of his linework spoke to me — and it’ll speak to you, too. Find him at slomotionart.com.
31 W PATRICK STREET FREDERICK MD 21701 · 301.694.4744 · MARYLANDENSEMBLE.ORG
Valley Craft Network Studio Tour
Always the Weekend Before Thanksgiving
