SUMMER 2020
BEHIND THE SCENES AT MECA
Summer 2020 BEHIND THE SCENES AT MECA Cover: COLLECT MECA Art Sale 2019, Photo by Kyle Dubay ’18
LEADERSHIP TEAM Laura Freid, President Beth Elicker, Executive Vice President Ian Anderson, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Lauren Glennon, Director for Institutional Advancement & Strategic Planning
EDITOR Leah Igo Brooks, Director of Marketing and Communications
DESIGN Brittany Martin, Lead Graphic Designer
BOARD OF TRUSTEES Brian Wilk ’95 , Chair Kathryn Yates, Vice Chair Dan Bailin Daniel N. Crewe Denise N. Carey P ’19 Deborah H. Dluhy Diane Garthwaite Gimbala Sankara Thomas Dwyer Edward Friedman ’08 Meredith Koerner P ’16 Margaret Morfit Dan Poteet Susan A. Rogers Jenny Scheu Susan Schraft Ari B. Solotoff, Esq. Deborah Spring Reed Dr. Abigail Wark, Ph.D Paula Zeitlin
EMERITUS TRUSTEES Joan L. Amory Jane G. Briggs Betsy Evans Hunt, Hon. DFA ’13 Candace Pilk Karu, Hon. DFA ’13
MAINE COLLEGE OF ART 522 Congress St Portland, ME 04101 1-800-639-4808 · meca.edu · info@meca.edu
Table of CONTENTS
2 Feature COVID-19: MECA RESPONDS TO A DAUNTING CHALLENGE
9 5 Spotlight Q&A: ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF
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COVID-19: MECA RESPONDS TO A DAUNTING CHALLENGE
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Q&A: ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF
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New Dimensions in LEARNING AT MECA
Foundations NEW DIMENSIONS IN LEARNING AT MECA
11 Profiles BEYOND THE STUDIO
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Profiles: BEYOND THE STUDIO
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Alumni News
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In Memoriam
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Alumni Class Notes
(L - R) 1. Michael Carosielli ’22, Protecting the World Starts With You, mixed media on Tyvek wrap, 2020 2. Photo Courtesy of Seth Rogoff 3. Artwork by Sumayo Shute ’22 4. Photo Courtesy of Asata Radcliffe
Letter From the PRESIDENT As we all grappled with the new reality created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Maine College of Art rallied to creatively address the life-altering challenges of this global health crisis. Unprecedented protocols required us to make the difficult decision to move our physical classrooms to a remote learning model for the remainder of the Spring semester and to postpone or cancel a number of significant public events, including our 2020 Commencement ceremony. I hope you will take the time to read more about some of the ways in which the MECA community positively responded to these changing times in this edition of MECA Magazine. At MECA we have adjusted our lives to prioritize the health and well-being of every member of our community. Our COVID-19 Emergency Response Team, led by MECA Vice President Beth Elicker in conjunction with all of our staff and faculty, has worked diligently to continue to provide our students and alumni with the resources they need to thrive and excel. Of course, this continues to be a very trying time in the lives of our students, their families, and the entire MECA community. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all of our plans -- leaving goals unfinished, exhibitions without audiences, conversations and celebrations cancelled, and plans to create art unfulfilled. The losses that we are experiencing are significant and important and I join all of you in dealing with them each in your own way. While we cannot control the crisis, we can control our response to it. At MECA we are small enough to be an extended family and we have responded quickly and creatively, guided by the understanding that our actions now will continue to reverberate in the coming weeks. Throughout this situation, MECA has been sharing snapshots from our community across our digital platforms, not only to provide hope, solace, and inspiration, but to reaffirm the resilience and strength that they embody. It is heartwarming to know we have such a strong and dedicated creative community. I know that we will get through this by working together, planning for the future, and continuing our deep commitment to the arts.
Photo Above by Nicole Wolf, Courtesy of Old Port Magazine, State 23 Media, LLC COVID Article Artwork: Michael Carosielli ‘22, Protecting the World Starts With You, mixed media on tyvek wrap
COVID-19 MECA RESPONDS TO A
daunting challenge In the spring of 2020, as the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis began to emerge, Maine College of Art’s leadership had to move quickly to assure that the safety and needs of our students, staff, and faculty would continue to be met under rapidly changing circumstances. It also became clear what a truly vital role the arts play during a time of crisis. President Laura Freid said, “During an international crisis, artists are very well-equipped to respond. We at MECA, along with the rest of the world, have found ourselves in a completely unique and different situation where access to our facilities is not an option. So we have been providing temporary, creative, effective solutions to fulfill our mission
to deliver a world-class arts education to our students. When the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic became evident, it propelled us forward into a future we had in some ways already envisioned.” Steps were immediately taken to increase information flow and implement precautions, including announcing an extended Spring Break. During those first crucial weeks it became apparent that our facilities would need to close to the public; events would need to be canceled, postponed, and/or reenvisioned; all but essential services would need to be shifted to remote management; and the remainder of the semester would need to be conducted online.
COVID-19: MECA RESPONDS TO A DAUNTING CHALLENGE 3
STUDENT SUPPORT Administrators and faculty worked together tirelessly to triage and build a system that would allow all undergraduate and graduate classes to successfully continue remotely as well as provide critical student support services. It was a tremendous undertaking in a short time, but it enabled our students to complete their spring semester and our seniors to graduate at the end of May. In conjunction with those efforts, MECA’s Artists at Work and Alumni Relations staff added components to our website to provide access to national and local resources, tools, and opportunities such as artist relief funds, business help, and peer projects. They also continued to provide ongoing remote professional development and career services and advice. MECA had previously identified eLearning as one of the five core priorities of our new Strategic Plan (2020-2025). Because of our smaller size and student-to-faculty ratio, MECA was able to remain nimble and focus on keeping students at the center of our mission.
#mymecacommunity Through our #mymecacommunity social media campaign and other digital strategies, we have been sharing and broadcasting videos and work from the MECA community despite being physically separated from one another. Sharing how our students, faculty, alumni, and others were creatively responding to limitations and difficulties not only brought our community together, it strengthened it.
PROJECT MACGYVER Project MacGyver, collaboratively designed by MECA’s Foundation faculty, was one example of rising to the challenge through a unique approach. Named after the fictional television characters Angus MacGyver and his friend Pete, who used tools and cleverness to deal with difficult and often dangerous situations, the project took the core elements of MECA’s Foundation Program and applied them to a culminating capstone project on how to produce work in times of adversity. Associate Professor and Program Chair of Foundation Philip Brou mailed out 145 material kits consisting of colored sheets of paper, straws, molding clay, pencils, pens, glue, and other materials to all 12 classes of Foundation students. Class instructions provided prompts to develop imaginative ways to use the materials. The work that the students shared was astonishing and impressive. Watching students adapt, create work stations in their remote locations, and resume classes online has been a reminder of “how amazing our students are!” complimented Brou. “It has been humbling and inspiring to talk to them. Our students are strong, like diamonds! They are ready to work and continue to be a part of our MECA community, even from afar.”
1. Katia Dermott ’21
2. Elle Henault ’21
3. Mary Cruz ’21
COVID-19: MECA RESPONDS TO A DAUNTING CHALLENGE 4
ADAPTING TO ONLINE LEARNING Araminta Matthews, MECA’s new Associate Dean of Graduate and Professional Studies, has broad experience in instructional design, technology integration, and digital curation and was a critical part of our COVID-19 Academic Response Team. “Academically speaking, the current challenge to our faculty is that we’re now presented with an international crisis,” Matthews said. “This provides an opportunity to reimagine our practice. How that changes or impacts our experience of looking at art is yet another topic to explore.” Together with our marketing department, MECA was able to pull off an incredible feat by creating a user-friendly, full-service conduit for our students to fulfill their academic requirements using software that is universally available to faculty and students through Google Apps for Education. Matthews said, “Our advice to faculty has been: don’t try to replicate your face-to-face methodology in digital space. Ask yourself what you can do online that you can’t do faceto-face. What does this new online capability offer you that you can capitalize on? How can this new tool refocus your academics and amplify one’s artistic vision?” Seth Rogoff, Assistant Professor of Academic Studies, who has been teaching remotely since 2013, said, “I’m really impressed by MECA’s response to the need to shift its programs online for the remaining part of the spring semester. This is a massive challenge -- and the school has set up procedures and standards that will ensure quality while still allowing each professor to find one’s own way. I have huge confidence in my fellow faculty in this regard. Everyone is working really hard to deliver education that meets our collective standards.” Many of our MFA students and alumni already had experience with remote learning. Gina Siepel MFA ’08 shared her thoughts in a Facebook post: “In the midst of all the uncertainty and life-and-death concerns of the moment, I’ve been feeling a little daunted by the process of rapidly moving my three studio art classes to a remote format. But recently ... I had a very helpful realization. I’VE ALREADY DONE THIS! ... I’m thinking of all the remote work we did in between the on-campus intensives, and the skills it helped me hone, including the cultivation of a disciplined and self-directed practice, the intentional building of artistic community, the documentation and presentation of my work, and how to have an effective remote studio visit with mentors. As a practicing artist, I have relied on these skills and the mindset of flexibility they helped foster. . . right now, I’m grateful for the model this experience provides me as a teacher navigating a genuinely challenging moment.”
1. The work-from-home space of Steve Drown, Coordinator of the Bob Crewe Program in Art & Music 2. Pilar Nadal MFA ‘13, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Printmaking 3. Scenes from MECA’s second Virtual Accepted Students day
President Laura Freid said, “More than ever the world needs creativity and artists to bring us together, remind us of what is truly important in our lives, and inspire the hope we all need. If anyone suggests art is not critical, just ask them to think about what life would be like in quarantine without the art, music, poetry, movies, animation, and literature that we are all now sharing with each other.” Note: In early summer, MECA purchased Canvas, a robust Learning Management System. Faculty training is underway and beginning in the Fall 2020 semester, students will have access to a fully developed and optimally designed course delivery system, in addition to planned in-person classes. This effort was supported in part by a grant from The Davis Educational Foundation, established by Stanton and Elisabeth Davis after Mr. Davis’s retirement as chairman of Shaw’s Supermarkets Inc.
Q&A: ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF 5
Q&A:
ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF Seth Rogoff, Assistant Professor of Academic Studies, has been teaching MECA students remotely since the fall of 2013. He piloted eLearning at MECA while living in Berlin, Germany, and now teaches from Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, though he would typically travel to Maine for a few weeks during the beginning of the semester to begin the classes in person. He recently completed his Ph.D. at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam, has been a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, and is the author of two translations of Franz Kafka’s work as well as two novels: First, the Raven: A Preface and Thin Rising Vapors.
Q
How did you become the first faculty member to utilize eLearning for BFA classes at MECA?
A
In the summer of 2013, Ian Anderson, MECA’s Dean of the College, approached me and asked if I would be interested in teaching online classes to see if it could work in the Academic Studies Program. We decided that a good first step would be to create a hybrid model -- one in-class session per week and the other session online. It was an English Composition class. After this first semester, we had confidence that MECA students could transition to a fully online class. This happened the following semester with my Introduction to Literature section, which had a focus on “the artist” in the modernist novel. Most of my students from the previous semester’s composition class enrolled and it was fantastic -- very rigorous, but really rewarding.
Q
How is teaching online at MECA different from other schools?
A
MECA is a unique learning environment with very strong student and faculty relationships at the center of the College’s culture. Because MECA students are all studio art students, they have a huge amount of inclass studio time, as well as a workflow that gets really heavy at certain points in the semester. I have tried to adapt to these conditions by moving more time-intensive assignments into earlier portions of the semester, enabling students to work ahead to build maximum flexibility into our weekly calendar.
Q A
How does eLearning work? There is no one single way to facilitate eLearning. In general, eLearning provides content, assignments, and critical feedback online to students in a regularly
Q&A: ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF 6
real time] form, there is no “showing up,” and students need to complete one or more weekly assignments in order to fulfill the course requirements. This typically means more reading and writing for students, and a need for them to self-pace to some degree to get it done. For me, it means much more commenting and grading.
structured and interactive manner. In my Contemporary World Literature class, we covered four novels, each with a dedicated unit. Each student selected one aspect of the novel’s context to present as a shared slideshow, while also doing a combination of journaling and formal essay writing. By the end of the unit, when the time came to write the final essay, the students already had a set of self-generated ideas to work with. At the same time, I was delivering audio lectures that covered various aspects of literary interpretation. I try really hard not to dictate specific interpretations of literary works to students, or to tell them what I think they “mean.” Rather, I want them to understand literary works as contested sites of meaning. At the end of the unit, I provide a summary lecture to introduce some specific interpretive framing for the work. This is one example of how the rhythm of an online course can be structured.
Q
What are some of the courses you have taught remotely at MECA?
A
I started with the first-year sequence of English Composition and Introduction to Literature; the latter now focuses on the idea of texts as interpretive sites. We are taking two “core” texts, Toni Morrison’s novel Sula and Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” and then engaging with a series of critical analyses of the texts drawn from a wide array of perspectives, including queer theory, African studies, cultural studies, Marxist and psychoanalytic theory, and post-structuralism. It’s been a blast. I have taught a varietyof upper-level literature courses, including Contemporary World Literature, Philosophical Investigations of Kafka’s The Castle, Visions of the Frontier, Experimental Fiction, and Eastern European Literature. In addition, I have done both parts of the world history survey and a number of humanities courses, including one on dream interpretation and one of my personal all-time favorite classes, Experiments in Artistic Research. I built this latter course to help foster a more intensive research practice among BFA students, so that they are better positioned to connect research with their studio practice. Some of the work I have seen from this class is among the best work I have ever had from students anywhere. It is a great way to set the stage for senior thesis writing.
Q
What was it like to switch from the physical classroom to online at an art college?
A
For students, the challenge is to shift from an attendance and participation mode to a production mode. In a typical in-person class, students are expected to show up at a specific time with materials read/prepared and to engage in whatever lesson or program takes place during that hour. For online learning, however, at least in its asynchronous [not in
The other big difference has to do with structuring the class. Online courses need to have a very clear and consistent structure -- and this structure and the flow of content needs to be clear from the beginning. This means that the creation of a new online course requires a tremendous up-front investment of time. Finally, online teaching isn’t in-class teaching. It’s an obvious statement, but the different format presents different challenges and opportunities. In the beginning, one tends to think about what is not there in the online format -- focusing on the absences. Over time, though, this shifts and one starts to think about the potential that is there and how to maximize it.
Q
What are some of the challenges of remote teaching?
A
The biggest problem, which is not unique to remote teaching, is keeping students on schedule. This problem is more pronounced online because the student engages through production in one way or another. While an in-person class might have a few significant assignments to turn in each semester, an online class usually has one per week -- meaning that missing one or two can present challenges for the flow of the remaining work in the semester. Online faculty need to develop strategies that allow or encourage students to both stay on track and to make up work. At times I build specific make-up assignments into my syllabus. At other times, I work with MECA’s amazing tutorial services if students need additional support.
Q&A: ONLINE FROM PRAGUE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SETH ROGOFF 7
Q
What are some of the advantages or opportunities?
A
The biggest advantage of online learning is the flexibility it offers to students, both in terms of learning style and in terms of time management and scheduling. Students have busy, complex lives -- often with competing work and family responsibilities. Other students prefer the pedagogical options online learning offers. I have many MECA students who have taken three or even four online courses with me, so I know that it is working for them, and they are producing amazing work. Most students like or appreciate MECA’s online learning, I think. It is an important option for them.
Q
What are your thoughts about MECA integrating eLearning more fully into our programs here?
A
I think MECA would be smart to integrate more eLearning. This can come in many forms, from fully online classes to hybrid courses, interdisciplinary seminars, or tutorials/ independent studies. In terms of academic classes, I think that the notion that the only way to teach is by having 20 to 30 people sit in a room for three hours a week could be reconsidered. People are used to it, comfortable with it. I also really enjoy it. At the same time, there are other models that offer different experiences to encourage learning and intellectual and creative development in new ways.
Q
How has the COVID-19 virus pandemic affected your teaching?
A
For many years, I taught Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. It is a story about the plague hitting London in 1665. The narrator, a saddler, knows he should leave London to escape the dire situation in the city, but he can’t bring himself to do it, primarily because he is concerned about his business interests. In this regard, it is uplifting that MECA and other schools have taken the necessary steps to protect students, staff, and faculty from harm, even if these steps are difficult for all of us. In terms of my teaching, because my courses were already online, not that much has changed for me. I am more flexible with students, because each student faces a different set of circumstances. Now is the time, I think, to really treat each person with respect, which means understanding that there is a tremendous amount about others that we do not know.
Q A
What do you see as the future of online learning at MECA? I’m really impressed by MECA’s response to the need to shift its programs online for the remaining part of the spring semester. This is a massive challenge -- and the school has set up procedures and standards that will ensure quality while still allowing each professor to find one’s
own way (very important). I have huge confidence in my fellow faculty in this regard. Everyone is working really hard to deliver education that meets our collective standards. I feel like we are only at the very beginning of the era of online learning. I am looking forward to the next phase of this story with more opportunities for synchronous learning, more open-source, high-quality, curated online materials, more collaborative work among faculty, more regional and even international opportunities, and more research-based learning. At MECA, we now have a core group of very experienced online learning experts that was fully mobilized in response to the pandemic, and the results have been impressive. The College has a chance to be a leader and innovator in eLearning. My hope is that, despite the present hardships, we can harness this talent - with its incredible energy and boldness - to build a set of unique, exciting programs. I think we will.
ACOUSTIC RESONANCE OCTOBER 2 - DECEMBER 11, 2020
Presenting sound as an artistic medium and tool of transformation in our culture today.
Ad
Supported in part by grants from the Onion Foundation and the Crewe Foundation, and organized in collaboration with The Bob Crewe Program in Art and Music.
Concrete Sound, Audra Wolowiec, 2011-2017
NEW DIMENSIONS IN LEARNING AT MECA 9
NEW DIMENSIONS IN
LEARNING AT MECA
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Beginning this fall, incoming Maine College of Art BFA first-year students will experience an exciting new curriculum rooted in MECA’s strength in delivering fundamental composition and design concepts. The first year acts as a universal learning experience to establish the skills needed by all MECA BFA students and prepares them to enter a major in their second year of the BFA. When designing the new first-year experience, faculty identified key concepts that all contemporary artists and designers need to learn to be successful and build a learning experience that prepares students for creative, scholarly, and multi-disciplinary practice. The new courses highlight foundation concepts (design, composition, research, and making) through a blended approach to learning in 2D, 3D, and 4D work. These innovative courses blur the boundaries between digital and traditional approaches to studio practice. For example, in the first semester, students begin their journey in learning through hands-on study in Materiality, a course that takes students through two separate 3D areas to observe materials such as
ceramics, wood, metal or textiles, as a means to develop dexterity, material intelligence, and creative 3D problemsolving. Meanwhile, in Observation & Translation, students move back and forth between digital and traditional methods of drawing the world around them, and in Field Dynamics, they dynamically study composition in both 2D and 3D. In the spring, as a capstone to their blended learning, students develop engaged, thoughtful creative practices in Research & Inquiry, a new course that pairs academic and studio faculty around thematic content. Working from the context of thematic content allows students to develop their aptitude as scholars and citizens while growing as artists and designers. Overall, the new first-year experience enables students to gain critical experience working with the tools necessary for contemporary artists and designers, from 3D-printing to welding to cutting paper to editing video to analyzing historical references. MECA delivers these skills through problem-solving areas that are expanded by imagination, creativity, and thoughtful study.
NEW DIMENSIONS IN LEARNING AT MECA 10
FIELD DYNAMICS 2
Field Dynamics cultivates an understanding of design and composition in two-dimensional space through an in-depth study of compositional balance, figure/ground relationships, the choreography of visual experience, and other topics, using both conventional and digital approaches. Though rooted in 2D work, Field Dynamics will also include projects that move between 2D and 3D.
MATERIALITY Materiality investigates three-dimensional design and composition through a selection of paired seven-week mini-courses that teaches an applied understanding while acquiring knowledge of specific materials and fabrication techniques. Areas include Metals, Ceramics, Woodworking, Sculpture, and Textiles.
OBSERVATION & TRANSLATION Observation & Translation teaches students to see and translate visual phenomena through conventional and digital drawing, using techniques of perception, measurement, contour, massing, volume, and value structure.
CHROMAPHILIA
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Chromaphilia investigates color as a shaper of culture and a primary tool for artists and designers, including fundamental color vocabulary, color composition, and color in both perceptual and cultural contexts. Work will include 2D and 3D approaches to color.
SPACE & TEMPORALITY Space & Temporality investigates modes of practice beyond the creation of objects, with a focus on process as opposed to product. Topics include the body as a dynamic object in time and space; lens-based seeing; light; audio; sequential and process-based drawing; and the moving image.
RESEARCH & INQUIRY Research & Inquiry is a collaborative course between Academic Studies and Foundation designed to immerse students in a sustained studio/research project through which they research, write, read, make, revise, remake, and present their work in an interdisciplinary context.
1. Artwork by Sumayo Shute ‘22 2-3 Artwork by Emma Van Lohuizen ‘23
PROFILES BEYOND THE STUDIO
ASATA RADCLIFFE
Adjunct Instructor, Academic Studies Asata Radcliffe is a writer and multimedia artist. A California native, Asata received her MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Antioch University in Los Angeles. She writes speculative fiction and essays. Her creative work culminates as multimedia collections of speculative art installation, merging writing, film, and form. Her work invites one to experience the interstitial spaces of speculative landscapes and surrealist futures. Concerned about the planet, her research includes topics of land ethics, futurism, and the nonlinear narratives of human existence. She currently lives and teaches in Portland, Maine. Her current project centers around the Black Guards, who were African American army soldiers sent to guard the railways of Maine during WWII, from 1941-1945. The purpose of their deployment to Maine was to prevent terrorist attacks along the railways to keep Maine citizens safe during the war. Radcliffe’s Black Guards Living project looks at the day-to-day lives of these soldiers who stood watch during a time of a racially segregated country and military, a watch that embodied the incongruity of a loyal citizen-soldier whose citizenship straddled the complex liminal state of racism, a citizenship that was exercised as a matter of convenience during war-time.
BLACK GUARDS LIVING PROJECT The project will have multiple iterations. The first phase includes an exhibit at the Maine Historical Society. The second phase, the Black Guards Living Installation, will feature the direct installation of a train boxcar at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum that will act as set-piece to create a visceral experience. The latter project was awarded a Kindling Fund grant by SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine. Radcliffe has been working in
collaboration with other artists for elements of the project including Jordan Carey ’19; Adjunct Instructor of Animation & Game Art Reggie Hodges; Isidro Rodriguez ‘23; Marco Soulo; Liz Rhaney MFA ’20; Coordinator of the Bob Crewe Program in Art & Music Steve Drown; Trey Jones III ‘22; Sunny Lamb ‘22 ; William Thompson III ‘22; and Isaiah Dennis ‘22.
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Can you talk about the origin of this project, and how it has developed and evolved? During the first Monson Artist Residency, as a resident, I spent most of my time in the Monson Historical Society. I was looking for information on the history of the Indigenous people in that area, when I stumbled upon a short essay written about the Black Guards by historian Bill Sawtelle. It was less than two pages and gave a brief history of the Black army soldiers who guarded the Onawa Trestle bridge (located about 30 minutes from Monson) during WWII (19411945). There was a mystery about the story, and somehow, I became hooked. I wanted to know more. With the help of the Monson Historical Society researchers, I was able to pull together the beginning of this fantastic research that has led to my discovery of the significant presence these soldiers had during WWII throughout the state of Maine. They guarded the railroads in the entire state. I contacted the Maine Historical Society, the Yarmouth Historical Society, and the North Yarmouth Historical Society, and this began my curation of photos, stories, and interviews about these men. There was never any intention on my part to ever start a historical art project. I’m not a historian. However, I felt moved to merge art and history as an archive with a presence that lives within an installation. I wanted these men to be felt, not appropriated. Racial tokenism happens a lot within Western historical narratives. My concept of art as a “living installation” is an idea similar to the French tableau vivant of the 19th century,
but instead of human beings utilized as living objects within the installation, I present objects as sentient, casting a presence of a story within the installation in which the public can engage. My vision for this project is to present three chapters of this story in three installations. The final piece will actually replicate a tableau vivant scene; however, I haven’t unveiled that idea to the public as of yet. The exhibit that is forthcoming at the Maine Historical Society will be a re-creation of a scene that I can’t reveal. You have to go see it! The boxcar is the same idea — this notion where art doesn’t perform from a distance. The viewer can actually walk into a scene that activates as a time portal, providing a visceral engagement with history.
How has collaboration and community engagement been important to this project? Because I am not from Maine, I’ve been going through this process of figuring out my place within this historical work. One of my favorite artists, Doris Salcedo, describes her role within her practice as that of a “secondary witness,” and that’s how I see myself telling this story. I’m not from here. I’m not from New England; thus my voice as an artist is that of a secondary witness and I feel compelled to tell the story of these men from a place of authenticity, rather than as an anthropologist. The historians and elders from the Monson Historical Society were the impetus and cheerleaders for me in this. Their enthusiasm really pushed me further and they, along with Tilly Laskey and Jamie Rice at the Maine
Historical Society, are advocates of this project. As an artist, I’ve always valued collaboration, and other artists and a couple of my students wanted to be a part of the telling of this great story as well.
How have you had to adapt this project due to the COVID-19 pandemic? This first Black Guard exhibit, A Convenient Soldier, was supposed to open at the Maine Historical Society in May, but has been postponed. I had also planned to visit the archive at Cornell University, and the National Archives in St. Louis. That’s all on hold. With so many things being cancelled, including artist residencies and other events, it’s a really groundless and scary time for an artist. I’ve invested so much of myself into this project, and an uncertain postponement has been challenging. Can you imagine the artists whose shows were completely cancelled? I can’t even imagine the grief that accompanies such a loss, as we as artists put in so much sweat equity and endless time, years even, into one project. The good thing is that the support is there from my collaborators. This is a history that has been there to be tapped into. I plan to see it through. 1. Black Guards Radio Drama Recording. Actors pictured are Jordan Carey ’19; Isidro Rodriguez ’23, Adjunct Instructor of Animation & Game Art Reggie Hodges, and Marco Soulo. Sound Engineering done by Liz Rhaney MFA ’20 and Coordinator of the Bob Crewe Program in Art & Music Steve Drown 2. Black Guards in North Yarmouth (1942)
PROFILES BEYOND THE STUDIO
MARY ANNE LLOYD ’83
Program Chair & Assistant Professor of Illustration
Mary Anne Lloyd is a 1983 MECA graduate with a BFA in Graphic Design who has deep roots in Portland, Maine. Lloyd’s professional illustration experience includes branding; children’s publishing; and editorial, commercial, and product work for national clients such as Nickelodeon, Hasbro Toys, and the Got Milk? campaign. Her illustrations have been published in Scholastic and LB Kids – Little and Brown Company Books for Young Readers, as well as by Chicago Review Press and Klutz Press. Lloyd’s teaching career began in 2005 when she joined MECA as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Illustration. In 2015, after co-
chairing the department for two years, she accepted the role of Chair of Illustration. Lloyd’s local work is well known throughout the community and has been featured on Hannaford’s reusable grocery bags, on the Kennebunk Animal Welfare Society’s commercial vans, and as the branding for Rosemont Market and Bakery. Lloyd has received Parents’ Choice and Broderson awards and participated in artist residencies at the Hewnoaks Artist Colony and Pace House, both in Maine. In addition, she has exhibited work at the Portland Public Library and served as a Board of Education member at the Portland Museum of Art, also both in Maine.
What is a project (outside of MECA) you are currently working on or have recently completed?
Can you talk a little bit about your role at MECA? I am a department chair, educator, mentor, colleague, critic, cheerleader, and alumna -- sometimes all in a day.
I love working with clients who want to make the world a better place. I recently finished an illustrated logo for Youth Full Maine, a local nonprofit and sister program to The Locker Project that connects foodinsecure children in Southern Maine with nourishing food to improve their learning capacity, health, and future. During this COVID-19 crisis, they have been diligently distributing dry goods and fresh produce via curbside. An ongoing and larger project on my desk is with the great folks at Wyman’s -the largest and oldest wild blueberry
How does your personal studio practice enrich your work at MECA? It is my responsibility to students to practice what I preach. I continue to maintain a working studio and teach full-time. That involves a lot of juggling on my part. In an average week, I work with many different personalities on a wide array of tasks. Students are juggling, too, often five classes at a time. I tell them it’s good practice for their future, but to remember your clients won’t forgive you if you miss a deadline. The illustration industry can be unpredictable. As a freelance illustrator, you need to be flexible, tenacious, gritty, and, most importantly, resourceful. Teaching is all that, too.
All illustrations by Mary Anne Lloyd ‘83
company in Maine. When they told me about their overall mission and specifically their “No Bees, No Berries” campaign, I knew they were the client for me! Though, truth be told, the client does the choosing! But it’s nice to feel good about a client who has deep roots in Maine and is passionate about the future of our planet.
How has your project work or elements of it had to adapt due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Most illustrators work remotely from their studios. We communicate with clients via phone or email, sketches are discussed, and finals are delivered digitally. Though my two newest clients are Maine-based, I have had clients from all over the country. With students working remotely now, I tell them this is just a little practice for their future career in illustration.
PROFILES BEYOND THE STUDIO
MATT HUTTON
Program Chair, Woodworking & Furniture Design Matt Hutton was instrumental in establishing the Woodworking & Furniture Design program at the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine, where he is currently Professor and Chair of the program. Hutton and his wife, Erin (’98), own and operate Studio 24b, a design and fabrication studio that produces custom woodworking and furniture for private, corporate, and hospitality spaces around the country. His work is heavily influenced by Midwest architecture and Japanese design; two places that Hutton has spent time living and being influenced.
1. Matt Hutton, Hutch, solid maple. Commissioned for a private residence. 2. Furniture by Matt Hutton. Designed and installed at Maple Way Dental Care in Lewiston, Maine.
How does your personal studio practice enrich your work at MECA?
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Can you talk a little bit about your role at MECA? I was hired at MECA in 2002 for a oneyear contract. MECA used to have a SelfDesign major and a lot of students were using it to study woodworking and furniture design. I was brought in to work with Jamie Johnston, now Professor Emeritus, to create a curriculum to support the growing interest in this area. Within the first few years, I fundraised to support the acquisition of new machinery for the department, built the curriculum, and the Woodworking & Furniture Design major was approved by our accreditors. I was hired full-time in 2004; since then our studio has moved permanently to the third floor of the Porteous building and has been extensively renovated. Since graduating our first majors in 2006, we’ve had Woodworking & Furniture Design students go on to work as solo artists, create their own businesses, become faculty at prestigious universities, design for large companies, and participate in residencies and community programs across the country. We’ve even hired two of our alumni at MECA: Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Woodworking & Furniture Design Nikki Rayburn ’11 and Adjunct Faculty & Studio Technician of Woodworking & Furniture Design John Gardiner ’07, MFA ’14.
They feed off each other, for sure. I don’t feel comfortable asking my students to do things that I cannot or do not do. I like to practice what I preach and often take a “lead by example” approach to teaching. I let my students know what I am doing in the studio and it inspires them in many ways. When I was a student, having that type of connection with my faculty is what I remember the most. It also requires me to be aware of what’s happening within our field and for me to stay current. Much of woodworking is problem solving, so all of what happens in conversations with students helps me when I think about how to work on my own designs. There’s a constant exchange of energy and it helps me when discussing their work, too. I also experience a wide range of learned lessons since I operate a business of my own. Those lessons are certainly passed on to students. Sometimes it’s pragmatic things like discussing how to plan for taxes, hire employees, hire lawyers, or obtain insurance, but other times it’s more philosophical such as what direction to take a business in, how to approach design and object making, and how to work with clients. I also do a lot of work for public spaces that have a high demand for function and longevity so there is an added layer of complexity involved in these projects that I pass along to my students, which is based on firsthand knowledge. 2
What is a project (outside of MECA) you are currently working on or have recently completed? I recently completed four large custom pieces for Diversified Communications, located up the street from MECA. I created a new board room table, a side buffet table, a coffee table, and a food serving table that were used as part of an office renovation project. I’m really excited about the work for several reasons. First, it is for a great company and wonderful people and I love that the work is used by so many individuals on a daily basis. Second, it was a challenge. Each piece was technically difficult and often physically demanding. The board room table is built in seven sections so that it could be brought in and assembled in pieces. It also required a lot of veneer work, which is demanding and time-consuming.
How has your project work or elements of it had to adapt due to the COVID-19 pandemic? At this point in time, we have not had significant changes. My studio is at my home and I’m able to work. While I have all that I need here to work, getting the work done has been difficult as my mind is occupied with the suffering of so many people in the world and the impact on my children’s lives. I’m slowly getting back into a groove and I have some amazing clients that I’m currently working with, which has helped me focus and generate energy in the studio. I’m working on some custom bedroom furniture and a dining table at the moment.
PROFILES BEHIND THE STUDIO
KAROL CARLSEN MAT ’20 In the spring of 2020, as teachers across the country moved to online and remote teaching, we spoke with MECA Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) candidate Karol Carlsen about her student teaching work.
In what ways has the MAT Program prepared you to move teaching and learning online? Since the beginning of the MAT Program, we have been using online platforms for all of our learning — from turning in assignments to sharing resources, documentation, assessments, and our ePortfolio. We have been recording ourselves teaching classes, and I have been making demonstration videos online as well. Because so much of what we do in this program is online already, I had all the tools I needed to make an easy transition from teaching in a physical classroom to teaching online.
How are you approaching online learning with your students? I am currently developing and posting assignments for 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. The middle school where I am student teaching gives all the students laptops, so luckily I am able to continually reach my students and post new assignments. For each lesson, I make a demonstration video that goes over the project and shows students any techniques they might need to know. To accompany the video I also provide a document that lays out the project description, stepby-step directions, and offers additional resources, such as links and project examples. With each of the lessons, my aim is to get students thinking creatively. For example, one of the 8th-grade lessons is a mixed-media self-portrait. Since not all students will have access to the same materials, or even art materials at home, I encourage students to get creative with everyday items that they do have in their home and explore how they can transform these into art materials.
Can you describe a challenge that you have faced in the transition to remote learning? With remote learning, the biggest challenge for me right now is communicating with my students about their work and giving feedback. Currently I am asking students to submit their work either through Google Classroom or by email. While this is great
— I can see their work and they can ask me questions — it does make it harder to carry on a conversation to ask students what they are thinking about or give them suggestions on how to improve. Because I am not there to ask them questions about their work and process, I’m working on getting students to ask themselves these questions — to get them to think more creatively and deeply. The lesson plans I am developing now include a formative mid-project assessment where the students are given a list of questions and either individually or with someone from home, they will write out or record their answers, and send these to me. My goal for this is to get students to look more critically about their work and to allow me to better understand their thought process and offer assistance when needed. This process is modified directly from the MAT’s curriculum — we have always had both a formative and summative assessment. The formative assessments were there for us to receive feedback, review our work, and go back into it making it better.
What does the MAT support network look like? There is deep camaraderie within our cohort, which is typical for the MAT
Program. We are always in constant communication and have had online meetings every week with each other throughout the program. Lesson plans are a great example: we have a rich dialogue around lesson plans, and we are able to improve and refine our own plans and offer feedback to others by sharing tools and knowledge with each other. It’s very collaborative. Technology and collaboration are embedded in everything we do.
What are your future plans? I am currently in the process of applying for art teacher positions here in Maine. My goal as an educator is to work either at the elementary or middle school level where I will focus my teaching on developing creative thinking and choice-based learning. The last few weeks of the MAT program is devoted to helping its teacher candidates to develop professional materials such as websites, resumes, and interview skills. These workshops and the feedback we receive help us to be the most prepared for future jobs.
PROFILES BEHIND THE STUDIO
JOSHUA REIMAN Associate Professor, Associate Professor, Sculpture and MFA in Studio Art and Sculpture Program Chair Joshua Reiman is an artist working in sculpture, film, video and photography. Reiman’s work deals with themes of exploration, artistic expression, identity, nature, and contextual inquiry. His short film works offer an array of lush landscapes with characters that guide audiences through layered conceptual ideas about art, history, and popular culture. His sculptural work has ranged from kinetics to cast iron and installation, always using humor to start serious conversations.
Facing Page. Joshua Reiman with professional photographer, commercial diver, and master scuba diver trainer Erlendur Bogason in Eyjafjordur, Iceland 2. Diving in Maine selfie by Joshua Reiman
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As Time Washes Over Us Joshua Reiman, Associate Professor of the MFA in Studio Art and Sculpture as well as Chair of MECA’s Sculpture Program, has embarked upon a global project that pushes the boundaries of the studio to extend across the world. His experimental film project As Time Washes Over Us considers mortality through marine life,
history, science, and poetry. The themes are timely and it includes locating and filming five of the longest living animal species in the oceans of the world using underwater digital super 16mm cameras and film. Some of these animals live between 200 and 600 years. Reiman became a certified scuba diver to realize his vision, which includes trips to Iceland, Italy, Singapore, British Columbia, and Greenland. Financed in part by a number of grants, including a Maine Arts Commission Media Arts Fellowship for 2020 and a MECA Faculty Development Grant, he hopes to ultimately engage students and larger audiences through screenings in museums, galleries, film festivals, and other platforms. Reiman’s film projects have become longer and more in-depth over the past 10 years. He said, “My inspiration comes from reading Gilgamesh (the oldest poem ever written) around the time of the birth of my son Ole. In the poem, mortality is in question and the elixir for immortality lays at the bottom of the ocean. At the same time, I read in Science Magazine about marine biologist Julius Neilson who has been researching the Greenland Shark and discovered through an eye
lens sample that these sharks can live over 500 years.” Reiman has been consulting with scientists, divers, and ecologists to mentor his work and completed a trip to Iceland to film the Icelandic Clam (Arctica islandica). The other animals to be featured in this film are The Immortal Jellyfish (Turritopsis dohrnii) in Rapallo, Italy; the Neptune’s Cup (Cliona patera) in Singapore; the Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus) in Baffin Island, Greenland; and the Red Sea Urchin (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Originally planned to be a three-tofive year project, with the intention of traveling to Vancouver Island this summer, Reiman’s schedule has been revised due to the COVID-19 pandemic, though he still hopes to visit Singapore sometime in 2020 or 2021. “This work is to help bring consciousness to the fragility of life and the animals in the oceans of the world. My approach will be a very different lens on ancient ocean species and the hardships they are facing due to the current environment.” Visit joshuareiman.com to learn more about Reiman’s work. 3. Film still of a Wolf Fish by Joshua Reiman, Eyjafjordur, Iceland 4. Film still of a Lump Fish by Joshua Reiman, Eyjafjordur, Iceland
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Alumni News Artists at Work Awards
Rachel Morris ’20 and Maia Parsons ’20 were named the 2020 MECA Fellows at Pickwick Independent Press, receiving a one-year keyholder membership, which provides opportunities to develop both their fine art and freelance/clientbased portfolios and broaden their artistic network. Pickwick Independent Press is a fine-art printing facility founded by Lisa Pixley ’07 and owned and operated by Pilar Nidal MFA ’13.
The Belvedere Fund for Professional Development in the field of crafts at MECA was established in 2008 and supports the professional and studio practices of BFA alumni who graduated in the last 10 years. The 2020 awardees were Jordan Carey ’19 Rachel Morris ’20, 10-in-1 Pen, screen print on lightweight mulberry, to purchase a large-format color printer for printing custom fabrics; edition of 7, 12” x 13, 2019. Aaron Patrick Decker ’12 to purchase a jeweler’s microscope for small-scale, detailed enamel work; Tim DeMuth ’17 to purchase a mortising tool to expedite and improve his woodworking practices; Kincaid Pearson ’19 to purchase a tufting gun to fabricate his rug designs; Naomi Russo ’19 to purchase a mortising tool to expedite and improve her woodworking practices; and Sam Thompson ’13 to purchase a new kiln. The 2020 selection committee was composed of Ebenezer Akakpo ’01, owner of the design company Akakpo & Co, Assistant Professor of Ceramics Kari Radasch ’97, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Textile & Fashion Design Betsy Scheintaub.
MECA Residencies Due to safety concerns and potential complications surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, MECA came to the difficult decision to defer this year’s residency programs to 2021. While this was not an easy decision to make, we feel it is the safest and most respectful option for our artist residents, our residency caretakers, and the local communities where the residencies take place. All selected residents were informed of this update, and we will offer accepted artists the opportunity to participate in 2021. We are giving applicants until December 13th, 2020, to fully commit to next year’s residency dates and once all the applicants are confirmed, we will make an announcement celebrating our 2021 residents.
Other News
Jordan Carey ’19, Loquatseason Look 7, handwoven tweed jacket and three-color screen printed denim pants, 2019.
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Don Voisine ’73; Julie Crane ’86; David Driskell, Hon. DFA ’96; Gideon Bok ’98 (attended); and Tessa Greene O’Brien MFA ’16 had work featured in the Center for Maine Contemporary Art’s’s Art You Love Annual Benefit Auction in Rockport, ME.
Benjamin Spalding MFA ’17, Energetic Body I & II (Orgone), wood, steel, resin, foam, cotton, paint, 2020, from The House of the Soul at UNE Art Gallery.
Sandra Quinn ’87, September, encaustic and mixed media, 24” x 22” Matt Blackwell ’77; Thomas Connolly ’87; Sandra Quinn ’87; Margaret Lawrence ’93; Alice Spencer, Hon. DFA ’18; Assistant Professor in Illustration Daniel Minter, Hon. DFA ’19; and CS Instructor Crystal Cawley were included in Greenhut Galleries’ The 10th Biennial Portland Show in Portland, ME Jayne Redman ’77 (Master), Nisa Smiley ’00 (Master), Shelby Goldsmith ’14 (Apprentice), and former CS Instructor j.e. paterak (Master) were selected as part of the 2020 Craft Apprentice Program presented by The Maine Crafts Association, in partnership with the Maine Arts Commission. Maine Magazine’s ArtMaine 2020 Guide featured J. Felice Boucher ’84, Anne Ireland ’94, Julie K. Gray MFA ’12, Carter Shappy ’15, CS Instructor Kifah Abdulla, and CS Instructor Marguerite Lawler. MECA Director of Artists at Work Jessica Tomlinson and Marcia Minter, Hon. DFA ’19 were on the jury selection committee. Julie Crane ’86; David Driskell, Hon. DFA ’96; Lisa Pixley ’07; Carter Shappy ’15; Assistant Professor in Illustration Daniel Minter Hon. DFA ’19; and CS Instructor Judith Allen had work featured in FOCUS PRINTMAKING III at Greenhut Galleries in Portland, ME. Baxter Koziol ’17, Anoushé Shojae-Chagorvand ’19, Adjunct Instructor in Sculpture Benjamin Spalding MFA ’17, Associate Professor of Painting and Program Chair of Foundation Philip Brou, and Adjunct Instructor in Animation & Game Art Reggie Burrows Hodges had work featured in The House of the Soul exhibition at UNE Art Gallery.
Hannah Barnes ’02, Kimberly Convery ’05, Harlan Crichton ’12, Maia Snow ’13, Brendan Shea ’18, Oliver ’19, Aurelia Wrenn ’21, Katia Dermott ’23, Anne Buckwalter MFA ’12, Amelia Garretson-Persans MFA ’16, Liz Rhaney MFA ’20 and Paige Mazurek Salt ’19 were featured in SPACE Gallery’s Broadcasts: Art in the Age of Social Distancing, a remote multi-disciplinary exhibition of art made in isolation during COVID-19.
Alumni Opportunities Maine College of Art recognizes our alumni as an essential part of our community. Please visit meca.edu/alumni to learn more about our alumni benefits, residencies, grants, and other opportunities. To share a news story of your own, email Alumni Relations & Events Coordinator Isabelle Maschal O’Donnell ’17 at alums@meca.edu.
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Alumni News (cont.) Resilience Week In February of 2020, MECA was proud to host Resilience Week, a program developed by MECA’s Diversity Committee and Students of Color Coalition. Reflective of the College’s mission of racial, sexual, and gender inclusivity and to provide a network of support for those committed to fostering change, the week included a variety of offerings, including a film festival, workshops, and performances. Most of the events were open to the public and were geared towards generating conversation and awareness of topics surrounding representation, identity, race, and justice. Events included a West African dance workshop by Athena Lynch ’20; The Get Down Groove at SPACE Gallery featuring DJ Liz Rhaney MFA ’20; and Mend the Gap, a youth quilting workshop. The accompanying exhibition Resilience of Diversity brought together students, alumni, faculty, and members of the community to broaden the narrative of artists of color. Organized by Ashley Page ’20 and Alejandra Cuadra ’20, participating artists included: Jordan Carey ’19; Oliver ’19; Heather Flor Cron ’20; Alejandra Cuadra ’20; Candice Gosta ’20; Imani Jones ’20; Athena Lynch ’20; Ashley Page ’20; Madison Poitrast-Upton ’20; Eddie Dechaine ’21; Sidney Sanchez ’21; Benjamin Spalding MFA ’17; Golaleh Yazdani MFA ’18; Evelyn Wong MFA ’19; Liz Rhaney MFA ’20; Roberta March MFA ’21; Assistant Professor in Illustration Daniel Minter, Hon. DFA ’19; Adjunct Instructor in Animation & Game Art Reggie Burrows Hodges; Adjunct Instructor of Academic Studies Asata Radcliffe; Professor of Foundation and Sculpture Ling-Wen Tsai, and other community artists.
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1 Work from the Resilience of Diversity exhibition: 1. Sidney Sanchez ’21, Morelias #1, oil on linen, yarn; Morelias #2, oil on linen, yarn; 2. Athena Lynch ‘20, If You Don’t Know Now You Know, wood signs in wooden frames (handmade and purchased), printer ink, paper, stubbornness, frustration and fervor; 3. Ashley Page ‘20, work from Embody the Vessel Workshop, yarn and beeswax; 4. Liz Rhaney MFA ‘20, Price of Art (Remix), Video.
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In Memoriam David C. Driskell, Hon. DFA ’96 passed away at the age of 89 on April 1, 2020, in Hyattsville, Maryland. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, he was a celebrated artist and one of the country’s most prominent scholars in the field of African American art. A graduate of Howard University, he held an MFA degree from Catholic University and nine Honorary Doctoral degrees. He was professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, College Park, where The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora was named in tribute to him and honors his legacy. In 2000, David was honored by President Bill Clinton as one of 12 recipients of the National Humanities Medal. At MECA, David served as a Trustee from 2002 to 2006 and was a Visiting Artist, an Advisory Partner, and an ambassador for the College as a Board of Visitors member. He also helped establish the College’s MFA Program. MECA awarded David an Honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts in 1996. At the time of his death, David was a Senior Advisor to the nonprofit Indigo Arts Alliance, with which MECA is currently conducting a collaborative partnership to promote a culture of racial equity and social justice. One of the country’s most prominent African American artists and scholars, David came to Maine in 1953 to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1961, he purchased property in Falmouth, Maine, where he spent summers. As an artist, collector, historian, teacher, and curator, his work was hugely influential. The landmark exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art: 1750-1950 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was one of the most important surveys of African American art and established the integral contributions that these artists made to the artistic and cultural landscape of the United States. David himself worked in a range of media and styles. In 2019, critic John Yau wrote, “Driskell never tried to fit in or accommodate his work to prevailing, white, avant-garde styles: he never became a Pop artist, Minimalist, Conceptualist, Pattern and Decoration painter, or Neo-Expressionist. Nor did he ever harken back to some earlier style, as a way of avoiding the confusions of his own time. Rather, he absorbed aspects of various styles and, in the cauldron of his art practice, welded them to his personal and cultural history.” David is survived by Thelma Driskell, his wife of 68 years, two daughters, and a son. Image Caption: David Driskell, Hon. DFA ’06 (seated) with (L-R) Indigo Arts Alliance co-founder Marcia Minter, Hon. DFA ’19, Azari Minter, Sarah Khan, Desiree Nicole Lester, Alejandra Cuadra ’20, and Asata Radcliffe. Photo by Marcia Minter, Hon. DFA ‘19 Sylvia Morrison Bangs ’58 passed away at the age of 83 on February 18, 2020, at the Gosnell House in Scarborough, Maine. Born in Gray, Maine, on December 19, 1936, Sylvia attended Pennell Institute in Gray and Portland School of Fine and Applied Art (now Maine College of Art). At MECA, she studied under well-known artists and teachers Lawrence Sisson, James Elliott, and Jack Muench. She
worked at Cole Farms, Denny’s, and Howard Johnson’s for a total of 23 years before going to work at Maine Medical Center for 15 years as a unit helper. After her retirement in 2000, she volunteered at the New England Rehabilitation Hospital, visiting patients and passing out her drawings to them. Many of these patients and staff would frequently tell her she lit up their day. Her true love and passion was art, specifically incredibly detailed pen and ink drawings, usually of animals, which she exhibited at many museums, festivals, and universities, as well as at Maine Art Gallery in Wiscasset. She also participated in MECA’s annual COLLECT Art Sale. She is survived by Neal Bangs, her husband of 43 years, as well as two daughters, one son, six grandchildren, and other relatives. (L) Sylvia Bangs ‘58 (R) Tux, pen and ink, 18” x 24”,
Laurie Parlee Hadlock ’97 passed away on April 20, 2020, at her home in Freeport, Maine, surrounded by family, from pneumonia, a complication of her Parkinson’s disease which was first diagnosed in 2010. She called Parkinson’s “a tiny diagnosis” and approached it with awe-inspiring courage, optimism, and tenacity. Born in Dexter, Maine, Laurie was president of her high school class and graduated from Portland School of Art (now MECA) in 1997 with a BFA in Photography. While there she studied with artists Veronica Benning, Johnnie Ross, Glenn Renell, and John Ventimiglia. About her experience, she said, “It was the first place in the world I truly felt like I belonged.” Laurie and her husband, Parker, built their home atop a ledge in Freeport, Maine to which they added barns and boathouses. She continued her photography and went on to explore other media, including painting and printmaking, becoming most well known for her paintings of the Maine coast. She loved the ocean and became an avid sailor on her husband’s J24 boat Airplay, cruising throughout the Northeast. Later in life she also owned a lobster boat, The Laurie H. Her artwork has been widely exhibited and collected and she organized an annual tradition known as Art Camp for 15 years in which eight artist friends gathered on a Maine island to work for a week. A celebration of Laurie’s art and life was held in May in the Hadlocks’ barn. Her portfolio, blog, and book can be viewed at lauriehadlock.com. She is survived by her husband and her two children, Ilka and Finn, with whom she created art, read books, cooked, sailed, rowed, explored islands, ice skated, skied, water-skied, and bushwhacked. Laurie’s favorite “sign-off” was, “Listen, be well, dance often.”
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Alumni CLASS NOTES 1970s Poogy (Briggs) Bjerklie ’77 had a solo show at the Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, NY.
1980s Jeffrey Herman ’81 was featured on the Preservation Artisans Guild website.
1990s ElisaBeth Steines ’96 illustrated a book about childhood grief titled Giants. Isak Applin ’98, who operates the small press Titan and Weald, participated in the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. His work was also included in a group exhibition curated by D. Dominick Lombardi entitled A Horse Walks Into A Bar at the Hampden Gallery at UMASS Amherst. Denise Karabinus ’99 collaborated with Bishop Museum in Honolulu to create the Spineless Wonders exhibition for ArtSci2020.
(Bottom-Left): Four “large scale” works by Nicole Duennebier ‘05 inspired by the still-life paintings of Abraham Mignon (1940-1679) were shown in Shelter in Place, a 1:12 scale model exhibition space created by Eben Haines to show local artwork during the pandemic in Boston while all traditional art spaces were closed. Photo by Eben Haines.
Cat Bates ’09 held a fundraiser, selling his Sister Clasp necklaces to support Preble Street Resource Center in Portland, ME. Clare Finin ‘09 curated a selection of jewelry for InLiquid’s 20th Anniversary Silent Auction and Benefit in Philadelphia, PA. Seth Gould ’09 had work included in The NC Artist Fellowship: Escapes and Revelations at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC.
2010s Edwige Charlot ’10 and Oliver ’19 had work included in the publication Urgency Reader 2: Mutual Aid Publishing During Crisis organized by Queer.Archive.Work. and featuring art and writing from 110 contributors. Hannah Rosengren ’13 created free, downloadable, and printable coloring book pages. Rachel Gloria Adams ’15 founded TACHEE, a textile-based home goods, decor, and kids fashion company utilizing both silkscreened and digitally printed surfaces. Adams also had work featured in Always, Gloria at The Lawrence Library, Pepperell MA, along with work by her grandmother, mother, and daughter.
2000s Cheryl Johnson ’00 designed cartoon characters for a Reny’s department store ad that aired on Channel 8 in Maine. Johnson also has a new children’s book out titled Mish and Friends’ Maine Adventure. Abigail Johnston ’00, owner of Arta Custom Framing in Falmouth, ME, hosted A Virtual Mini Exhibition celebrating Maine’s Bicentennial. Nicole Duennebier ’05 exhibited new miniature paintings at Shelter In Place Gallery, a tiny model gallery in Boston, MA.
Rachel Gloria Adams ’15 in her studio. 25
Carter Shappy ’15 had an exhibit, Analogous Forms, at the Green Lion in Bath, ME.
2020s Alejandra Cuadra ’20 received a PILLARS Honorable Mention Student Award through the Maine Compass Compact. This award recognizes undergraduate students who are actively involved in transforming their campuses and communities into environments of civic engagement. Mikayla Dennison ’20 and Rebecca Richards ’20 were accepted into the national juried student exhibition held at the Society of North American Goldsmiths Conference in Philadelphia, PA.
Meg Hahn ‘17, Window Views exhibition at Perimeter Gallery.
Meg Hahn ’17 had a solo exhibition, Window Views, at Perimeter Gallery in Belfast, ME. Lewis Rossignol ’17 created Quarantine Art Lesson videos on his YouTube channel. Naomi Russo ’19 created tables for Maine Street Steak & Oyster in Brunswick, ME. Assistant Professor in Illustration Daniel Minter, Hon. DFA ’19 received a 2020 Caldecott Honor for the children’s book, Going Down Home with Daddy. The book was written by Kelly Starling Lyons and illustrated by Minter.
Ashley Page ’20 was selected as a recipient of the 2020 Heart and Soul Student Award through the Maine Compass Compact. This award recognizes undergraduate students who are actively involved in transforming their campuses and communities into environments of civic engagement. Page also had work included in the exhibition time now for ghosts at Public Space One gallery in Iowa City, IA. Phoebe Zildjian ’20 was awarded a full scholarship to attend Unplugged at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Rockport, ME, as well as a full scholarship to attend a summer workshop at Monson Arts in Monson, ME.. She was selected as an Artist Resident for Maine Farmland Trust Fiore Arts Center Arts Center in Jefferson, ME.
MFA Catherine D’Ignazio MFA ’05, Director of the Data and Feminism Lab at MIT, is the co-author of a new book, Data Feminism, which charts a course for a more equitable data science. Matt Burnett MFA ’06 was this year’s juror for the annual Juried Art Show at the Adirondack Artists Guild in Saranac Lake, NY. Cori Champagne MFA ’08 was a visiting artist and had a solo exhibition entitled Apparel for the Anthropocene at Michigan Technological University in Houghton, MI. Alexandra Silverthorne MFA ’10 exhibited work at the Katzen Art Center in Washington, DC, which celebrated American University’s new photography major. Silverthorne’s work was featured in the zines I Can Hear The Road Call by Sad Bird Press and Volume 1 by Soft Lightning Studio. She also organized Materialist, an exhibit featuring the work of Leslie Holt, George Lorio, and Elzie Williams at Montgomery College’s King Street Gallery in Silver Spring, MD. Anne Buckwalter MFA ’12 and Pilar Nadal MFA ’13 released new episodes of their radio show, NPILAR. Anne Buckwalter MFA ’12 had work featured in the exhibition Quarters at the Alexander Berggruen gallery in New York City. Buckwalter also participated in a New American Paintings magazine virtual alumni show, All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go, through the Steven Zevitas Gallery, based in Boston, MA.
Daniel Minter, Hon. DFA ‘19, Going Down Home with Daddy
Pilar Nadal MFA ’13, the owner of print cooperative Pickwick Press in Portland, ME, was interviewed by the Portland Press Herald about how her work has been affected by COVID-19. 26
Stratton McCrady MFA ’15 received the Tanne Foundation Award for his photographic portrait project Acting Out; Performances, Debaucheries, and Lies. Annika Earley MFA ’16 and Tessa Greene O’Brien MFA ’16 were recipients of the 2020 St. Botolph Club Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Evelyn Wong MFA ’19 was awarded a month-long residency at The School of Visual Art and Design at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, SC. As part of the residency, Wong organized an online exhibition, Recipes for Recipes: A Lone Bookbinder’s Search for the Stories about Food, Family, and Culture in Columbia. Wong also had work included in the Art of the Book show at University in Flagstaff, AZ.
MAT Victoria Fry MAT ’14 has taught in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles before returning to the East Coast last summer. In addition to her work as an educator, she continues to paint, and recently launched The Visionary Art Collective, a platform for contemporary artists including interviews, online exhibitions, and digital resources for educators. Coreysha Stone MAT ’18 had a lesson plan accepted to the Maine Bicentennial Initiative titled Maine’s Beneficial Bugs: Insect Sculpture Upcycle/Recycle S.T.E.A.M. Challenge.
Salt Casey Georgi Salt ’17 was hired as a full-time Audio Producer for The Wall Street Journal. Caroline Hadilaksono Salt ’18 had her zine, The Last Woman on Earth, published by Electric Lit.
Evelyn Wong MFA ’19’s experiments in using unconventional ingredients for making ink and paints during her residency at the University of South Carolina.
Anna Valenti MFA ’20 received the first place award from the USU Paper & Clay National Juried Exhibition.
The Last Woman on Earth, risograph-printed zines by Caroline Hadilaksono Salt ’18.
Gary Hardcastle Salt ’19 created a National Public Radio piece about New York City’s’s nightly display of appreciation for the health care workers facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Elizabeth Caldwell Salt ’19 created the piece The Diary of A Grocery Store Worker During the Epidemic, which was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Anna Valenti MFA ’20, Lobster Trap, terra cotta, glaze, 13” x 8” x 5.5”, 2019.
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Alexa Burke Salt ’20 interviewed Neroli Price Salt ’20 as a guest host for the bi-weekly radio show, New Mainers Speak, on WMPG in Portland, ME. Past guests on the show have included Joel Tsui ’16, Salt ’17, MFA ’19; Caroline Hadilaksono Salt ’18; and Roberta March MFA ’21.
View the digital catalog celebrating the BFA, MFA, MAT, and Salt Class of 2020 graduates.
Visit: bit.ly/2VIDCz0 “This is a moment in time that is like no other we have experienced, and the creative response is heartwarming, poignant, and an inspiration to us all.� President Laura Freid
MAINE COLLEGE OF ART 522 CONGRESS STREET PORTLAND, MAINE 04101
