Environmental Impact Exhibition Images

Putting this show together gave me the privilege of working with very excellent committed, artists. From my initial proposal of an exhibition that explored the relationship of artist and place, it has been a journey of opportunity and discovery as the connections and conversations of the included works began to emerge more fully as the work arrived.

I am reading Bachelard's, The Poetics of Space, Brook's, The Empty Box as well as other author's who write about psycho geography, the experience and creation of space. At the time we began hanging the show, I was aware of the use of gallery space to produce a specific way of entering or experiencing the art, but this time, I was seeing the whole space as palette. And I had the language to articulate to describe what I was going for. I could more easily explain the idea of an exhibition as a time based experience, shaped by the way the work is hung in communication with another artist's work as well as providing spaces of visual rest. Similar to Pillow shots in film, I wanted to create spaces for the viewer to reflect on each artist's work individually, to create relationships in each body of work and in communication with the whole space.

It was an interesting process to try to orchestrate a fully developed space when you are working in the abstract. Slides and proposals do not really give you complete information as to how the work will occupy or fully inhabit the space. As a curator, I am always very critical and very rarely, have I been 100% satisfied with the result of a group show. Often there is an expectation that might not manifest as fully as I had wanted. This show had many conceptual and control challenges as we tried to accommodate artists whose work is site specific. Insurance forms and safety issues had to wait until the day of installation. The exhibition is in a public space, a thoroughfare that is used by hundreds of students on their way to class, as well as conferences, departmental meetings and public lectures. We had to balance creative freedom with the liabilities of public space.

As the work began to arrive, there was an excitement, a sense that the space was taking off.

The most important thing to emerge from the process was to see the impact of the space as experienced by the students and faculty who walk through every day. The juxtaposition of images of impact and waste with more reverential pieces that celebrate the beauty and poetic experience of the natural world has produced a balance of observation and healing. any students and faculty have commented on the healing power of the space that Tom and I have created. It has surpassed any expectation I had when I first conceived the idea for the show. I am so indebted to the gallery director for his invitation to form this space and his support of the shared vision that exceeded our expectations both in the generosity of the artists who participated and the overwhelming response from the college community.

I have been invited to be part of a college and community panel discussion "The Power of Art to Heal". I believe this is a result of the environmental impact of the exhibition.

The large watercolors were done by me just after 9/11. As I kayaked along the Patuxent River, I was acutely aware that these images might be the ephemera of a post nuclear world. The silence of No-Fly was so frightening. I was accustomed to the constant roar of flights going in and out of Andrews Air force Base nearby. These pieces were done in the silence before the build-up, throughout the military build-up and up to the decision to attack Iraq and the months following the occupation. I had never exhibited these pieces, they do not fit so easily into the body of work. It was a decision Tom and I made the day of the installation to use these particular images of beauty and luminous color. Initially I was going to put in small black and white monoprints, but I began to see the color as something that might dare viewers not to take care of beauty. I am helping to curate two other shows where I declined showing my own work. I am not sure why I decided to put work in this one. It has worked out very well, though it has brought some controversy as well. I have learned that you can not control the perceptions of others.