DONNA DODSON: The Transcendental Landscape Art Panel and Discussion

Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Transcendental Landscape Art Panel and Discussion

Landscape holds a special place in the hearts of many New Englanders, and as such, has often found its way into the art, poetry and literature of this region as a defining spirit. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and the transcendentalists found a spiritual home in the great outdoors. In much the same way that nature spoke to them, landscape has taken on new possibilities of meaning for contemporary artists as an inspiration for responsive, site specific, monumental sculpture.

The panel discussion will be hosted by Dr. Mike Volmar, Curator of Fruitlands Museum and moderated by the architect and artist William Turville. Notable speakers include Donna Hassler, Director of Chesterwood; Sharon Bates, Director of Art and Culture program at Albany International Airport; Charlet Hird Davenport, artist, Curator of SculptureFest, Director of Exhibitions, King Farm Woodstock, Vt.; and Debbie Hagan, New England art critic and former editor-in-chief at Art New England. New England artists Dillon Bustin, Amy Ragus, Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlein will round out the discussion with their experiences.

Among the many questions being asked during this lively and informative discussion will be: beyond these private venues, where art appreciators congregate, what does the public demand from a public art program such as the Albany International airport? How does the natural experience change the artist and/or art studio practice? How does the placement of art in non-traditional settings change the work and inspire an audience? How is the historic King Farm in rural Vermont enhanced by a public contemporary sculpture program? How do you include the public in this conversation?

Brief Panelists’ Bios:

Sharon Bates - Director of Art & Culture Program, Albany International Airport
Dillon Bustin - Folklorist, singer, song writer, filmmaker and playwright with a lifelong passion for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work
Charlet Hird Davenport - Artist, Director and Curator of SculptureFest, Co-Founder and Director of Exhibitions, King Farm Woodstock, Vt.
Donna Dodson - International sculptor, arts journalist, participant - Verbier 3D Foundation Switzerland, blogger
Debbie Hagan - Director of Marketing Danforth Museum of Art, arts journalist for three decades. Former editor-in-chief of both Preview and Art New England.
Donna Hassler - Director of Chesterwood, a Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and former country home, studio and gardens of Daniel Chester French
Andy Moerlein - Artist in Residence at Fruitlands Museum, international sculptor, Derryfield School Arts educator, participant - Verbier 3D Foundation Switzerland
Amy Ragus - Photographer, collage artist, educator, with particular interest in Henry David Thoreau's Walden and the Transcendental movement

Sun, 09/16/2012 - 1:00pm
FRUITLANDS MUSEUM | 102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard, Massachusetts 01451
http://www.fruitlands.org

Prior to the start of the panel discussion, Moerlein will lead guided tour of his installations about the Fruitlands landscape at 11:00 a.m. Guests on his tour will see these large scale sculptures up close and hear the stories of their conception.

This event is open to the public and FREE with museum admission.

For more information about "Art and The Transcendental Landscape," call (978) 456-3924 ext. 292

Update: Wicked Local, in Harvard Mass, covered this event. To read the article click here.http://www.wickedlocal.com/harvard/news/x1402244680/FRUITLANDS-Art-and-the-Transcendental-Landscape#axzz26vLvWiEw

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Artist Statement

‘My artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. Because there were no icons of women in the church that I grew up in, my vision is to create them. Through hybrid female-animal forms that I sculpt in wood, I flesh out sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary. The natural grain of the wood interacts with the form and shape of my sculptures in a descriptive way, suggesting nostrils, and nipples or garments and fabric textures. I often stylize each piece to enhance the girl, woman, princess, queen or goddess within. The mouths, or in some cases beaks, are closed symbolizing the mysteries they embody. These figures are sculpted in sizes ranging from the intimate to the monumental. I use color in both subtle and bold ways to activate each piece. My inspiration comes from ancient iconography and mythological imagery.’

About

Donna Dodson has been carving images out of wood for nearly 20 years. Her sculptures explore feminine beauty and evoke humor and playfulness but also grace, power and emotional strength. Her unique vision responds to the relation of animals to the human spirit that have existed since ancient times. Her figures are almost always female and range in size from the intimate to the monumental.

Dodson’s pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study wood and stone sculpture. African sculptures and Native American totems also influence her work.

She uses logs of osage orange wood from her grandfather’s farm in Illinois, and ash, cherry, locust and maple from New England.

Dodson has worked in a series using an elephant headed goddess to explore female figureheads in positions of power. Recently, Dodson created large scale outdoor pieces, engaging in a public dialogue about her work. The site became a more prevalent theme. Today, Dodson has returned to creating statement pieces such as a cardinal goddess for the women of the Catholic Church who aspire to be ordained and Madam President- a monument to the first female president of the USA.

Bio

Donna Dodson is an American sculptor who has exhibited her artwork around the world. Dodson has completed successful residencies in Verbier Switzerland, Cusco Peru, Keelung Taiwan and Ringkoebing Denmark. Donna is currently a Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “Sheroes” at the Boston Sculptors Gallery was met with critical acclaim. Donna was a 2022 Fulbright US Scholar at Q21/MuseumsQuartier in Vienna Austria working as an artist in residence with her host institution Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, the world’s only animation festival for women. Dodson has won grants from the Puffin Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire Guild of Woodworkers and the George Sugarman Foundation. Her work is in the permanent collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame in St Louis Missouri, the Provincetown Art Museum, the Art Complex Museum and the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, The Noyes Art Museum in New Jersey and the Davistown Museum in Maine. Donna's work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Sculpture Magazine, The Daily Beast, Hyperallergic and Artnet. She is currently represented by the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston and Los Angeles. She is a former member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the Boston arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and was published in Queering the Amazons a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Inspirations

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

-Leonard Cohen

"... I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as [one's] love goes..."

-Andrew Wyeth

"art is valuable because it challenges, inspires, and enables us to see ourselves in much more interesting ways"
-Mickey Cartin

" the thing that I had to do was to ... work super hard in the hope that someday it would pay off. And in using that term I don't mean necessarily money, but just the fact that I would have more depth and dimension both as a human being and as an artist."
-Ed Paschke

“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
-Steve Jobs

"...remember that collecting art is an act of love. It isn’t about what you pay for a work, or how rich (or not) you become when you one day sell it, but the depth of your enjoyment in the time you live with it."
-Abigail R. Esman

"[Patronage] is a gift, in the form of money, in exchange for [my] gift, in the form of music."

-Amanda Palmer

"Art is the crucial interface between the imagination and reality, the thing that makes life deeper and broader than what it might be without such insight."

-Todd Levin

"If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I would never have searched for my beauty."

-Gabourey Sidibe

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."

-Clementine Paddleford

Great artists “must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.”

-Humphrey Trevelyan

"Life should be lived so vividly and intensely that thoughts of another life or of a longer life are not necessary."

-Marjory Stoneman Douglas

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is.” Jeannette Winterson

Artistic Process

When I start a piece of work I need to evoke such a strong feeling about each piece that I can dare to listen to the piece, to make mistakes - to just create. It is the emotional investment in the act of creation that crystallizes the work for me.

Sometimes the idea or concept comes first, and I imagine what the piece will be when completed. More often I work from intuition. Once completed I see the intentions behind the piece, or the desire from which it is born. Artists who inspire me include Jessica Stockholder and Katharina Fritsch. Stockholder uses color as a transformational visual device, changing the way we see form. Fritsch creates sculptures of sacred figures that become pop-icons through her use of color. In the same way I work with various kinds and grains of wood accented by color.

My artwork is about self expression, autobiography, and self redemption. Each sculpture is independent and heroic, but each is connected to the body of my total work. Each is made greater and honored by its association with those that have preceded it, but keeps its own sacred identity. Each reflects my realization that I am a self-made woman.

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Sunday, September 9, 2012

The Transcendental Landscape Art Panel and Discussion

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