DONNA DODSON: September News

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

September News

Horse (Mother) wood, paint 2015

Zodiac by Donna Dodson
Boston Sculptors Gallery
September 7- October 9, 2016
Gallery Hours: Wed. – Sun. 12 – 6pm

First Friday Receptions: Sept. 9 & Oct. 7, 5-8pm Featuring a world premiere of experimental electronic music by Blue Sky Catastrophe at each reception.

The Art of Collecting: A Forum & Luncheon: Sept.10, 12-2pm
Panelists include: Arlette Kayafas, Director of Gallery Kayafas, Toni Gaspard, Art Collector, Leah Triplett Harrington, Editor of Big, Red & Shiny and Kalimah Muhammad, Member of Boston Sculptors Gallery. Sponsored by Boston Art Dealers Association & Hosted by Boston Sculptors Gallery

United South End Artists Open Studios:
Sept. 24 & 25, 12-6pm

Global Mashup: A Roundtable Conversation About Aesthetics: Oct. 2, 2-4pm
Panelists include Kemin Hu, Collector and Expert on Chinese Scholar's Rocks, James Kodera, Professor of Religion at Wellesley College and Al Miner, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Sponsored by Artscope Magazine

Pisces(Clownfish) wood, paint 2016

“The signs of the zodiac are karmic patterns; the planets are the loom, the will is the weaver.”
- Edgar Cayce

Zodiac, Donna Dodson’s fourth solo exhibition at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, will be on view September 7 to October 9, 2016. In her newest body of sculptural work, Dodson has created two parallel series, referencing both the animal characters associated with the Chinese, or Eastern zodiac, as well as the sun signs of the Western zodiac. Dodson’s exhibition offers us a menagerie of compelling creatures carved in wood.

Based on birth years from the beginning of time to the present day, the Chinese zodiac assigns an animal to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Each of the twelve animal characters is believed to possess distinct attributes. With roots in ancient Egypt and Greece, the Western zodiac is based on astrological constellations corresponding to the sun’s position at birth. Over time, each of these constellations has assumed their own unique mythological identity. Curiously, the zodiac has only rarely been the subject of contemporary art.

Carving has taken a new direction in Dodson’s work, and technical surprises and breakthroughs abound. Due to a windfall of wood, she has been able to experiment, creating sculpture in woods such as mulberry, apple, spalted maple, and cherry. The anthropomorphic deities in Dodson’s signature work have morphed into allegories, icons and symbols in which realism and representation play a greater role.

While some interpretations of the Western zodiac characters seem obvious, like Leo the Lion, Taurus the Bull, and Aries the Ram, others resist obvious characterizations. Would anyone associate Aquarius with a Beaver? Or Libra with a Falcon? Virgo with a Penguin? In Zodiac, Dodson takes on these peculiar associations and promises to engage the imagination of the casual viewer as well as that of the art connoisseur.

Zodiac will be shown concurrently with Geology by Andy Moerlein.

Update; Wickedlocal posted a teaser online about my show on August 31, 2016, "Maynard artist to hold solo exhibit in Boston." Paula Ogier posted a very favorable review of our shows on September 7, 2016, "A Visit to the Boston Sculptors Gallery."
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As many of you may have heard, Jessica Bregoli selected my sculpture, Seagull Cinderella, for the Seaport Art Walk in New Bedford this summer. I installed the sculpture on a highly visible site pre-selected by the Seaport Art Walk Committee at thebeginning of June. After being on view for about a month or so, a petition was filed by a local resident to "Remove the Seagull Statue in Downtown New Bedford." Therein started the Seagull Cinderella Controversy. (Click on the link for the story)

Coming up in October...

Seagull Cinderella Returns to Maynard

October 15, 2016, 3-6 pm

Parade, Art Show and Reception

Seagull Cinderella returns home to Maynard on October 15. Welcome her back from her triumphant tour of New Bedford with a parade in downtown Maynard and art show at 6 Bridges Gallery, 77 Main Street, Maynard.

Many of you remember Seagull Cinderella standing tall in her front yard on Summer Street in Maynard. She spent a few weeks in New Bedford, MA this summer where our intrepid gull found herself embroiled in a bit of an uproar. They were talking about her far and wide. But Seagull Cinderella stood fast. Her supporters rallied around and created art in her honor.

On October 15 Seagull Cinderella returns to Maynard and will be feted with a parade in downtown Maynard starting at 3:00 pm. Follow her from the Maynard library to 6 Bridges gallery at 77 Main Street where she will disembark from her carriage and stand proudly outside 6 Bridges Gallery. A pop-up art show inspired by our courageous gull awaits her fans and supporters inside. A portion of the proceeds from the art sale will be donated to the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden.

Open Call to Artists to submit creations of all mediums in homage to this glorious sculpture by Donna Dodson of Maynard.

Drop off work on Friday, October 14, 4-6 pm or Saturday, October 15, 10-11 am. Please bring work ready to display on pedestals and tables. Wall space is not available.

Work for this event will be for sale with a portion of the proceeds going to help women with breast cancer at the Virginia Thurston Healing Garden.

6 Bridges Gallery was established in 2014 by a group of artists to create a retail and display gallery in the heart of Maynard, Massachusetts. The ever-changing work in our gallery includes a diverse range of media and artistic styles. All of our artisans are local; many—including our founding members—are residents of the ArtSpace Maynard studios.

6 Bridges Gallery

77 Main Street

Maynard, MA 01754

978-897-3825

info@6bridgesgallery.com

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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 Resident Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Visual Art Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “The Amazons Among Us” 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 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 a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, the nation’s only sculpture cooperative that maintains its own gallery space. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. She enjoys public speaking, and has been a guest speaker at conferences throughout North America. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and is pending publication in a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies, Queering the Amazons.

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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Tuesday, August 30, 2016

September News

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