DONNA DODSON

Monday, September 12, 2011

Artful Equine Exhibit

The Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden is pleased to present
Artful Equine Exhibit
September 9th-October 23rd

Paintings, Sculpture, Pastels, Unique Prints, and Mixed Media

Artists: Donna Dodson, Barbara Filleul, Liz Fletcher, Mary Iselin, Wendy Klemperer,
Heidi Lorenz, Carol Lake, Kathy Marx, Victoria Mauldin, Melissa Miller, Annette Mitchell,
Morris Norvin, Fleur Palau, Carol Santora, and Bob Shannahan

Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden
236 Hopkinton Road, Concord, NH 03301
http://www.themillbrookgallery.com/

Friday, October 14th 5-8: ART CONCORD

Fall for Art! Local Galleries Invite Families and
Foliage Seekers to ART CONCORD on Friday, October 14th

CONCORD, NH – The Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce invites members of the community and visitors to its next ART CONCORD free gallery tour to get a taste of why the capital area is becoming the cultural arts hub of the state. Local art galleries and other art venues around the city will join forces to offer the ART CONCORD collaborative gallery tour on Friday, October 14, 2011 from 5 to 8 pm. A flyer and map will be available at each gallery, as well as refreshments. This event is free and open to the public and participating venues include:

Kimball Jenkins School of Art, 266 North Main Street
League of NH Craftsmen Gallery, 49 South Main Street
McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, 2 Institute Drive
Mill Brook Gallery & Sculpture Garden, 236 Hopkinton Road
NHTI-Concord’s Community College Library Gallery, 31 College Drive
Red River Theatres, 11 South Main Street
Rowland Studio, 23 North Main Street
Sulloway & Hollis/Robert M. Larsen Gallery, 29 School Street
University of New Hampshire School of Law Gallery, 2 White Street
The Works Café, 42 North Main Street

Image: Arabian alloys, 7" each, sand cast aluminum, aluminum bronze, bronze, copper, brass, iron by Donna Dodson. Photo credit: Cliff Pfeiffer

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Rockland Center for the Arts

Sept 11th Four Exhibitions Open!
Artist reception 1-4pm

The Annual Faculty Exhibition and Open House 2011
Meet the faculty, tour our studios, and see demonstrations.
Emerson Gallery thru Oct 2

Michael Kondel : Silkscreen
Large format mixed media silkscreens by emerging artist Michael Kondel. Small collage sculptures created by the artist are the inspiration for these hand painted silkscreen prints.
Lynn Stein, curator
Gallery ONE thru Oct 2

YOON CHO: Haircut /How to Spell My Name
Video Artist Yoon Cho’s work focuses on twelve culturally diverse individuals and their unique relationships to their identities in the US.
Lynn Stein, curator
Media Project Spaces thru Oct 2

Catherine Konner Sculpture Park
Welcome the three newest additions to the Catherine Konner Sculpture Park @ RoCA Artist Donna Dodson’s Hathor and Panda; Elanie Lorenz’s Fiore Blanco. Artist Talk in the Sculpture Park with Donna Dodson at 2pm. Sculpture Park is open year round.

Rockland Center for the Arts
27 South Greenbush Road
West Nyack, New York
http://www.rocklandartcenter.org/

Update: Check out p.8 of the Fall Arts Preview at www.lowhud.com for a review of my work. Here's a teaser, 'Whether it's the larger-than-life "Giant Panda" in residence at Rockland Center for the Arts, or the first glimpse at a painting of the Nile, unseen for more than 100 years; famous works from 1980s icons like Jeff Koons, or the brilliance of an up-and-coming star like Dana Schutz, we asked curators and the artists themselves to pick one piece from each of their exhibits to tell a tale.'

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Museum of Art, University of New Hampshire

Selected Works from the Boston Sculptors Gallery
September 10 – October 19, 2011
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9, 5 – 7 p.m.

Sculpture, by its nature, is three-dimensional. This exhibition, installed both inside the Museum of Art and outside in the adjacent courtyard, features 38 works of art by 18 artists who are members of the landmark cooperative, The Boston Sculptors Gallery. The co-op was founded in 1992, and has become Boston's premier venue for sculpture. Whether on the walls or in the round, inside or out, come and discover the realms of contemporary sculpture. And why Nick Capasso, Associate Curator of the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, states, “The Boston Sculptors Gallery, one of the few cooperative sculpture galleries in the country, is among the most stimulating venues for 3-D contemporary art in the Northeast.”

Artists featured in the exhibition include: B. Amore, Castleton, VT; Caroline Bagenal, Newburyport, MA; Kim Bernard, North Berwick, ME; Benjamin Cariens, Somerville, MA; Gillian Christy, Providence, RI; Murray Dewart, Brookline, MA; Donna Dodson, Jamaica Plain, MA; Sally S. Fine, Boston, MA; Mags Harries, Cambridge, MA; Sarah Hutt, Boston, MA; Peter Lipsitt, Brookline, MA; Andy Moerlein, Bow, NH; Julia Shepley, Brookline, MA; Margaret Swan, Melrose, MA; Marilu Swett, Jamaica Plain, MA; Hannah Verlin, Somerville, MA; Ellen Wetmore, Fitchburg, MA; and Dan Wills, Marshfield, MA.

Co-curated by Carol Seitchik and Weston LaFountain and in association with the Boston Sculptors Gallery.

Lilac Rhino, 26" tall, wood, pigment and paint by Donna Dodson
Photo Credit: Cliff Pfeiffer

Update: Video of a studio visit with Donna Dodson in Jamaica Plain by UNH art student Samuel Rheaume in conjunction with the recent Boston Sculptors Gallery exhibition at the University of New Hampshire Museum of Art.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

HIGH ALTITUDE SCULPTURE - A RESIDENCY

HIGH ALTITUDE SCULPTURE - A RESIDENCY
3D Foundation, Verbier Switzerland
September 6th - October 15th.
Artists Reception Friday September 23rd 5:30- 6:30.

Manchester - Derryfield art teacher and sculptor Andy Moerlein from Bow, NH, and Donna Dodson, a sculptor and frequent collaborator from Boston, MA have recently completed a Sculpture Park Residency in Verbier, Switzerland. HIGH ALTITUDE SCULPTURE - A RESIDENCY is an exhibit of water colors, drawings, photos of their work as well as images of the work produced by the 7 artists in residence in Switzerland. For five weeks, (May 21 - June 25, 2011) a roster of emerging and critically acclaimed Swiss, British and American artists were invited to create a museum without walls in the high Alps overlooking Verbier Switzerland. Verbier is a world class destination for skiing, snow boarding, and alpine hiking and is the home of the Verbier Classical Music Festival. The artists participating in the residency include Gregory Coates, Musa Hixson, Timothy Holmes, Zak Ove and Kiki Thompson. Will Ryman, Andre Raboud, Edouard Faro, Etienne Krahenbuhl, Nathalie Delhaye and Josette Taramarcaz also loaned monumental sculptures to the first high altitude sculpture park exhibition.

The creative challenge Dodson, Moerlein, and the other artists addressed was suggested by Paul Goodwin, Curator to Tate Britain, “New Monumentalism: art, nature and community.” Using views of the mountains where the sculpture park is located as a creative departure point, the residency was designed to be an incubator for ideas and creativity amongst the artists. The purpose of the residency is to create an international contemporary art dialogue between the artists and the local community. Over a five week working residency the artists shared their work in public talks, taught their methods and creative approaches to local children, and built a substantial permanent sculpture.

In conjunction with this exhibit there will be a panel discussion on Saturday October 15th, 2011, 2-4pm in The Derryfield School’s Lyceum:

International Art Residencies and Symposia - A Panel Discussion
at The Derryfield School 2108 River Road Manchester NH 03304 USA

Individual artists with international experiences will share images of their work and discuss the experience of living in a unique environment and creating work in situ in a foreign country. Directors of International programs will introduce their programs and philosophic goals. An internationally recognized artist/curator will facilitate a conversation on art making in a cross-cultural/site specific context.

Update: A brief overview of Verbier 3-D Sculpture Park Residency 2011 on video.

Images: Upended, a Ghost Print, steel, hand made stones by Andy Moerlein
Baby Bringer, 12 ft tall, styroffoam, cement, paint by Donna Dodson

Friday, August 26, 2011

Sculpturefest 2011

Opening: Saturday, September 3, 4pm - 7pm
Bring your own picnic

FEATURED ARTISTS THIS YEAR:

Wendy Klemperer and Roger Goldenberg

SCULPTURE FEST 2011
AT PROSPER ROAD LOCATION THE THEME IS "SACRED LAND," AN INVITATIONAL EXHIBITION WITH WORKS BY JOHN BIELING, SETH CALLANDER, DAVID COLTON, CHARLET DAVENPORT, CHARLET EGBERT, SAL FARLOW, HERB FERRIS, JOSEPH FICHTER, DIMITRI GERAKARIS, ROGER GOLDENBERG, BRUCE HATHAWAY, ANDREW HELLMUND, BARBARA KAUFMAN, WENDY KLEMPERER, DANIEL LADD, ROBERT MARKEY, JAY MEAD, ANDY MOERLEIN, TRACY PENDLETONN, HECTOR SANTOS, MARGARET SHEEHAN, VALORIE SHEEHAN, SUZI SULLIVAN, PHIL THORNE, JAMES IRVING WESTERMAN, JOSH WINER, KENNETH WOODHEAD

ADDITIONAL ARTISTS WILL BE ADDED AS THEY RESPOND

AT THE KING FARM, A YOUNG GROUP OF "ARTIST/CURATORS" ARE INVITING NEW ARTISTS TO PARTICIPATE ON THE THEME OF FARMS: CHARLET DAVENPORT, PETER DAVENPORT, DONNA DODSON, DIMITRI GERAKARIS, BRUCE HATHAWAY,WENDY KLEMPERER, MAXWELL HEIGES, LELA KEEN JAACKS, MICHAEL NEDELL, JUSTIN O'ROURKE, LI SHEN, JOHN IRVING WESTERMAN, KENNETH WOODHEAD

509 Prosper Road, Woodstock, VT.

Director Charlet Davenport has worked as an artist in Vermont since 1963. Currently her work in ceramic sculpture is influenced by many years of acting as Director of Sculpture Fest. Initially her ourdoor art installations were created on fibre glass mesh and installed in public spaces (St. Gaudens Historic National Park, The Rotunda at Dartmouth College Hopkins Center, the Vermont Carving Studio and Sculpture Center, the bank of the Hoosic River on Williams College Campus, Slater Mill, Pawtucket, RI, the TW Wood Art Center and a variety of other public and semi-public spaces.)

Peter Davenport, Co-Director of Sculpture Fest, is the one-man landscape force. Along with his duties as curator of the exhibition he aids artists in installing work, clearing sites, creating the signage, keeping everything clear for visitors as well as caring for the grounds throughout the exhibition time.

Both Davenports agree that land belongs to all of us and welcome the guests who come to Sculpture Fest each year.

Image: Elephant Oracle, 8ft tall, styrofoam & cement, 2010 by Donna Dodson
Photo Credit: Charlet & Peter Davenport

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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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