Reflections

From June 2 through July 28, I was the artist-in-residence at The Shed in Monte San Martino. This beautiful hilltop village in the Marche region faces the Adriatic Sea to the east and to the west the Sibillini and Apennine Mountains, the spine of Italy.

I had visited Monte San Martino a year before my residency and was transfixed by the work of Carlo and Vittore Crivelli. The village has several Crivelli altarpieces from the mid-1400s, including the only one ever completed by both brothers working in tandem.

Upon returning from that visit, I created a sculpted painting on aluminum panels to capture the moment of seeing the Crivelli altarpieces for the first time. This piece is a marker of a moment, and it became the centerpiece for the installation that I created in my residency.

Upon returning from that visit, I created a sculpted painting on aluminum panels to capture the moment of seeing the Crivelli altarpieces for the first time.

This piece is a marker of a moment, and it became the centerpiece for the installation that I created in my residency.

Each day of the residency was like the first day. Waking at sun’s first light and walking up to the town, a stop for coffee, and then to my studio. On that first day, I knew – I felt – that this was a uniquely special part of the world, and I was grateful to be there. I arrived ready to experience my surroundings – to learn about its rhythm, its people, its heritage, its natural beauty, and its local harvest.

What I did not realize was that the “spirit of place,” the spirit of Monte San Martino and its community and natural beauty, would become central to my work.

The “Spirit of Place” emerged as the inspiration for the installation I created during the residency. The studio, a large, deep space anchored by the aluminum diptych on the back wall, featured open light and floor-to-ceiling front windows and doors that invited in the beauty and community of Monte San Martino.

My intent was to create a site-inspired installation in the studio using several projects that I had prepared in advance. The objectives were inherently and purposely open-ended – I needed the process to unfold as I experienced the day-to-day rhythms of the studio and the village.

The result was an installation in four parts:

The aluminum diptych, entitled Unfolding, anchored the installation to the extraordinary Crivelli altarpieces and the artistic heritage of the village. The diptych describes the transformative moment when I saw, for the first time, the work of Carlo and Vittore Crivelli in Monte San Martino. The Crivelli altarpieces are timeless masterpieces that uniquely place the viewer and the painter in conversation, presenting an exchange of ideas combining history, religion and humanity in a manner I had not seen or experienced before. This diptych marks the moment when I viewed those altarpieces for the first time. I chose the format of a diptych – two half-circles, pivoting around the space “in between.” The rich colors, the glowing gold evoke and reflect upon the colors of Crivelli’s work. I am honored that this painting will be part of Monte San Martino’s permanent art collection.

The installation included Daily Paintings, created on each of the 54 days of the residency. In advance of the residency, I painted 54 papers (9 x12 inch Yupo paper) with two varied-color horizontal lines on each end – sunrise and sunset. In the center, a dark-textured black was the space “in between.” Each day, I chose from a series of painted and fragmented shapes I had placed on the wall – not unlike a stained glass window. These shapes, also prepared in advance, hearken back to arches, portals, thresholds – the spaces that signify the beauty of this village and region. My routine every morning was to reconnect these individual shapes to tell a story. The series was positioned along the base of the wall of the studio to read like a frieze – an interconnected narrative about my days of the residency. To assemble and affix each fragmented shape, I used a mix of grommets and brads – referring back to the region’s rich tradition of making shoes and hats.

A third element was a series of Memory Lines wrapped with paint taken over decades from my paintings, symbolizing the connections of time and memory. These wrapped lines were hung against a black background to capture the sense of an infinite space “in between,” invoking the textured black of the daily paintings wrapping the studio walls and the space separating halves of the large diptych anchoring the installation. The wrapped paint on these memory lines has been scraped off painted aluminum surfaces – a process I began in 2001, after 9/11, to create a series reflecting on the power of silence through color chants of layered surfaces that were then sanded and cut away to reveal what remained. The scraped, removed paint over decades of work creates memory lines of moments gained and lost, beauty rediscovered, opportunities then and now.

The Memory Board was the final element of the installation –photographs marking the passage of time in the studio. Each of the 54 days, my ritual (using a mini insta-camera) was to photograph morning’s first light in the studio, and the progression of the work. These were labeled with sequential numbers, clipped on a long piece of twine on a studio wall. On the left-hand side of the wall began the rows of the studio “space,” and to the right I began placing photographs of the studio’s visitors – including many from the village. My intent was to connect people to the physical space of The Shed. I happily documented those who came to visit, share and talk. This evolved into a magical project that I had started on a whim. Conceptually it was connected to the Crivelli work – the blending of the physical with the spiritual worlds. It blossomed into a wonderful memory board. By the end of the residency, the photographs of people overtook the daily record of the studio.

This residency has inspired me; it was a gift. I give my special thanks to the people of Monte San Martino and The Shed for welcoming me, and sharing the beauty and artistic heritage of this special community.