UMVA Showcase – Spring 2025: Joanne Tarlin, June Kellogg, Sandy Willcox, Emily Sabino

Joanne Tarlin

I have not painted the ocean before moving to Maine. Beginning in 2024, I have felt compelled to paint the sea’s turbulence in the wake of violent storms, literal and metaphorical.

 

June Kellogg – In These Times

As an artist, what do I do in this time of upheaval? Go to the studio.

Is it an escape from what is going on in the world? Perhaps.

Am I searching for some beauty to soothe my anger and fear? Definitely. 

What is going on in Washington, DC right now often gives me a feeling of being ill. Despite maintaining a healthy diet and trying to titrate my news intake, I get a knot in my stomach every time I read or hear what is coming out of the White House.

As Toni Morrison wrote, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work.” And so I go into the studio each day. I admit that this is partially a way of escaping the world’s chaos, but it is also a way of expressing my belief that our natural world needs to be preserved and protected for future generations.

My paintings are a combination of the external realism of landscape with my own internal improvisation. While creating them, I am looking for a certain type of beauty. Beauty may not be a usual means of protest, but it is what will keep me sane in these chaotic times. Beauty is a tremendous resource, and I want my artwork to continue to be informed by the beauty of nature, art, music, and loved ones.

 

Sandy Willcox

What does it feel like to live in times like these? Not great. It’s demeaning, chaotic, and frightening. It weighs upon my mind and stifles my energy. I am nervous about the rampant selfishness, the lack of compassion, and the disregard for the environment that is our home. I hope the arts can be a part of the solution by encouraging creativity, which is crucial to problem-solving, and offering pathways for connection and communication.

My paintings are the visual manifestation of my concerns about humanity and its bizarre disconnect from the ecosystem we share with all other life. Without a rational sense of our place on this great ball of earth, we have become a destructive and domineering species that is sawing off the limb that supports us. But I am learning a lot about interconnectedness from trees, how they communicate and provide, how they are self-protective but also generous. For me, their noble stature, even as stumps, represents strength and kindness, and guidance for the future.

My recent paintings depict the remnants of a tree’s life, the end of which does not end its importance in the world. After the old tree dies, its pioneering root systems and communication networks remain useful to new growth. As the stump slowly returns its nutrients to the earth, it becomes a haven and a nursery for the next generation. It has a role to play in the grand, multidimensional ecosystem, a complex system that recognizes the inherent value of each stage in its turn. In my current paintings, I try to show the dignity of aged and weathered forms.

Just as the ecosystem needs life forms in every stage of its cycle, every area of our world benefits from variety. We may prefer the familiar or similar, or what we perceive as pretty, useful, or valuable, or what might be easier and less scary. But it is variation that gives us resilience and creativity. Our ecosystem, which includes every life, needs the fullest expression of that diversity for the well-being of all. I want to honor that.

Taking walks in the company of nature and making art about it help focus my thoughts and center my values. This gives me reasons to keep going forward.

 

Emily Sabino

In these times . . . snow is melting, new growth awaits. Many things are possible now that weren’t previously. A new era is forming—and a certain amount of preparation and destruction has to happen for it to emerge. I accept this inevitability and am grateful to be in Maine, working on creative projects with artists who inspire me.