UMVA Showcase – Spring 2025: Stephen Burt, Philip Brou, Krisanne Baker, Marcie Jan Bronstein

Stephen Burt

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

This quote, when I read it, encapsulated the cure for what ails us as a nation and as a species imperiled by our own self-destructive impulses. What are we doing for each other in a time of environmental and social crisis? I am submitting recent word drawings and others that emphasize the need for compassion, love, reciprocity, and perhaps most importantly, creative altruism, words that recognize and require interdependence. Without these essential and very human traits we will be unable to tackle the myriad problems associated with climate change, late-stage capitalism and dire poverty. It is clear now that our writing and language have not prepared us for the challenges and crises of our current world. In fact, language has been used to cleverly obscure the very real and pressing issues of our time. I believe that art has the power to change lives—but, for me, that art is not an illustration but a plea for reason in the face of insanity.

I have studied the Old Masters for many years now and recently have been integrating the visual experiences created by chiaroscuro drawing with that of graffiti and calligraphy. The words may be initially obscure—as with graffiti—which will require viewers to look and ponder more deeply our current conditions of separation from nature, servitude towards technology and willful ignorance of where any privilege we have comes from. This may sound dramatic, but I believe we are at an inflection point where each of us must work towards the common good. And such change as we need may come from artists; they often present the resistance and change that is necessary. Collectively we can make change, and I am trying to find an effective way to say this. Even the Dragon of the Apocalypse is warning us: “The Time Is Now.”

Video of my artist’s talk at the University of New England where I touch on many of these points.

 

Philip Brou

I remember first encountering the work of Emily Dickinson in high school with the poem:

We lose—because we win—

Gamblers—recollecting which

Toss their dice again!

Mrs. Rush, an exceptional teacher, took the time to talk me through it. She told me about the poem’s structure, the way Dickinson camouflages rather than reveals meaning, the presence of her pictographic dashes, and the sublime feat of compressing all of human endeavor into twelve words, three dashes and an exclamation point. Thirty years have passed and I still think about this poem. Emily Dickinson’s work continues to serve as a high-water mark for what I believe is possible to accomplish as an artist.

The theme “In Times Like These” resonates with me, particularly with the description:  We find ourselves in a time of upheaval on all levels, from the global ruptures of climate change and wars to the erosion of democracy, national division, despair, anger, and fear, to very personal assaults on our rights, identities, and our own bodies. Much of this was also present during the volatile times of Dickinson’s life, which overlapped with the American Civil War.

Around 1885, Emily Dickinson wrote the word “oblivion,” in graphite, on the inside of an unfolded envelope. The word was part of a poem. I saw it in the book “The Gorgeous Nothings,” which was recommended to me by my friend and fellow artist olivier. The book exquisitely reproduces Emily Dickinson’s manuscripts and poem fragments.

Oblivion is the state of being unaware or unconscious of what is happening; it is a zoning out, a forgetting, an erasure, an effacement. I believe oblivion is at work today in ways that are both generative and destructive.  Dickinson’s “oblivion” became the starting point for a piece in which I enlarged her handwritten letters to my own height, 5’11”, and hand embroidered the two i’s from the word onto two separate 9×12’ drop cloths. The drop cloths —designed to lie horizontally on the ground— are elevated to hang vertically on the wall. I imagined the individually embroidered stitches to be dashes or recumbent I’s. Embroidery is like writing, but it involves moving through the substrate and then back out again, the needle repeatedly disappears and reappears. It is a slow, meditative process that allows me to zone out and process things. The enlarged “i” letterforms, reproduced with Dickinson’s diagonal slant, appear to be figures falling, or maybe rising. They could be dice rolled to result in a pair of twos, or they could be inverted exclamation points. I omitted the other letters and only reproduced the i’s, which is an effacement. However, in an about face, depicting two i’s creates a portrait. I want to believe the paired i’s can be a reminder that, even when facing oblivion, you are not alone.

While looking into the theme, I found the hymn “In Times Like These” that includes the lyrics:

Be very sure, be very sure, your anchor holds, and grips the Solid Rock

Though this hymn presents a beautiful testament to the stability of faith, in times like these I find it difficult to be sure of anything solid to grip. An anchor is like an embroidery needle, but not. Both have eyes and both are fastened to a line, but one is meant for stability and the other is meant for motion. I find meaning in Dickinson’s embrace of uncertainty. She favors moving out upon circumference rather than dropping anchor. In recollection of the generative forces of oblivion that allow us to move away from doom in favor of life, I wonder if a way to reckon with times like these is to toss the die again—and again—

 

Krisanne Baker

The past two decades (one third of my life on this planet) have been rife with increasing concern, ever-increasing, and especially now. With each political turnover in this country, comes either devastation of environmental laws and practices, or the celebration of protections. Life has been a total seesaw since my elation at the election of former President Barack Obama. There is progress, and then backlash, progress, backlash. The environmental is political.

When I first heard reports of climate change, I believed the science. The eco artwork of the Harrisons and water activist Betsy Damon gave me the courage to also become an art activist. The word “activist” had always previously sparked anxiety and fear in me.

(Here’s the Merriam-Webster dictionary entry: advocating or practicing activism: using or supporting strong actions in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue.)

Through the confusion, concern, and fear, I found myself drawn deeper and deeper into caring and using my art to educate others about our vital connection to ocean health. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that our bodies are 71 percent water, and 71 percent of this planet is covered with water. Despite (or maybe, in spite of) the anxiety and being a shy, non-confrontational person, I became an ocean art activist. I found solidarity in collaborations with marine scientists at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and Shoals Marine Laboratories. Bigelow gave me a fantastic venue for a 25-feet high up-cycled glass sculpture of plankton based on my research with them.

Currently, I’m in Thailand as a volunteer working with Coral Gardeners coral reef restoration site on a small island in the southern Gulf of Thailand. As an ecological art educator, I was invited to transform my Gulf of Maine: Dare to Care curriculum to the Gulf of Thailand, specific to its dying coral reefs. Ceramic sculptures of the corals and reef inhabitants have been the focus of my evening art lessons. I ask that each person first create one reef related sculpture to be donated to the public art wall of coral reef art, and then they are invited to create whatever they want for themselves. Last winter, I spent three months on this island getting permission to set up the first ceramic studio and kiln room on the island. Through my lessons and our collective public art sculpture, I’m strengthening the commitment of all participants to put ocean health at the top of their concerns list. Upon returning to this island to complete the public art project, my first evening lesson had twenty-eight participants from nine different countries, including six local citizens.

Eco education can have a far reach. Former high school students of mine have told me that they have gone on to become marine biologists and environmental lawyers. Gently and peacefully, I am breeding an army of ocean advocates. What I leave behind will carry on with newly ignited island residents and visitors, possibly even with the plans I’m suggesting for the creation of a new ceramic artist residency. Last year was the 4th Global Bleaching. We lost all the young corals in the lagoon and so many on the reef proper. I cried for their loss. They have no voice, but ours. Depression leads back to a vow to continue my work, funded mostly through the sale of my paintings. This collaborative work of being a voice for the voiceless eases my anxiety, and uplifts my soul.

 

Marcie Jan Bronstein – Into the Light

This collection of ceramic candle pedestals was created in January of 2025 for the Camden-based, nonprofit organization Finding Our Voices. FOV provides peer support and resources to domestic abuse survivors, and marshals community creativity to move the needle on domestic violence in Maine. This bold and affecting organization educates the general public with awareness campaigns, and gathers and amplifies survivor voices to bring safety and justice to Maine women and children.

In the wake of the events of this past year, I turned inward to my own work and also outward to focus only on people and organizations that cultivate and support individual freedom, expression, art, and expansive education. In thinking about FOV, I simply wanted to reflect the life-changing work of this courageous organization. I chose to create a collection of hand-built works which would literally bring light and ceremony into the spaces of the donors who purchased the pieces. In both my watercolor paintings and my ceramics, cairns, stone walls, and freeform balancing shapes are motifs I return to again and again. Painting or carving small shapes and balancing them in the moment of making centers me, moving me into a calm, poised space. I created Into The Light to generate a glow of easily ignited peace and equanimity, built by hand, painted, glazed, and fired in colors of sun, sand, and flowers.