The theme description that appeared in the winter issue of the Maine Arts Journal asked contributors to consider how their work and their role as artists reflect the times of upheaval we live in. We mentioned the global ruptures of climate change and wars, the erosion of democracy, the national division, and the personal assaults on our rights, identities, and bodies. In the few months since we wrote this theme description, democracy and the rule of law have come under siege and every day we descend more into dystopia. As this issue shows, our contributors share this sense of urgency; they responded with great sincerity, and with their characteristic honesty, they revealed the range of emotions that befalls them. They accepted the challenge to reflect upon the present circumstances, writing essays in which questions are omnipresent and are directed to themselves and to the reader. The essays and works of art included in this issue are an invitation to confront the complexities of our current circumstances.
In his Strange Histories series, Ian Trask combines found slides in “an open invitation to parse out new contexts and explanations.” This “integrative exercise” unleashes creativity and embraces uncertainty. It thus practices mental nimbleness, a skill much needed in a time of polarization and absolutism, a healthy counterpoint to what those in power would want us to believe, “that there is no middle ground; that our coming together is an impossibility.” Trask includes some of the responses that his photographic collages have elicited (short pieces by Jorge Arango, Brandon Kaplan, and Reed McLean) and why he feels it’s important to share “the opportunity to experience that kind of rule-free world-building.”
Edgar Allen Beem writes about several of Tanja Hollander’s projects: Are You Really My Friend? considers social media “friendships,” Ephemera inventories personal objects, and Mourning Flowers documents spontaneous memorials after terrorist attacks and shootings (Hollander currently has an installation at the Maine MILL in Lewiston, which she created in collaboration with Miia Zellner). Hollander explains that she is concerned with “community building, friendship, belonging, memory, self-reflection, and vulnerability.” Her latest project is “a call to contemplation” and affirms the need to respond to mass violence.
Hale Linnet, along with Boots Shertzer and Sampson Spadafore, is one of the three co-founders of Brazen Bandits, an artist collective of trans-non-binary artists. Their exhibition at Portland’s Space Gallery last January conveyed their belief that “[t]he trans body exemplifies revolution and liberation” and that the quest for one’s authenticity provides “a foundation for a different world.” The pop-up events they organized during the month offered nourishment for both body and soul, an affirmation of resourcefulness, and “felt like an immunization against hopelessness.”
Drawing from the conventions of cartography, Dan Mills uses his work to “abstractly visualize information about historic and contemporary topics and events,” hoping to “evoke an emotional, visceral, and palpable response” in his viewers. Chronicle, his current series, questions colonialism and is grounded on careful historical research. Mills’s eloquently dense renditions embrace space—they encompass the entire world—and time, with lines visually translating “every colonial action since 1400.”
In a revised version of an article published in Puppetry Research International, John Bell discusses Bread and Puppet Theater director Peter Schumann’s “Bedsheet Paintings.” Starting in the 2020s, these large works on reclaimed sheets “began to take center stage as active elements in Bread and Puppet productions,” responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the death of Schumann’s wife Elka. Bell’s article shows that this body of work “reflects Bread and Puppet’s continuing interest in exploring new forms, as well as its recognition of such traditional forms of painting performance as cantastoria.”
Carl Little writes about the “powerful statements of protest” that Nick Heller creates with “dazzling beads and sparkling sequins” inspired by Haitian flags. While responding to injustice, environmental threats, war, gun violence, terrorism, and capitalism, Heller’s works are meticulously made and possess a seductive bejeweled surface, “reflecting the paradox that in life, beauty and horror often coexist.”
Reacting to current events and making their outrage heard is what a group of Anonymous Maine Artists are doing in New York City and Brooklyn. By appropriating the large advertisement boxes on the sides of bus shelters, they voice “a call to action, to collectively re-imagine what our cities and societies could be, taking creativity into the streets to support the struggle for social, economic and climate justice, as well as for human rights and dignity for all.” A reflection by Véronique Plesch provides a critical assessment of the project.
Since 2002, Robert Shetterly has been painting Americans Who Tell the Truth, which was recently exhibited in the Atrium of the Bates Mill in Lewiston in its entirety. It is a project that Alan Magee calls “a comprehensive syllabus in decency and courage—and a letter to posterity.” Over two decades in the making, the series “takes on a heightened relevance now, when the fundamental virtues of our society are under assault.” Magee shows that Shetterly introduces us to profoundly human figures who inspire us to be resilient, empathetic, and courageous.
Art teachers Brooke Holland and Anthony Lufkin recount taking their classes last December to see Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth. The show ushered a conversation on “the difference between empowerment and entitlement” and on the qualities necessary for leadership. Emulating Shetterly, students acknowledged “unsung heroes”: each selected “someone they believe to be a community leader,” interviewed them, and painted their portrait along with a quote.
That artists would feel compelled to respond to what happens around them is not new. In this quarter’s “Art Historical Musings” column, Véronique Plesch discusses works in which the viewer is made to witness suffering, both physical and emotional. Whether adopting a documentary approach or not, artists turn beholders into actual bystanders, generating—and even demanding—an empathetic response from them.
As she reflects on our unsettling times, Claire Millikin begins her essay with thoughts prompted by Out of the Picture, Mary Louise Schumacher’s documentary on art critics and their future, which she sees as “an important film . . . for our time now.” Millikin asks: “Can art save us?” and meditates on Penobscot photographer Maya Tihtiyas Attean’s gelatin silver print Atuwoskonikehsuwok (forest spirits).
While in Berlin at the time of the presidential inauguration, Stuart Kestenbaum visits the murals that were painted in 1990 on a large surviving portion of the Berlin wall. The paintings, the wall, the city itself, and of course the moment in history, prompt Kestenbaum to ponder how “we’re always left with trying to understand how it happens, how hate blossoms and neighbors kill neighbors.” In the face of “our new autocratic, vengeful government,” he wonders: “What can a citizen do? What can an artist do?”
The pull of the present is also unavoidable for Reed McLean. While attending a performance of Long Live the River, a collaborative work by Meghan Brady, Aretha Aoki, and Ryan MacDonald involving dance, sound, and visual art, McLean is led to reflect upon “what it means to live now.”
The need “to listen and recognize our shared humanity beyond dictates of facile binaries” is central to Betsy Sholl’s selection of poetry from Rosa Lane’s latest book of poems, Called Back, in which she pays homage to Emily Dickinson. Sholl also shares two poems by Claire Millikin that resonate with our times’ uncertainty.
No less than thirty-two members contributed to this issue’s Members’ Showcase. The remarkable diversity in media and themes is testimony to the acute need for acknowledging concerns and expressing them through art. The seven showcases contain artwork in an extraordinary range of media: painting, drawing, collage, assemblage, embroidery, glasswork, ceramics, sculpture, used on their own or in combination. Materials offer a way to work out anxiety in the face of challenging times; for instance, we see artists engage with the current world through collage and assemblage as if piecing together disparate materials were a way to heal our fractured society and to reflect on the march of history. In the face of societal challenges, artists turn to the past to find sources of inspiration and guides to understand the present and approach the future. As artists face unprecedented challenges, new themes and iconographies emerge.
Peter Buotte combines past and present figures, the old ones acting as metaphors for the contemporary ones. Kenny Cole uses old magazines in “a nightmarish mash-up of old and new” that drives home the notion of history repeating itself. Titi de Baccarat calls for awareness of both history and present ongoing struggles and injustices. A collection of antique wooden pieces become the building blocks for André Benoit’s assemblages that translate his outrage “to the indefensible aggression and destruction in Ukraine.”
Stephen Burt’s “word drawings” affirm much needed values such as “creative altruism” and Philip Brou’s large embroideries allude to Emily Dickinson and her “embrace of uncertainty.” Krisanne Baker’s glass installations and ceramic classes “educate others about our vital connection to ocean health” and Marcie Jan Bronstein’s works such as her ceramic candle pedestals “reflect the life-changing work” of an organization that brings awareness and support to victims of domestic violence.
For Tom Paiement wrestling becomes a metaphor for our current experience: “No diplomacy here. No dialog.” Threats to democracy and the role of art are central to the body of work that Michael Torlen presents, a sentiment echoed by David Estey, who believes that “[i]n these times of upheaval, artists are called upon to be visionaries and advocates for the way forward” and by Camille Kouyoumdjian, who sees artists as able to convey “grief, resistance, and hope.”
The process of making art is cathartic: Elizabeth Starr gives visual shape to lies, Yvonne Maiden explores urgent themes of “renewal, introspection, and transformation,” Donna Festa’s oil paintings “describe today’s ugliness and discontent,” and Taylor Newbeck’s acrylics “reflect a brain in overdrive.”
In response to the traumatic times, artists develop new visual vocabularies: Lesia Sochor to express solidarity with her ancestral land of Ukraine, Nora Tryon to allow hope to live on, Natasha Mayers to voice “sadness and grief and shock and anger.”
Observing, documenting, and reflecting is what Pat Wheeler does with demonstrations, Richard Wilson with the polarized “world we live in,” Laura Waller with the 2021 storming of the capitol, M. Annenberg with a slew of alarming events and their press coverage, and Marjorie Arnett with the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As nature is endangered, it becomes a carrier of profound meanings: Joanne Tarlin paints the ocean with “storms, literal and metaphorical”; June Kellogg, landscapes that combine “external realism with [her] own internal improvisation”; Sandy Wilcox, decaying stumps that nurture new life; and Emily Sabino, the promise of rebirth after snow melts.
Art and its practice bring solace: Sally Stanton sees the creative act as an affirmation of humanity, Karen Adrienne conjures up the voice of her long-deceased mother, David Wade picks up his camera to make sense of the world or find refuge, and James McCarthy photographs moments that bring him comfort and that in turn soothe family and friends.
More than ever, the Artists’ Rapid Response Team! (ARRT!) and LumenARRT! respond to events and voice support for progressive causes. At its monthly paint sessions, ARRT! gathers “a rich cross section of our Maine communities.” A growing number of ARRT!ists come together to express their support for much-needed initiatives and ideals, and, in the face of the challenging times, they too find solace. We reproduce a sampling of the banners and placards they created this past quarter and of the events in which they participated. Read, see photos, and view videos documenting LumenARRT!’s recent video projections.
Tony Owen made a timely discovery in an issue of Union News, UMVA’s newsletter, that came out thirty-five years ago. Reflecting on a manifesto titled “A Declaration of Cultural Human Rights,” Owen wonders if we “can find that path again and look at cultural democracy as a reasonable form of communication and understanding.”
Environmental concerns are at the heart of some of the activities of the Union of Maine Visual Artists chapters. The UMVA Portland chapter announces Washed Away, the forthcoming exhibition at the Portland Public Library that will open on 2 May. The show, sponsored by Green Clean Maine, was motivated by last winter’s severe weather and resulting devastation. UMVA Midcoast chapter reports on the recent exhibition Dark Skies, the fruit of a collaboration with Belfast’s Waterfall Arts (WFA) and Dark Sky Maine.
This issue shows that art is a potent way to process emotions—we read about anxiety and depression, apprehension and alienation, hopelessness and despair, shock and fear, frustration and anger. Art is also a means of expressing the need for compassion, community, solidarity, and altruism, to care for others and the planet, and to strive for the common good. Our contributors invite us to accept ambiguity instead of black-and-white thinking and to fight selfishness and complacency while cultivating awareness, sincerity, authenticity, integrity, responsibility, and courage. Many look into the past to find inspiration and examples of figures who have upheld the values we need today. They prove that knowledge of history is required to assess the present, speak out, and act.
As one reads through this issue, a silver lining emerges: the challenges we experience “in times like these” incite us to affirm our values and to come together as a community. Never has the Union of Maine Visual Artists’ mission been more vital.
Maine Arts Journal Spring 2025 cover (Peter Schumann, Bedsheet Painting at Bread and Puppet Museum, Glover, Vermont, 2024 [photo: Natasha Mayers]).