White-Ellery House Installation Photos by Tom Robinson-Cox

 Thanks to Tom Robinson-Cox of Gloucester for these wonderfully atmospheric photos of my installation, Reading the Past, at the White-Ellery House. I think he really captured the feeling.

White-Ellery House Full Report

The minute I walked into the White-Ellery House last fall to see Karen Battles and Lesley Lyman's wonderful installation, Here, Long Ago, I knew I wanted to create work for the space and was pleased to have been given the opportunity thanks to Leon Doucette of the Cape Ann Museum. As I've started to spend more time with words and calligraphy lately, I wanted that to be my focus. In a search for texts to use, I went to the Cape Ann Museum Archives. There were no writings from those who lived in the house itself, but, with the assistance of the archivists, I found two journals of Hannah S. Babson from 1847–1850. Hannah began writing in September 1847 when she was twelve years old and marked her thirteenth birthday on December seventh of that year. I read a few pages and felt I had found my source.

I photographed the pages of the journal with my iphone and then read through all the pages on my phone. It was handy to have them in a portable format but tedious to make my way through all the images, enlarging sections as I went. Luckily her handwriting was neat and fairly easy to read. I've enjoyed getting to know Hannah over the last few months. She mostly described the events of her days. She didn't write about her feelings, but she did express opinions about class assignments and sermons, music, and lectures she heard.

I then chose the passages to share and wrote them on index cards. I purchased 12"-wide white tracing paper rolls and metallic black (almost looks like graphite when written) Zig calligraphy markers from Nia at my favorite art store, Artist and Craftsman in Saugus, MA. It seemed complicated to try to figure out the lettering and hanging of the banners at the house and then work at home. I also thought it would be a more meaningful experience for me to do the lettering on site. On Thursday, June 1, my husband and I packed up paper, markers, wire, lights, and ladders and headed to Gloucester. I worked directly on the paper with no lines or sketches. I hesitate to share this picture of me doing nothing with my body that a calligraphy manual or my chiropractor would recommend, but here it is.

The house was open to the public on Saturday, June 3, from 11–3. There was a steady flow of visitors throughout the day. I had many interesting conversations. People were surprised at the richness of the cultural life in Gloucester at the time. Among other events, Hannah attended lectures by Thoreau and Emerson. One woman commented how much she liked reading the hand-lettered banners. She found herself reading more slowly and enjoying the experience. It was gratifying to hear and made me feel that all the work I did for just four hours of sharing was worth it.

I hadn't thought about the taking-down process and had no plan for what to do with the work after. I started by laying them in a pile.

I soon realized it would be very time-consuming to try to keep them from getting wrinkled. Since I had no idea what I would do with them after, I crumpled them up

and put them in a bag to take home for recycling.

I always talk about process being more important than product. Sometimes it's good to actually follow through on what we preach.

You can view photos of all the banners and get to know Hannah in my flickr album.

You can view Tom Robinson-Cox's evocative photos here. 

White-Ellery House

I thought today's post would be a long one about my installation at the White-Ellery House yesterday but it turns out that one long day of lettering and installation followed by a second shorter day of tweaking and photography followed by a third day of meeting visitors and then taking everything down means that there is no mental energy left for writing about it. I will leave that for next week. In the meantime, here's a few photos of the installation with texts from the journals of Hannah S. Babson (starting at age 12) from 1847–1850. Later I'll be posting images of all 33 texts on flickr so that you can read her words but right now it's time to decompress.

Whispered Fragments II: Emily Dickinson

On August 9th, I wrote a post about the beginning of the process of creating this installation for the Flying Horse Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit at the Pingree School in Hamilton, MA.  Here is the description from the catalog:

Whispered Fragments II contains lines from the poems of Emily Dickinson chosen for the beauty, freshness, and crystalline ambiguity of her language, lines to both say out loud and let echo silently in the mind. The presentation of the fragments of poems fluttering on the trees is inspired by a Japanese tradition of hanging slips of poetry from tree branches. 

On August 19th, with the help of my son (actually he did all the work of hanging and I directed), the 81 strips were hung from four crabapple trees. The installation was not successfully concluded until September 23. Except for the lettering, I have completely redone every step of the process twice and some five times. I hope that reading about it will not be as interminable as it felt to do it. 

I did the first Whispered Fragments for Maudslay Outdoor Sculpture in 2008 using lines from John Greenleaf Whittier and lettering with a sharpie marker on tyvek strips. This time I wanted the lettering and the presentation to be a little more formal. I wrote on paper so I could use pen and ink and then covered it with a clear mylar. I experimented with writing horizontally or vertically. The way the words had to be broken up to fit horizontally made a vertical representation a better choice. The words are actually more legible even if you do have to tilt your head. And once again, a thank you to Mike Gold for his workshop at Masscribes. My lettering continues to loosen and become more free thanks to him.

I did a binding of sorts on the top with wood and thread and attached it to a small ring which was then attached to the branch with a tie wrap. I did a test in my yard but it turned out the actual location was much windier. What worked fine at home did not work well there. 

My first problem was with the strength of the cord and the security of the knots. My first go round was with waxed linen thread. At least half broke off within a few days. Next I tried imitation sinew. It held but the knots came undone. While I was working on the next solution, I discovered another problem. The mylar covering was not protective enough and water was seeping in.

I only did two smart things in this whole process. One was to scan the lettering before putting the mylar on. The other to follow up on a chance encounter with Josh DeVries, a printer who owns The Scarlet Letter Press in Salem, MA while I was working on the piece at the school. He spoke of how much better the encapsulation would be if it were laminated. Ten minutes after he left (and fortunately gave me his card), I called him on his cell and he came back and we planned the job. I prepared the scanned lettering; he printed, cut, and laminated the strips. Here’s Josh trimming:

After I got the laminated strips, I started all over again with new wood. I cut it with the paper cutter, spray varnished the pieces,

attached the wood to both sides of the top of the strips with double-stick tape,

and marked and then drilled 3 holes in each.

For the binding I tried catfish line and new knot used by fisherman taught to me by Paul Lovasco.

Nice try, but they started coming down in short order. The knots quickly unknotted in the wind. And keep in mind that for every one of these steps we are talking 81 strips.

At long last (why didn't I think of this sooner? you may ask), I decided that string and knots were not working. I still had fishing gear on my mind and went to Surfland Bait & Tackle on Plum Island. They pondered my problem and came up with a great solution. It only took care of the center hole so I bound the edges at the other two holes with wire.

The installation is up. I visited it this morning and it looked beautiful in the early morning light. The opening reception is tomorrow, September 26 at 11 AM. The exhibition continues until November 22. 

I'm trying to determine the lesson here. I obviously should have given up on the knots sooner. I allowed myself to get completely stuck on one idea when I should have rethought the basic premise. I ended up in a battle with the elements. I should have acknowledged their power and adapted sooner. Next time, if there is one. 

Valentine Count Up-John Greenleaf Whittier

Whittier speaks of the heart in a line from his poem, The First Flowers.

They break the spell of cold and darkness,
The weary watch of sleepless pain;
And from my heart, as from the river,
The ice of winter melts again.

Read the complete poem at Poem Hunter.

The quote was written on a strip of Tyvek and floats in the breeze on an apple tree at Maudslay State Park. It was part of my Whispered Fragments installation at Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay in 2008. I'll be part of Pecha Kucha Portsmouth 18 on Sunday, February 16 with a presentation (20 slides, 20 seconds to talk about each) on my work over the years at Maudslay at the Portsmouth Gaslight Company at 7 PM.

Rail Trail Rocks

Remember the pile of rocks I was encouraged to remove from the driveway? I brought them in, washed them, set them to dry on a towel, and pondered what to do with them. I have mixed feelings about all the rocks with inspirational words on them that are marketed about. Part of the problem is that some are tackily done. Beyond that I am often torn between whether they offer a bit of profound thought or an overly simplistic view of the world. Regardless, I want to put words on rocks. But then I have the continual dilemma for me—what to do with that pile of rocks with words?

On our recent trip to Paris, I was fascinated (in both good and bad ways) by the near ubiquitous graffiti and street art. I had an urge to put some thing out there myself. But what is a respectful New Englander and grown girl who wore white gloves to do? Certainly not anything that would damage or deface property. And so the sharing of the rocks on the Clipper City Rail Trail in Newburyport.

Yesterday morning I made two sets of rocks with the same words. Yesterday afternoon I went to the Rail Trail. I had no particular plan of where to put them but I knew I wanted them to easy to see. When I started to walk down the stairs at High Street to the trail, I knew I had found my place. They looked so at home on the granite on the sides of the stairs.

I put the second set on the stairs at Strong Street. They are not meant to be permanent so if you should find yourself there, please feel free to take one home.

Thoghtful Thursday-Sculpture at Maudslay

Before I left on our trip, I wrote my first As I See It column for The Daily News, our local paper in Newburyport. It shares my feelings about the exhibit which I have taken part in for seven years. What you don't get to see in the online article is the picture of me which was a pleasant surprise.

Read the column.

The top photo is from the Newburyport Current, photos by J.C. Lockwood. Mine is the top center.

A previous post about the instalation

Poetry Month-John Greenleaf Whittier

The Whittier Home Association in Amesbury, MA has published a free curriculum guide to the the poet. It comes in three parts: Overview and Teacher Resource Materials, Classroom Activities, and Map and Walking Tour. Here's what they have to say about it:

The Whittier Home Association is pleased to introduce Teaching Whittier, a FREE three-part resource designed to facilitate and promote a connection between schools, the local community and the Whittier House through engaging, historically relevant and fun educational programming. Presented as downloadable PDFs, the curriculum as a whole offers a variety of activities, lesson-plan supplements, and materials for use in a classroom setting and/or on a site visit.

Worksheets, ideas and projects can be used as building blocks to a field trip at the Whittier House or stand-alone as complimentary curriculum-based materials and information. All parts of the curriculum are meant to encourage active learning and further investigation into the life and times of John Greenleaf Whittier.

Curriculum Guide

My encounter with Whittier several years ago: Whispered Fragments, Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay, lines from Whittier's poems on trees at Maudslay State Park

Studio Sunday-

Breathe has returned from Maudslay and now hangs on a laurel outside the window where I can look over to it while I am at the computer. Although the banners twist and turn and the word is rarely legible, it is a reminder for me to take time to BREATHE.

Breathe-Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay 2012

The simplicity of this year's piece is in contrast to the long and twisted road to its creation. It was one of those situations when I was firmly planted in my own way. I am a believer in the importance in right intentions and perhaps that is where the twisted road began. This is my sixth time exhibiting in Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay. My first year was an ambitious piece which involved ink drawings with natural materials on handmade paper from Bhutan, ladders, and lots and lots of rain which led to technical difficulties. The next four were much more about the specifics of the place (quotes from John Greenleaf Whittier who spent much time at Maudslay and Martha Brookes Hutcheson who designed the formal garden) and the viewer's experience (Word Play with letters in a tree to find and spell out a Wordsworth quote and the community book installation Play at Maudslay). This year I decided that I wanted it to be more about me and what I do as an artist. Perhaps the hubris of that is what got in the way.

We send in our proposals in May and then have the summer to work on, and in some cases, change our plans. This year's theme is Inside Out. We are encouraged but not required to have our work relate. I started with the title Transcendental Choir and planned hanging scrolls which viewers would unroll to read quotes by the New England Transcendentalists (Thoreau, Emerson, Margaret Fuller, to name a few) on the inside. I viewed it as the beginning of a new set of work, but as the summer went on, I became less and less interested in figuring out the mechanics and construction of the scrolls and knew I needed a new plan.

As I pondered the idea of Inside Out, I thought of the breath and how it brings the outside in and lets the inside out. I thought I would make a "Breathing Station" with instructions to stand under my chosen tree and breathe, but then decided that that was too conceptual for me. Although I am going through a lot of conflict about the making of objects and the burden of what to do with them that follows, I still like make things out of tangible materials.

I had written a text about the breath and wanted to use the words. I still have a stack of waterproof tyvek sheets from earlier projects and a life-time supply of black liquid acrylic from the Hawthorne project so I knew what I would be using for the writing.

In late spring, I had taken a jewelry class with Lisa Scala in working with sea glass and stones and was interested in using some of the techniques. My vision at the start was strips of tyvek with wire-wrapped stones hanging from them.

After bringing several hanging strips to near completion, I could see that it just wasn't right. At first I thought it was the quality of the words that I had written. Admittedly they weren't good, but that wasn't the problem. After some puzzling, I realized that I was revisiting an issue that I thought I had resolved twenty years ago in an epiphany moment that I talk about in my Artist's Journey talk. A poet friend looked at an accordion book I had made from binders board. It had imagery on the front and text (me telling what it was about) on the back. She said, I can see so many things in this. And I said, Aha. When she left, I covered over the text on the back and realized that some things are better left unsaid. Yet here I was again telling the viewer what to think and canceling all the mystery and limiting the work.

Released from the burden of my text and still needing something for my tyvek strips, I made it simple—the word BREATHE with one letter on each strip. I wrote two sets of the letters and chose the best. I made a second set of strips for the back with abstract brush doodles. I had thought about sewing the two sides together but decided that it would be a simpler cleaner look without the stitching with the added benefit of being easier and quicker. I used imitation sinew to tie the tyvek to pieces of grape vine and wire to wrap the stones.

If the making was filled with twists and turns, the installation was a straightforward joy. I hadn't looked at the tree since I had chosen it in May and was delighted with the sloping branch overlooking the field. I'm sure that was why I had chosen it in the first place but I felt it was a sign that I had gotten it right. I finally was able to relax and breathe.

Lowell Women's Week-All Our Voices

Lowell Women's Week, a celebration of the women who have come before us to the women of today, has taken place at the beginning of every March (Women's History Month) since 1996. In 2000, the Public Art Committee and Project were created as a way for the “voices” of Lowell’s girls and women to be given positive public attention and regard while giving girls and women a creative opportunity.

I lived in the Lowell area from 1977 and 1985 and consider Lowell the place where my life as an artist began. While I was living in North Billerica —unemployed and directionless—a chance request from a high school friend reconnected me with my occasional interest in calligraphy and I fell in love. I eventually went on to do lots of commercial calligraphy work in the city and get involved in the art scene such as it was in those days. I was a founding member of Art Alive! The Greater Lowell Art Co-op which had a gallery on Merrimack Street courtesy of the National Park Service.

Anne Mulvey, one of the Public Art Committee members, has been a friend since the old Lowell days. We both now live in Newburyport. We often talked about Lowell Women's Week and this year Anne and Irene Egan of Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Lowell, Inc. (a new friend from my new Lowell days) decided we would design a project together and apply for a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council, which we did receive.

Of course my first choice was to make books. Last year's piece of hanging books at Maudslay Outdoor Sculpture was a great success and I wanted to use that as a model. We began our planning in September with a visit there.

Two things that came up in our early conversation was the fact that the public art exhibit was often located in places out of the mainstream and that it was not able to be viewed at the key event of Lowell Women's Week—the breakfast. I decided that we needed something portable and found a free-standing collapsible clothesline online. We chose the Pollard Memorial Library for its central location and public access as well as its connection with books. Sean Thibodeau, the Community Planning Librarian, was receptive and has been a great help throughout the process.

Here was my initial sketch with my sample books added:

This year's Lowell Women's Week theme was All Our Voices and we chose that for our title as well. Our suggested prompt for the books' content was "I am." We used recycled bags for the books, both brown paper from the grocery store and colored shopping bags from department and clothing stores. We provided materials and training and reached out to groups across the city.

I created a training video and written directions and we had a well-attended "Training the Trainers" session at the library.


While Anne and Irene kindly give me lots of credit for the success of it all, it was their tireless work of outreach to the community that made it happen. Without the books and the "voices," there would have been no project. They sent letters and emails, made phone calls and follow-up phone calls, led workshops themselves, and picked up books. Some of the groups who took part were:

Bridget’s Crossing, Brush Gallery & Artists’ Studios, Christ Church United Sunbeams, Lowell, Family Literacy Center, Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell, Girl Scout & Brownie Troops of Greater Lowell, Living Waters, Lowell General Hospital Art through Healing, Lowell Women’s Week Planning Committee, Middlesex Community College Multicultural Center, Morey School, RARA (Remarkable, Active, Resilient Adults), Tsongas Industrial History Center, UMass Lowell Department of Psychology, UMass Lowell Office of Disability Services, UMass Lowell Office of Student Activities, UMass Lowell Protestant Campus Ministry, and Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Lowell, Inc.

We gathered here along with Anne's partner Donna to assemble the installation last Saturday. We started by threading crochet cotton through the top of each book. This was used to tie the books to the pieces of ribbon that hung from the clothesline.

One of my lesser skills is estimating how much time things will take. A little math would have helped. Such as: If it takes 4 minutes to tie the string on each book and there are 250 books, how many minutes would that be? Answer (alas calculated now instead of then): 1,000 minutes, which when divided by 60 is 16.6 hours, which when divided by 4 people is a little over 4 hours. In a feeble defense, I will say that we didn't know we would be getting that many books (a pleasant surprise until the sky darkened as we worked) and I was kind of winging it as to the final assembly so I hesitated to expand the group beyond our little well-acquainted band.

After adding threads to all the books at the dining room table, we moved to the studio where the clothesline was set up. It had been modified after my husband and technical helper had looked at it and said, "It's too short." Our friend Ed Eaton fabricated a center piece to extend the height. It also added some needed weight to the assembled structure and made it more sturdy.

We laid the books on my worktable and tied them to ribbons which I then hung from the clothesline with binder clips. At its final assembly at the library, I also stapled the ribbon at the top for added strength.

I did the finishing touches on Sunday morning including the sign at the top and then took it apart for travel. We reassembled it at Lenzi's in Dracut where it was ready and waiting for the breakfasters the following morning. It was wonderful to see so many people viewing the books and actually taking time to read them.

Then it was time to take it apart and transport it to the Pollard Memorial Library. We installed it there in the first floor landing of the grand staircase.

Tuesday evening was the reception. We were thrilled that many of the book makers came, especially the large group of Brownies and Girl Scouts. I had a few moments of panic when several different girls looked up at me with sad eyes and said, "I can't find my book." But all were found and all was well. We chose not to hang the books by group because we wanted to visually vary the sizes, shapes, and colors of the books. I think it also made the viewing process more interesting.

If at any point in the process we became bogged down by details and the work involved, this entry in the guest book is a reminder of why we did it and the power of creativity and expression for all.

View photos of the process and some of the books on flickr.

All Our Voices continues until March 31 at the Pollard Memorial Library, 401 Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA. After it closes, the books will be bound together and archived in the Center for Lowell History.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Lowell Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.