Freshet

After being frozen in for a few months, the thaw has begun:

Upcoming installations and Exhibitions Spring- Fall 2013

Poetry of the Wild/Avery Point ( designed and curated by Ana Flores)  April 1st Aug. 30th.                                     Eight poetry boxes installed on the University of Connecticut’s campus by the sea. Artist and poets featured are Julia Pavone, Mark Dixon, Susan Schultz, Randall Paterson, Diane Barcelo, Troy West, Ana Flores, David Madacsi, Pablo Neruda, Nancy Willard, Alex waid, Michael Bradford.

Ana Flores/ Earth History: Selected sculptures 1997-2013                                  April 19 June 2nd Alexey Van Schlippee Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut, Groton, CT Opening reception April 19th

Poetry of the Wild/ Mystic ( designed and curated by Ana Flores)  June 15th September 20th,  Poetry boxes throughout town and refuges in Mystic area. Final list of artists and poets TBA.

Ana Flores/ Map Muse, Memory Featured Speaker for Rhode Island Art League Annual Meeting, June 26th, 2013

!0th anniversary of Poetry of the Wild,September 25th Mystic Art Center,  Mystic, Ct. Poetry reading and auction of boxes from Connecticut projects and celebration of the project’s 10th anniversary.

 

Diving Up from the Deep

Recent News and Journal Entry, Oct. 6, 2012 Diving Up from the Deep

•A new solo show regarding Cuba, The Island Draws Me, opens at the Newport Art Museum, Nov 9- Jan 6. more info

•My Hale House / Matunuck residency and the goals for the 2012 season are now completed. A new brand for the historic house, gallery and programming were launched in June and was sucessful in diversifying and expanding the public visitation.  The gallery features artists working with environmental themes. Two exciting shows punctuated the season: Seeing the Sea/Selections from Visual Artist Sea Grant Recipients, and AIR/Works of Kathy Hodge from Artist Residencies in our National Park and Forests.  A catalog is available for Seeing the Sea from Hale House/Matunuck.

and some thoughts gleaned from observations in Nova Scotia, Diving Up from the Deep.

I never tire of watching my summer neighbors. From our porch I observe their surface movements, hear their exhalations, know their feeding habits and can decipher their social patterns. I don’t think they see me if they do I don’t think they’d much care. These neighbors are cetaceans: pilot, sei, and minke whales who also travel long distances to summer in the same stretch of sea in Nova Scotia that I do. Our cabin on top of the hill- built with hand tools because getting electricity that far up was prohibitive– overlooks what the locals call the “ Mackerel hole” on the Northumberland Strait. To the Northwest Prince Edward Island barely breaks the horizon and to the East Cape Breton Island Highlands frame out view. When we first began to summer here these waters were busy with local fishermen trawling for Hake. But two decades ago that all stopped because of depleted fish stocks and now it’s the whales and gannets we see most noticeably feeding here. 

In late August at the end of our stay we were out on the porch for what my husband likes to call “the evening show”.  As the melted orb of sun slides closer and closer to the cold hard line of the sea, the sky painting changes from second to second. No painter could match the subtleties and drama with colors that embrace the full spectrum and so much more. Evening wind and tide patterns ripple across the steely blue water and the dorsal fins of whales stitch across the textured mantle. I imagine the whales swallowing half the ocean in order to sieve their dinner. 

Suddenly there was a great explosion, a splintering of air and sea as a minke whale propelled its massive body and extraordinary tonnage totally out of the water, diving up from the deep sea. The finned gymnast repeated this herculean acrobatics four times as we watched spellbound. Then it disappeared into its underwater realm and our show ended when the sun was swallowed by the sea for yet another day. Having whale exhalations as a part of my daily soundscape during the summer has always felt like a divine gift now I have this act of exuberance, of remarkable gymnastics to ponder. During the long ride home back to the States and as antidote to the drone of the 2012 campaign news dominating the radio I found myself relishing the wonder and mystery of Minke whale’s pirouette, sensing there was a deeper message there. 

I did my reading on Minkes and discovered they are the most lithe and “acrobatic” of the baleen whales. Whales brains are also extremely large for body ratio and we keep doing experiments to probe whether these massive ancients creatures that moved from land back to sea could possibly be smarter than us. One researcher I read says its impossible considering they haven’t produced works of art. And why couldn’t their breaching be considered a form of dance I ask? It is our own limited brain capacity that reduces their choreagraphy to the scientist suggestions that breaching is used to get rid of pests, or to stun prey– possibly play.  Until we can talk whale we will never know. But in the meantime I continue to hold the Minkes’ graceful ability to defy gravity as an inspiration and metaphor. To breathe or to breach–to dive solo into deep waters and resurface with great energy and in doing so reach new heights– that is the question.

 

The wilderness areas of the imagination

On June 17th I flew to England bound for Devon. My large luggage was packed tightly with three small poetry boxes. I’d been invited to do a mini Poetry of the Wild installation and workshop at The Home and the World, a conference sponsored by Aune Head Arts. Their center is located on the grounds of Dartington, a 1200 acre estate overlooking  the river Dart bought in the 1920s by visionaries Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst as the base for an experiment in rural regeneration. Today Dartington remains true to the ethos of the Elmhirsts, on its grounds are housed charitable organizationss focusing on the arts, social justice and sustainability.

I was thrilled to be bringing the project to England, England being the mother of so many great poets, and then of course I imagined I would find walking paths to install my boxes along. On the latter I proved wrong.The conference organizers had to curtail the installation to an area of about 50 meters because the estate gardeners were very particular about what could be installed. We were dealing with private land. For the installation of this project in the United states I had always been granted permission to install in public spaces and along trails.  This encounter with the differing concepts of private and public land made me very aware of my New World consciousness.  As an American  I’ve taken for granted public land trusts, national parks, and publically managed lands that form a tapestry of protected wilderness across the United States. My idea of wild is intricately linked with those public lands where I am free to roam and explore.

In revising the installation plan I was reminded of one of the prime reason English colonists left the island.  It was the privitization of land, and the enclosures of the commons in the eighteenth century that created a population of rural homeless. Without open lands to graze your livestock or gather wood in the winter there was no chance of survival.  The evicted peoples took off for the cities, becoming the first great surge of industrial workers– and the colonies. There are 60 million acres of land in Britain to share out among today’s 62 million inhabitants. 1% of the population (159,000 families) owns 71% of the land.  One of my heroes, John Muir, one of the great American early conservationists, was a Scottish immigrant to the United States who would have known the pain of land and wilderness loss and its consequences intimately.

As I looked around Dartington where the natural world had been tamed by many centuries of human habitation, the magnificent gardens lovingly tended, and every blade of grass seemed clipped with scissors, I realized the wild commons survived here in a metaphoric way. As I headed off for a full and exciting day of conference events featuring artists working with communities in war torn areas, or working collaboratively with insects and bacteria to create photographs I was reminded of the quote by Claude Levi Strauss,” The arts are our wild edge- The wilderness areas of the imagination surviving like the national parks in civilized minds”. For almost a century Dartington  has provided an open platform for artists to work, perform, and be nurtured. Artists can be like the wilderness that regenerates us and connects us back to the cosmos.

Levi-Stauss’ quote brought intellectual comfort, but I know artists cannot be a replacement for wilderness. What was enough was what I had learned in the translation of the project on other shores, the perspective of looking back on America and the history that has shaped our land policies. It was also a good thing that the poetry boxes were installed within a short distance of the conference center because it was a very English week-wet- and not at all conducive to rambling.

Poetic geography

Lately I’ve been thinking about outdoor sites to plant poetry- poetry boxes that is. I’m in the midst of a public art project in New London, Connecticut  called Poetry of the Wild (POW)  which features poetry boxes. The boxes are made and decorated by different community members: artists, poets, citizens , students, and me, then installed throughout the city.  Last week I stopped in at the public library. They are one of our partners and we needed to discuss details in preparation for our  April installation date.  I met with Suzanne Maryeski, the director, and her reference librarian, Tara Samul, and we spoke of possible sites at the library. I was thinking outside in the green spaces by the entrances, Tara had another idea. “Why not use 811 the dewey decimal address for English poetry? We can have a box right there in the shelf’.” In my momentary speechlessness Suzanne added, “How do you like that for site- specific?”  Its brilliant I said delighted by their suggestions. This was the kind of magic moment that I love when I do collaborative public art  projects.  The whole process of creation becomes important and illuminating, not just the finished product.

Then Tara and I went to find the 811 neighborhood, get measurements of the shelf, and see what poets resided there. On the first shelf, Hart Crane, E.E. Cummings and Robert Frost chummed together. The rare women, Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath held  their own with a good number of books to their name creating a garden border around them.  Walt Whitman was neighbor to Robert Penn Warren and I thought the two would have enjoyed each other. Certainly they would have shared their great interest in the the Civil War . Whitman, a Northerner nursed soldiers-including his brother– during the war and later worked with Veterans. Warren’s delight in storytelling began sitting under the shade of old tree listening to his maternal father’s war stories as a confederate soldier.  I thought installing a poetry box with a public journal would only add to the  river of thought already flowing here.

My earlier POW projects have been focused on getting poetry out into outdoor public spaces. The boxes and their participatory component encourages people to walk and explore their communities, to see their places anew through the eyes of poets, and to reflect.  Now New London-as each new community does– has added several new elements. The perfect site inside the library has opened up new possibilities for poetic geography.  I left our meeting dreaming.  Why not position one between the artichokes and asparagus at the grocery store with an ode to the rare pale endive, or between the locks and keys at a hardware store with a poem about the family secrets? The possibilities are endless. Imagine where you could place a poetry box with just the right poem. Then wait to see what poems you’ll catch.

Stay tuned for the progress on Poetry of the Wild/ New London,more on the artists,poets, students and citizens involved, and where to find them after they’re  installed in mid April.

The current installation of POW began last year during the Mystic Art Center’s Outdoor Sculpture exhibit and is a collaboration of the Mystic Arts Center, The Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art at UConn Avery Point and Expressiones Cultural Center in New London.  Mitchell College and the New London Public Library are additional partners in New London. Partial funding is provided by a  Strategic Initiative Grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Cuba Journal 2012: Varadero

Varadero is a long sandy hook extending out from the city of Matanzas on the northern shore of Cuba. It’s been known as a famous beach resort for decades and it’s the only Cuba many tourists ever see. A place where sheets get changed, buses run on time, hot water and rum flow 24-7, and of course the Cubans sing and smile.  The Taino history that was here before the Spanish arrived with their horses, guns, and bible, has been swallowed by the sea. The conquistadors’ made Varadero one of the first salt mines in the New World and it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that Cubans thought about using the peninsula for vacationing- a concept borrowed from America. My father’s family from Cardenas, a smaller town past Matanzas, were part of the first wave of Cubans to build vacation homes here.

This January marked fifty years since my last visit to Varadero. The months before we left the island for the United States my parents splurged on numerous holiday weekends. They were spending down their savings since we would only be allowed 100 dollars and one suitcase to take with us. What was once the only 5 star, modern hotel where we stayed, the Varadero International, is still standing well preserved. It’s now shoulder to shoulder with new neighbors. Many of the newer hotels have been built by Spanish companies. In the older section of the town are remnants of the wooden homes with ornate porches I saw in the few sepia colored photographs that came out with us. Those architectural fragments are hidden like  jigsaw pieces behind endless craft shops selling T-shirts of Che, coconut art and painting of 1950’s chevrolets.

The travel agent in our hotels sincerely smiles when he hears I’m not Canadian but a Cuban living in the states. He tells me he’s hoping to see his cousin again who left only a few years ago. By sea I ask? Yes, but he went through Mexico- now smugglers come from Merida and pick up their passengers- then you must pass the Mexico- US border. 10,000 dollars he adds- who has that? As if even he is dreaming, he who has been trained to look so happy in this happy resort. His days start at  5 am to travel 3 1/2 hours daily to get here. As we talk I look at the wall of  glass windows behind him and watch a small finch that has gotten trapped indoors. There are several of them in the hotel, they feed off empty tables in the restaurant with the endless buffet. The waiters take no notice.

Two days here is enough I think as I take my last two mile stroll to the Varadero International. The beach has not changed in fifty years. The sea continues to gnaw away at the the island, and always there will be only sea and salt. The hot aquamarine color of the water contrasts with the cool cobalt of the sky. One day its mood is tranquil the next tempestuous. Walking to the hotel each day has felt like visiting a grave.  The spirits of my parents–who are now both gone– are not in the building, they are in the sea that runs free.

This will be my only post re: Cuba, the writing is demanding more time and another format

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Crocodiles know no boundaries.

Lately I’ve been watching videos of the Cuban crocodile, my island’s mascot. “Known for their leaping ability and aggressive disposition, this large lizard can propel itself straight up like an expert vault jumper and snap up unsuspecting arboreal mammals or even a fly. The reason my attention has turned to the Cuban crocodile is my upcoming trip to Cuba in January and my plans to visit  several nature refuges. One of our destinations will be the Zapata Biosphere Reserve, the most extensive remnant of coastal Caribbean biodiversity left. It’s most noted wildlife resident is- guess who?

The Zapata swamp located on the central southern coast is better known as the site of the Bay of Pigs invasion. A decade ago, I bicycled quickly  through the swamp en route to the modest cinderblock museum documenting the American military fiasco of 1961. On the front lawn is a tiny Cuban plane looking no bigger than a mosquito reminding visitors of the weapon that broke the American behemoth. Inside are large charts, maps and photos illustrating the choreography of the events that took place from April 17th to the 19th. The American CIA had plotted to overthrow Castro since his guerillas pushed Batista out in 1959. But the island they had stared at in the form of a sleeping crocodile surprised them and leaped up. I was only 6 years old, but I remember the bombing raids that took place near Havana.  Shortly after that my family left the island for good.

In Zapata, many revolutions have come and gone without the wild denizens getting involved in politics. From my reading I’ve learned that the Cuban crocodile is getting along too well with the American crocodile. They are interbreeding and creating a hybrid species. Scientists are concerned, but preventing crocodile love might be as difficult as ending the embargo. During this trip we will be guided through the reserve by an expert birder who goes by the nickname of El Chino de Zapata- the chinaman of Zapata. I’m sure El Chino will provide fascinating insight into the complex ecology of this area.

I look forward to exploring many things on this trip both in in the wild and in cities. Sharing the journey with me will be my  two college age children. This will be their first trip to the island. They are Cuban American hybrids and we only celebrate it.

To learn more about the Cuba trip and the subsequent project, The Island Draws Me,  sign up for my periodic blog postings. The Island Draws me will be part of the cultural narrative and sculptural installation that began with Cuba Journal. The new project will be premiered at the Newport Art Museum in November of 2012.

What the Bear Knows and Other Things

Recent News and Journal entries , September 7th 2011 -

• Women Embodied/ Cuban Women’s Art from Diaspora at Sangre de Cristo Art Center, Pueblo, CO. ends Oct. 15th, panel Oct.2nd read more

• RI Council on the Humanities funds A Natural History Continuum at the Hale House, Matunuck, Ri. Ana Flores to serve as scholar/artist in residence  read more 

• Poetry of the Wild boxes installed in Mystic at the Mystic Arts Center read more 

• Ana Flores featured speaker and visiting artist for Goddard College, MFA Multi disciplinary studies, Port Townsend,  WA read more 

 and the last journal page from Nova Scotia, Aug.22/2011:

What the Bear Knows

It’s the end of August and I’m searching for gooseberries the color of red wine. For a few hours I have uni focus like a bear might have as I forage in the fragmented light and shadow of the underbrush. Hoping not to meet my competitor I trample clumsily over dead branches making enough noise to scare away all wild neighbors on this mountain bigger than me including the mountain lion whose scat I’ve recently detected. When I do glance up from my work I see a sea of broken diamonds and charade of clouds on the horizon. The fluid form and light imprint my soul more profoundly than any snapshot. 

I’ve learned a few simple truths while foraging: gooseberries hide better than raspberries. They suspend down below a row of leaves and disappear into shadow. Once found a few good gooseberry bushes will reward you with a quick harvest. Raspberries, on the other hand,  hang like rare jewels on display and proclaim, “I’m here”. They demand you chase them across long distances to collect enough for one paltry jar. I’ve pursued both this summer and I’m pleased to have several bottles brimming with the essence of this mountian, sealed and waxed . These will be packed into the car tomorrow along with clothes, books, and my beach treaures for my long road trip from Nova Scotia to Rhode Island. During the winter months back in Rhode Island when I run rather than walk, hustle rather than forage, I’ll slather this liquid poetry on toast and savor the knowledge that the bear and mountain lion walk with and we try to forget. 

Unintentional philanthropy

The concert that emerges from our woods at dusk as warm weather arrives can be deafening. First the insects tune up, then enter the amphibians. The call and response of  the Eastern Grey tree frogs makes our corner of the
Rhode Island woods sounds like the Amazon. A steady soprano counterpoint is added to this jungle din by the tiny shy peeper frogs hidden high in trees. Then American bull frogs, their all seeing eyes emerging like periscopes at the edge of the pond, let out staggered belches reminding us of of their important role as chaperones. Songbirds freshly arrived from Latin America and the Caribbean energetically play wood winds. And last but not least the mammals add operatic flourish with the unexpected howls of coyotes or the mating shreeks of fisher cats.

My husband Gabriel created the perfect stage for this wild concert- unintentionally.  He’s a metal smith and since his studio is not plumbed he planned ahead for possible fire emergencies by excavating a hole just big enough for a small fire pond next to his shop. By the first spring we noticed the heightened soundscape. Frogs had discovered the pond and by scanning the numerous floating egg masses we knew that their chorus would grow exponentially each year. More frogs meant more food for a number of other species. A new neighborhood store and concert hall had emerged without grand efforts. It’s now been a decade and we continue to be humbled by how much good this little pond contributes to our ecosystem.

Our little pond provides a good analogy to the Poetry of the Wild project that I began in 2003. The project began while I was Artist in Residence for the Wood Pawcatuck Watershed Association. As I explored  the watershed trails I was distressed by the thoughtless littering I saw and I kept thinking “how do I turn these slobs into poets”? My simple goal became encouraging thoughtfulness in the presence of nature. Eventually I arrived at the idea of “poetry boxes”, inspired by the bird houses that I was also seeing during my walks. I decided the boxes  could be made by diverse community members and inside them would be poems about the natural world. A journal left in each one would encourage public response.

When the first dozen boxes were installed what happened was similar to the creation of our little pond. People began to seek them out, to walk more and explore their own landscapes. Both the volunteers working on the project and I were amazed by  the volume of response and the often poignant and poetic comments in the journals. What had been missing in the landscape was a place for the human thought to coalesce like creatures around a waterhole. Without grand effort or fancy materials, the poetry boxes provided a temporary oasis, a repository for reflection in a public space.

On June 21st the fourth Poetry of the Wild project opened in Mystic Ct. at the Mystic Art Center with two boxes I’d  made to launch it. One features the poem, “Blue Blanket” by Sue Ellen Thompson,  the other box has Pablo Neruda’s poem,” Nace”. This project, the first in Connecticut, will unfold over two years and will include many more sites and participants in Mystic, New London and at the UConn Avery Point campus. This Connecticut series will also include some bi-lingual boxes in Spanish and English. I’ll keep you posted on where and when more boxes get installed. You can also check at Mystic’s Art Center Poetry of the Wild site and follow the public responses. I hope you’ll get out and find them and contribute to the dialogue.

energy these little boxes attract.

A new season unfurls

I am lucky to have woods around me in southern Rhode Island where I can savour the gradual progression of each season. In late March the charm of mud season gave way to the orgy of frogs producing their future. Hundreds of American bull frogs emerged from their winter coma to wrestle, boast and mate across the surface of our still icy pond. After a few riotous days they disappeared to contemplate the consequence of their actions leaving behind swarms of eggs in the section of our pond that recieves the most sun and heat. Now the ferns are unfurling. Their dance and slow release of form embodies the energy building for the summer season. I feel the projects I’m working on seem to be working up to that same unfurling but I lack the seemingly effortless grace of the ferns.

After an initial splash of energy to begin the work and then endless hours of fussy work I am ready to install a show of sculptures and paintings based on the deep relationship that I have with my adopted land in Rhode Island. The show entitled “The Spirit of the Land” also features the work of landscape painter, Cynthia Whalen Nelson at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston, RI. The show opens May 20th with a reception from 6:30- 8 Pm and continues through June 12th. An Artist talk is scheduled for June 4th, 6:30 pm.

This month also marks the launch of the book Cuban Artists in Diaspora written by Andrea Herrera OReilly in which I am included. The geography and mythology of Cuba have profoundly imprinted on my inner pscyche as it has on many artists. Herrera OReilly excavates and explores this profound power of the island on its artists even as they practice far away from their homeland. Numerous of my sculptures have been shipped to the Sangro de Cristo Center for the Artsin Pueblo for several shows featuring the artists in the book. The shows are up until October, for more news on the many events surrounding this visit Cuba Transnational.

At the end of the month on May 25th I will be going down to Newport RI to the Jane Pickens Theatre to see the premiere of This I believe Revealed project, a film based on the remarkable portrait photographs made by Scott Indemaur of writers featured in the Rhode Island National Public Radio series: This I Believe. When I wrote  my essay, I Believe in Art Saints last October  which was featured on NPR I had no idea that it would lead to Indemaurs project of photographs and book. His portraiture is unigue, he has reinterpreted Carravagio in the 21st century with a spiritual and very personal twist. Take a look at his work at http://www.siphotography.com/slideshow/revealed/

Workshops, Lectures, and Exhibitions, Spring 2011

Welcome! Just in time for a new season here is a new blog and new web site to keep you up to date on upcoming workshops, lectures, conferences, exhibitions and interesting ideas.

March 9 Ana Flores/ Gaia’s Garden or how I became an ecological artist

John Nicholas Brown Center Public Humanities Programs Spring 2011 Providence, RI

Brown Bag Lunch and presentation, seminar room. 12:00

March 26 Land and Water Summit at the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI  Register now.

Drawing the Art out of Earth/ Creative Partnerships between Artists and Environmentalists

Ana Flores – Ecological artist and principal of Earth Inform Studio

Eugenia Marks – Audubon Society of Rhode Island

Alicia Lehrer – Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council

How can the language of art and the perspective of artists be useful in interpreting the lands we conserve and attracting new audiences? This hands on workshop begins with lessons in the art of drawing and an introduction to the environmental art movement and artists. The second part of the workshop will feature a panel discussion with representatives from local environmental groups who’ve collaborated successfully with environmental artists. Local and national projects combining art and ecology will be presented as models and inspiration for future partnerships, as well as necessary guidelines for choosing artists and seeking funding.

April 7-10,  Transcultural Exchange Conference, Boston, Register now
Panelist for Space: Environment as Inspiration
Boston Omni Parker Hotel
2:15  – 4:00 pm