An Invitation

I'm writing to tell you about three installations I have up simultaneously at the Danforth Museum, the Boston Public Library and the Concord Art Association. These are among my first works of this kind of installation and combine painting, sculpture, technology (for transferring maps), and natural elements. This work represents a departure from my earlier work, which focused on looking at specific places, by adding more global views that locate the specific place in a broader context.

I would like to invite you to join me at the Danforth Museum (123 Union Avenue, Framingham, MA, www.danforthmuseum.org) on Saturday, October 27 from 12 PM to 4 PM and will talk briefly at 3 PM about a piece called Fragile Navigations that occupies a couple of wall of the Museum.

In Fragile Negotiations, tectonic clusters of plaster-like forms are interlaced with root structures, connected to a sense of specific place by the branching carriers of Earth's nutrients, just as we are connected to the places that are meaningful to us by deep veins of history, heritage, experience and inspiration. These clusters move from a close-up view with specific sense of place, much like an early landscape, to maps done in a birds-eye view of the Boston area (taken from 15th to 19th century maps) to more global views to constellations of star-like compass roses. This show will be up until November 4th.

The second piece is called Terra Flow. It has been purchased for permanent exhibition by the Boston Public Library (700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA,‎ www.bpl.org) and is currently in the Johnson Lobby. It is a large piece on a 40 foot wall that combines early maps of Boston from the BPL's extensive map collection, painting, and tree roots from the Arnold Arboretum and Concord. It emphasizes the links between natural networks such as rivers and tree roots with manmade structures like roads and digital networks.

A smaller piece in the same vein called Harbour Maps at the Concord Art Association (37 Lexington Road, Concord, MA, www.concordart.org) as part of the Roddy Competition, a show recently juried show Jen Mergel. This show will come down on October 14th.

I look forward to seeing you at the Danforth and hope you get a chance to see the pieces in Boston and Concord as well.

- Ilana