L.I. Sound Aquarium is a triptych with stationary hinges of the Long Island Sound as seen from the Connecticut shoreline near Madison and Faulkner’s Island. A well worn oyster shell and reef rock add authenticity to the piece, a waxing moon overhead.
Rose is part of a series of assemblages featuring deaccessioned photographs from the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick which closed in 2011 due to lack of funding by the “Garden State.” The black-and-white photographs documented the rise of industrial agriculture in the early 20th century, including crop experiments, the introduction of motorized farm equipment, and the impact of automation, pesticides and fertilizers.
I used a small part of the black-and-white inventory to reflect on my response to the seemingly innocent images from the perspective of a 21st century artist and librarian well acquainted with the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture.
By embellishing the prints by painting their surfaces and adding dimensionality to restore the sensuality of the subject, releasing it from its association with the exploitation of what is now known as agribusiness. The final works are mounted using Graflex Film Holders which were also sourced from the museum. Wendell Berry's quote guided me through the project: “If we corrupt agriculture we corrupt culture, for in nature and within certain invariable social necessities we are one body, and what afflicts the hand will afflict the brain.”
Needle Mountain pays homage to Joseph Cornell’s 1948 Untitled (Beehive, Thimble Forest). Radujko lived near Stony Creek, Connecticut's Thimble Islands and found the connection to thimbles regenerative.
In 2019, my research about the pomegranate “as symbol” disrupted the relative equanimity of the very season with which it is associated–spring. In cracking a pomegranate open, abundance, rebirth, fertility, and beauty–(April itself!) was literally, on my hands. As symbol, however, the pomegranate grew darker with each journal article, poem, and book review I read.
Had I, too, looked at the moon and seen red as Peter Balakian writes in Pomegranate where “sometimes she looked up at the moon and saw you,” meaning a pomegranate? Had I subjected others to my cacophonies, prompting them to move away from me as Kahlil Gilbran writes in The Pomegranate? In that poem, a man abandons his home located in the heart of a pomegranate, as the critical voices of the seeds forced him to find refuge into the heart of a quince, “where the seeds are few and almost silent.
And what of the labyrinth interiors described in Oscar Wilde’s The House of Pomegranates?
I have since returned to John Poch’s poem, Pomegranate Queen, which reminded me that “color is crucial,” my cue to get back to work.
Antequera references a hand-colored, 1575 map of Antequera, Málaga, Spain, by mapmaker Braun & Hogenberg in Cologne. It features the Sierra de los Torcales with its plentiful salt springs and the fertile countryside. In the foreground, two peasants bookend an enormous earthenware jug, a symbol of the region’s flourishing agriculture, crafts and trade. My interest in agrarianism prompted a recollection of a Daniel Webster quote that "when tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.”
Telling the Bees depicts the important communications between farmers and their bees, considered the most discussed creatures on earth. In 19th century America, the practice known as "telling the bees" involved sharing stories with bees in their hives, speaking to them as though they were family members. The rationale was the bees wouldn't swarm if they felt part of the community.
Strawberries is part of a series of assemblages featuring deaccessioned photographs from the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick which closed in 2011 due to lack of funding by the “Garden State.” The black-and-white photographs documented the rise of industrial agriculture in the early 20th century, including crop experiments, the introduction of motorized farm equipment, and the impact of automation, pesticides and fertilizers.
I used a small part of the black-and-white inventory to reflect on my response to the seemingly innocent images from the perspective of a 21st century artist and librarian well acquainted with the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture.
By embellishing the prints by sewing and painting their surfaces, I restored the sensuality of the subject, releasing it from its association with the exploitation of what is now known as agribusiness. The final works are mounted using Graflex Film Holders which were also sourced from the museum. Wendell Berry's quote guided me through the project: “If we corrupt agriculture we corrupt culture, for in nature and within certain invariable social necessities we are one body, and what afflicts the hand will afflict the brain.”
The Fruits of Fairchild is a response to Daniel Stone’s book The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats. Americans are well familiar with the fruits selected for this piece which include, from the top: dates from Iraq, peaches from China, papaya from Ceylon, avocado from Chile, pomegranate from Malta, citron from Corsica, and lastly, Fairchild’s favorite fruit, the Mangosteen from Indonesia, in the center.
Fair is part of a series of assemblages featuring deaccessioned photographs from the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick which closed in 2011 due to lack of funding by the “Garden State.” The black-and-white photographs documented the rise of industrial agriculture in the early 20th century, including crop experiments, the introduction of motorized farm equipment, and the impact of automation, pesticides and fertilizers.
I used a small part of the black-and-white inventory to reflect on my response to the seemingly innocent images from the perspective of a 21st century artist and librarian well acquainted with the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture.
By embellishing the prints by sewing and painting their surfaces, I restored the sensuality of the subject, releasing it from its association with the exploitation of what is now known as agribusiness. The final works are mounted using Graflex Film Holders which were also sourced from the museum. Wendell Berry's quote guided me through the project: “If we corrupt agriculture we corrupt culture, for in nature and within certain invariable social necessities we are one body, and what afflicts the hand will afflict the brain.”
Baskets is part of a series of assemblages featuring deaccessioned photographs from the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick which closed in 2011 due to lack of funding by the “Garden State.” The black-and-white photographs documented the rise of industrial agriculture in the early 20th century, including crop experiments, the introduction of motorized farm equipment, and the impact of automation, pesticides and fertilizers.
I used a small part of the black-and-white inventory to reflect on my response to the seemingly innocent images from the perspective of a 21st century artist and librarian well acquainted with the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture.
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By embellishing the prints by sewing and painting their surfaces, I restored the sensuality of the subject, releasing it from its association with the exploitation of what is now known as agribusiness. The final works are mounted using Graflex Film Holders which were also sourced from the museum. Wendell Berry's quote guided me through the project: “If we corrupt agriculture we corrupt culture, for in nature and within certain invariable social necessities we are one body, and what afflicts the hand will afflict the brain.”
It Will Happen to Me as to Them features the names of artist recommendations written by Pablo Picasso for Walt Kuhn, the key organizer of the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. Picasso lists a sole woman, Marie Laurencin, whose image is highlighted separately from the names of other artists which appear on the steps--a nod to Marcel Duchamp's scandalous Nude Descending Staircase. Kuhn added the name of painter Georges Braque (1882-1963) to the original hand-written list.
Carnation is part of a series of assemblages featuring deaccessioned photographs from the New Jersey Museum of Agriculture in New Brunswick which closed in 2011 due to lack of funding by the “Garden State.” The black-and-white photographs documented the rise of industrial agriculture in the early 20th century, including crop experiments, the introduction of motorized farm equipment, and the impact of automation, pesticides and fertilizers.
I used a small part of the black-and-white inventory to reflect on my response to the seemingly innocent images from the perspective of a 21st century artist and librarian well acquainted with the deleterious effects of industrial agriculture.
By embellishing the prints by sewing and painting their surfaces, I restored the sensuality of the subject, releasing it from its association with the exploitation of what is now known as agribusiness. The final works are mounted using Graflex Film Holders which were also sourced from the museum. Wendell Berry's quote guided me through the project: “If we corrupt agriculture we corrupt culture, for in nature and within certain invariable social necessities we are one body, and what afflicts the hand will afflict the brain.”
Dornburg refers to the “down-to-earth” (Walther Scheidig) pottery workshop on the Saale River in Germany where the first Bauhaus designs for industry were made. Its design was characteristic of the work of the German master potter Otto Lindig whose lidded beer jugs and pitchers, cocoa pots, and storage jars were as elegant and balanced as porcelain. The background image is a black-and-white photograph of bamboo and its unearthed roots, taken in early 20th century, which serves as a literal interpretation of “down-to-earth” which described the pottery workshop where the artist worked.
Intuiting the Feminine explores our fascination with the peep-show using the iconography of the stain glass window associated with sacred spaces. The narrative hidden the glass portal explores eroticism discovered in an unexpected setting.
Rock, captures the ethos of forest bathing, an immersive practice where one enters the forest to experience it with the senses, without an objective such as hiking or identification of flora or fauna.
A Perch to Rest Our Dreams On suggests the liberation of a caged bird into nature, paying homage to Alexander Calder's whimsical use of wire and Joseph Cornell's steady use of birds in his practice.