BRATTLEBORO — In response to the ongoing climate crisis, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) recently created an artist residency program to support artists seeking time and resources to engage with the profound questions and challenges presented by climate change.
Over the past year, Elizabeth Billings, Evie Lovett, and Andrea Stix Wasserman, the museum's inaugural Climate Change Artists in Residence, have worked together and separately to create work that Lovett described as “a very deep dive” into the subject of climate change.
Billings, Lovett, and Wasserman will present their work in an exhibition titled “Where Are We?” at The Putney School's Currier Center from Nov. 4 through Dec. 19, with an opening reception on Saturday, Nov. 5, from 5 to 7 p.m.
“There is such support and intelligence in our being able to work collaboratively and independently,” Lovett said earlier this year in an interview for BMAC's blog, Art Loves Company. “There's not a set expectation, and yet we each feel we are working toward something that will be outwardly shared, in synchronicity.”
The trio of artists, known in the Brattleboro area for their “Ask the River” creative placemaking initiative, used the BMAC residency to deepen their individual practices and their relationships with the environment through writing, research, activism, and art making.
Billings' Tree Rubbing Project includes cyanotype bark rubbings that she describes as “holding an essence of tree.” Lovett's cyanotype work, which focuses on themes of loss and resilience, was inspired by the story of the American beech tree in Vermont and New England. Wasserman's “Disappearance” is a series of suspended silk panels that the artist says “expose the sentient vitality of trees and give a sense of our shifting and impermanent landscape.”
Lovett's body of work spans photography, digital media, storytelling, painting, teaching, public art, and community art-making. Her encaustic paintings often incorporate photographic imagery in their many layers. Wasserman creates public sculptural art installations and works in ink, cyanotype, and wood carving. Wasserman frequently collaborates with Billings on large-scale public art projects. Billings is an ikat weaver who studied weaving in Japan and Kenya and often incorporates natural materials into her textiles.
BMAC awards one Climate Change Artist Residency per year to an individual or group. The residency comes with a $6,000 stipend. The nature of the residency is flexible and is tailored to serve the needs of the selected artist(s), which may include temporary lodging, studio space, exhibitions, or other public-facing activities, and opportunities to connect with other artists, curators, scientists, educators, and activists tackling climate change.
BMAC will announce its 2023 Climate Change Artist in Residence on Saturday, Nov. 8.
On Thursday, Dec. 15, at 7 p.m., Billings, Lovett, and Wasserman will talk with BMAC Director of Exhibitions Sarah Freeman about the work they created during the residency. Register for this free online event at brattleboromuseum.org or 802-257-0124, ext. 101.