Shared "Space"
Artists' Association of Nantucket turns the Nantucket New School into a gallery and a studio this month
By Marli Guzzetta Independent Arts Editor
When Artists' Association of Nantucket member Lucretia Chase suggested the theme of "Space" for the AAN's exhibition at the Nantucket New School, she was thinking specifically of the great, ephemeral and endless beyond, where stars twinkle. Space: the final frontier.

Clockwise from left: Joanna Kane's "Blues, Bernadette Brown's Studio Corner," Katie Trinkle Legge's "Pears" and David Lazarus' "Outer Space."

When NNS Board Member, AAN member and the exhibit's volunteer organizer, Bernadette Brown, invited other Nantucket artists to participate, they interpreted the theme differently. As they selected and completed their pieces for submission and prepared the talks they would give to New School students, almost all of them chose to work with the geometric interpretation of the word: "the unlimited or incalculably great three-dimensional realm or expanse in which all material objects are located and all events occur," according to Dictionary.com

Cognitive psychology shows that grade school is exactly when children begin to engage realisti- cally with the concept of space. According to Jean Piaget's stage theory of cognitive development, children between the ages of 7 to 11 acquire the cognitive ability of concrete operations - the ability to think logically about the factual and physical world, consisting of things like numbers, length, liquid, mass, weight, area and volume.

So what better way to make the whole of that experience accessible than to shrink it down to a blank canvas? And the artists involved with the project have arranged creative, age-appropriate ways to help the students get a grasp on the concept.

In her talk with the kids, abstract artist Joanna Kane will use as a reference "Harold and the Purple Crayon" - the children's book about a boy who begins in a blank space and draws the world around him using only a purple crayon. "I'm comparing myself to 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' in the sense that we both create our own space," said Kane, who is sharing her pieces "Blues" and "Cavern" in the exhibit. "I'm reinforcing what happens when you take the horizon away and take the ground away, and you have to get your bearings - like Harold, that's what I'm doing with line, shape and color."

Printmaker David Lazarus completed two woodcuts - "Inner Space" and "Outer Space" - for the show and will use them as examples of the positive and negative space created in printmaking. "I'm going to talk with them about how we all make prints - whether it's a footprint in the mud, or a dirty fingerprint on the refrigerator," Lazarus said.

Still life artist Katie Trinkle Legge thinks that much of her work is preoccupied with the space created through the overlap of objects. "So I'm going to show them how size and overlap and a little bit of atmosphere can create a feeling of space on a 2D surface," said Legge, who remembered the thrill of learning in grade school to draw with perspective. "Every Monday and Wednesday at 9 a.m., the nuns would turn the TV onto PBS and it would be someone like Bob Ross teaching about basic perspectives - how to make a cube, how to make a sphere look round. I was fascinated by making things 3D. I could immediately translate it to the rest of the world." Legge, who has submitted a "Pears" still life to the exhibit, will work with the students to create these kinds of 3D "aha" moments through a few "cartoony" drawings.

Christine Sanford paints in the pentimento style, one that uses a glazing technique and many layers of paint to create depth and perspective. "I will try to talk about creating an illusion of space through which you can look or travel through with the eye as opposed to imagining yourself in that space," said Sanford, who is showing the pieces "Gazing I" and "Gazing II" in the show. Though only five AAN artists are to speak with the students, over 25 have contributed works to the exhibit, which will hang in the New School's main gallery. Brown even went with John Brewer, Julie Gifford, Howard Fraker and Bobby Frazier to a storage location for the AAN's permanent collection, from which they selected works to be hung at the school.

"We wanted to cover our bases - from the abstract to the personal," said Brown. "Because we hope this exhibit frees the kids up to understand that they can paint any way they want. They're not limited to one form of expression. And also so they can see that marks on a page, even minimally, will create

space." I
When: Opening reception,
  Friday, March 30, 6 p.m.
  Wednesday morning speakers
  ( 9:45 a.m.); Katie Trinkle Legge
  (April 4), Joanna Kane (April 11),
  Christine Sanford (April 18),
  David Lazarus (April 25)
Where: Nantucket New School
For more information, please call
    288-8569
                  "SPACE"

Below: Joanna Kane's "Cavern.