After being shuttered for a year and a half, Fivesparks is reopening Sept. 12 with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. to launch its show “in•sight: Together, Apart.” The carefully chosen title captures the exhibit’s theme of reflections by four local artists on how their work was affected by the pandemic. Their selected pieces—photographs, paintings, and poetry—tell stories of evolution in their perspective, subject matter, medium, or style over the past months when life was changed for all of us.
Photos of Harvard together, alone
During the spring of 2020, Harvard resident Michelle Gendreau took photographs of Harvard families at home, keeping her distance and being at each house and gone in no more than five minutes. She was part of the nationwide Front Steps Project, initiated to spotlight faces in one’s community at a time when we all had to keep our distance from others. Having 94 pictures, almost all of them, hung gallery style for this exhibit is exactly what she had hoped for back when the photos were only on her website, because they “really need to be seen as a whole,” she had said.
Gendreau had reservations about undertaking the project because it was way out of her comfort zone. She is not a family photographer, and she sees herself as a bit of an introvert. Furthermore, taking photos for the Front Steps Project would deter from her plan “to redirect” her work “toward fine art and the conceptual, exploring space, time, place, and memories.”
But she put her own creative plans on hold. Despite her reservations, she realized she had the right gear with a distance lens, and the idea that it would be a documentary appealed to her as closer to her past photographic work. She saw the project as not about individuals but as a record “of this moment in time in this place with these people.” In her own work she prefers black and white film, but color was more suitable for these quick, in-the-moment takes. Gendreau worked with digital cameras and used post-processing software once she pulled the images onto her computer.
When someone contacted her, she set up a day and time to go to their home. Since she allotted only five minutes per family, she tried to get a sense of the subjects through a brief—and distant—conversation. She took note of any trait or mannerism that came out in the exchange, and she reflected that in the photograph. She wanted to “capture a genuine moment, whatever that might be” of Harvard together, apart.
A photo book is available at the exhibit with a Fivesparks donation.
Joe Faria’s “Amazon Starry Night.”
Faria's paper version of one of Van Gogh’s many self-portraits. (Courtesy photos)
Art, courtesy of Amazon
Joe Faria of Harvard has been making art since he was a kid in East Cambridge, dumpster-diving with his friends in the Carter Ink factory trash and getting paper from a printing press company next to it. “How could I not draw? … That was the start of my painting career,” he said in a phone conversation. He also made carvings and models from large cardboard boxes discarded by a Lechmere store nearby. As an apprentice woodworker after high school, he made wooden patterns and molds for foundries to use in metal casting. Faria’s experiences with these different media came into play during the pandemic, in new and imaginative ways.
During the isolation, Faria was part of a Facebook group of people around his age who had grown up in East Cambridge but who had not necessarily known each other then. Faria had been studying a lot of Edward Hopper’s work, urban scenes that are somewhat depressing, but kind of “fit with the times.” One day he posted a painting of a scene influenced by Hopper’s “Early Sunday Morning” that reminded him of a building he’d known as a kid. “Post more!” was the response from the group. He began to post a painting a week, and the group looked forward to each one. Some in the group were seriously depressed, and Faria said it felt great to paint places and buildings they remembered from growing up that gave them a lift, like a bench by the Charles River where a kid could get away from people.
“I get bored quickly,” admitted Faria, and sometimes that can be a great inspiration. He was poking around in the basement one day and he spotted a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes from Amazon deliveries. He was struck by the honeycomb pattern made by the ends of the corrugated paper. He cut and glued together strips of the cardboard, which looked almost like wood, and the end-grain of the cardboard created a shadow. He kept playing around, experimenting with modeling colored paper into 3D shapes. Van Gogh has always been Faria’s favorite artist, and subconsciously he may have been thinking of the artist when he was experimenting, he said. Eighty hours later, he had made “Amazon Starry Night.” It is an amazing work made all the more incredible by its being cardboard. (Faria said a picture of it got posted on the site of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and received 11,000 likes in two days.) He went on to make about 14 more cardboard creations, among them a Van Gogh self portrait and “Cafe During Pandemic,” inspired by Van Gogh’s “Cafe Terrace at Night,” but Faria’s is empty of people, reflecting the restaurant crisis during the days of shutdown.
“I like to have fun with my art,” said Faria, and he is happy when he can make it mean something to other people, and when they can see the beauty, see a bright side—like a sky full of stars. Visitors to the exhibit will see several of Faria’s East Cambridge paintings and three of his cardboard creations.
Poetry for tsunamic changes
Longtime resident Didi Chadran was at a poetry and music performance at Old Frog Pond Farm three years ago when a woman he didn’t know approached him and asked, “Are you a poet?” The question caught Chadran off guard, but it was actually not so far afield. When he was a sixth-grader, Chadran enjoyed poetry and had announced that he wanted to be a poet. He majored in English at college and wrote poetry then, inspired by a published poet with whom he studied. But life intervened. That day the woman’s question lit a spark and gave Chadran the impetus to write again. He won an award and had three poems published in a chapbook from a “Southborough Art on the Trails” juried event. “It opened a new chapter for me,” said Chadran in a phone conversation.
During the pandemic Chadran learned the value and comfort of solitude. He looked for things that he could do alone that brought him joy, and he immersed himself in writing poetry. “It helped me find a new perspective, a balance.” Before, when he observed something awesome in nature, he had wanted someone else to perceive it with him. Now he found that poetry was a vehicle for validating his experiences. And technologies that flourished during the pandemic provided new ways to bring the arts to wider audiences. Chadran said he is excited about being in the world in this new way and to be able to share his poetry with people he doesn’t know.
In addition to the pandemic, Chadran recently went through other “tidal-wave events” in his life, and his poetry explores the human experience in crises. He posits the idea that we have a choice whether to react to momentous events with cynicism or hope. In his poem “Lurch,” he explores this idea of finding balance. When you’re “soaking” in “tsunamic change” you can “pour yourself a cup of rug pulled out from under you” and “step back” and “deep-breathe.” Be OK with uncertainty and “Take in the shape of new things.”
Chadran said he is interested in both the process of writing and how it is received. “It’s fun to play with words, to see what they evoke,” he said. People may take different ideas and feelings from a poem, and they may not be what the writer intended. Chadran said he’s good with that. Whether readers take something literally or figuratively or whether they take just a mood or a direction—“It’s collaborative.” Six or so of Chadran’s poems are framed and interspersed with the other art in the exhibit.
Art through the seasons
Pastel artist Ann Gillespie of Bolton, who has taught several classes at Fivesparks, said she was very productive during the pandemic because she had more time than usual to devote to her work. More importantly, because she wasn’t busy working on things for other people, she could give herself that time to “play,” to experiment and explore. “My work wouldn’t look like it does now if not for the pandemic,” said Gillespie in a recent phone conversation.
During March and April of 2020, she took the opportunity to do printmaking, a process that requires a sequence of days, something she was always wishing she had time for. Late afternoon walks through conservation lands gave her inspirations she wasn’t usually looking for during that time of year. In the process of rolling the oil-paint image on plexiglass and damp paper through a press, “You don’t know what you’ll get, and each one is different,” she said. “It’s unknown, and that’s the fun.” She said it usually takes six to eight tries to get what she likes.
“Late Afternoon Dunes” by Ann Gillespie.(Courtesy photo)
In May and June, Gillespie was outside again, working with pastels, doing landscapes. Without her usual commitments, she joined a plein-air group for the summer and enjoyed interacting with fellow artists. In the fall she taught a class held outside at Carlson Orchards. It was the first time she had taught a class at that time of year and she loved it. It was a different experience for her; since the weather and the light are more changeable, the artist has to be more quick and spontaneous than when painting in spring or summer.
After the fall, with COVID surging again, having to be alone and inside, with the landscape uninspiring, was a struggle for her, Gillespie said. For two months she stuck with work that was more moody and quiet than her usual bright, summery scenes. There was a bit of uncertainty, of mystery to it. “It was outside my comfort zone,” said Gillespie, “and it took a while to let myself go there.” She had to get over the feeling that she had to do something for others and do this for herself. “I realized I don’t need to control everything,” said Gillespie.
These different phases refreshed and informed her more typical pastel work when she got back to it last spring. The exhibit pieces are hung chronologically, showing Gillespie’s evolution through the pandemic.
Board president Mark Mikitarian said he is very excited that Fivesparks is finally reopening and that the first event presents a positive side to the pandemic: the resilience of artists to adapt and even thrive during a terrible time. The reception will be held outside if weather permits. People must wear masks inside, and numbers will be monitored to maintain distancing. “in•sight: Together, Apart” will run through Oct. 29.
