“Gathering the Bones,” a new exhibition at the Durango Creative District Gallery, mirrors what many creatures do in the natural world: build new nests.
If you go
WHAT: “Gathering the Bones,” works by Mary Ellen Long and Sarah Lemcke at Durango Creative District Gallery
WHEN: Through May 1. Hours: noon-5:00 p.m. Wednesday to Friday.
WHERE: 1135 Main Ave.
ADMISSION: Free
MORE INFORMATION: Email hello@durangocreativedistrict.org, call 403-9186 or (757) 810-4890
Mary Ellen Long and Sarah Lemcke, two area earth artists, have serendipitously found each other. Together they present an unusual exhibition of new work.
Long, 92, is a well-known regional artist who lives in Durango and has exhibited internationally. Her body of work consists of earth-art installations, artist’s books and films about her oeuvre.
Lemcke, 31, a papermaking artist who teaches in Durango, represents the next generation of adventurous artists who transform natural materials into works of art.
Taking inspiration from birds, insects and animals that collect and transform nature’s materials, Long and Lemke mimic those activities. In addition, they sieve everything through an aesthetic process and create new objects that honor the natural world.
Among the most moving new works on display are “altars,” ritualistic arrangements of nests and candles. Among the most formal are geometric strips of handmade paper. Among the most poignant are collages that include found objects such as an animal skull discovered on an outing.
Lemke’s exploration of wasp nests dominates the exhibit. A papermaking artist with a degree from Columbia College in Chicago, she began incorporating paper from wasp nests here in Durango. Combined with other natural fibers, her work seems to explore both imperfection and impermanence. Spirals and shapes that anchor corners are two compositional devices she repeats, but the possibilities seem endless.
Long earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from San Diego State University and has made Durango her home for the past 45 years. Known as a multimedia artist, she works in collage, prints and environmental installations. Her estimable archive of artist’s books is housed at the University of Denver’s Penrose Library.
Several of Long’s elegant collages are on display, including a pristine handmade paper series. “Aspen Trees” is a large installation that dominates the rear gallery.
The title, “Gathering of Bones,” comes from a book by Jungian psychoanalyst and author Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Her story centers on a Bone Woman who wanders the desert collecting what’s left behind and sings nature’s detritus back to life.
As Lemke says in her statement: “Paper wasps mirror this process. They collect disparate, dead fibers from leaves and bark and construct something new, beautiful and whole – a nest buzzing with life.”
Mary Ellen Long and Sarah Lemke are part of the Earth and Land Art Movements that emerged in the late 1960s. The modern practice of using earth materials, dirt, twigs, trees, pebbles, rocks or abandoned nests, rose out of conceptual art and environmentalism. But it must be acknowledged that creating human-made objects out of natural materials dates back to cave art, Stonehenge and the like.
In the late 20th century, Land artists created large earth installations such as the late Robert Smithson’s 1970 “Spiral Jetty,” a massive earthwork in Utah. Andy Goldsworthy, 70, continues to create site-specific installations in England’s valleys, mountainsides, shorelines or abandoned farm fields. He “collaborates” with the earth by using its materials and imposing a fresh sense of order with spectacularly balanced cairns, curving stone walls, natural arches or stick-structures that disappear in time.
Driven by environmentalist ideals to honor nature and save the planet, Land and Earth artists reject the commercialization of art and the moneyed marketplace of museums and collectors.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
