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One of the most intriguing local art events of last summer was “Salad Days,” a 63-piece exhibition of primarily three-dimensional art by 21 creators, housed in three dilapidated greenhouses at the Allen C. Haskell Public Gardens. Curated by local artist and the founder of Site Specific Happenings (SSH) Mia (Mimi) Pinheiro, “ambrosia / salad” is the rare, worthy sequel exhibition that outshines even the first.
But first a bit about that name. Beyond the meanings encompassing the mythical food of the ancient Greco-Roman gods, a 19th century dessert of fruit, coconut and marshmallow folded into sweet cream, and a mix of edible plants, Pinheiro coined a new definition: “site-responsive installations throughout Haskell Gardens that understand the land as an active participant.”
That definition is key. Eleven artists were selected from a pool of nearly 40 applicants, and they all understood the assignment and then went beyond it. The long-neglected greenhouses are gone. The panes of glass and the metal frames have been removed. All that exists are some recessed areas in the ground. Workers are reconfiguring the space for an unspecified future use.
The artwork now lives in the expansive garden space where the lines between nature and culture are blurred, where all is not what it seems at first glance, where boldness and subtlety coexist, and where you may not see everything, even after four visits, as was my experience. And things changed between visits. Some works had components stolen or vandalized, and the wind and the intense summer heat made their effects known and yet it all still works.
There is a bit of a challenging scavenger hunt sensibility that kicks in while exploring “ambrosia / salad.” Don’t surrender too soon. It pays off.
In his artist’s statement, sculptor Adrian Almquist notes that beyond the universal need for food, shelter and clothing, there is a universal yearning for social interaction, community, love and spiritual connection. Describing himself as “grounded in the tactile crafts,” he is guided by, in his words, the “spirit in the still moments of imagination.”
Almquist’s “We are woven together, again” is a wall-mounted sculpture on the side of one of the park’s small buildings and it is literally woven together with thin layers of salvaged pine, walnut and white oak. His “When we are joined together, we are stronger” is a handsome work constructed with ashfield stone, cherry and ash pegs, nestled among a small cluster of evergreens, abutting a stonewall.
A highlight of the exhibition is Isabel Mattia’s “ForEverN’evers,” an ornate cut steel gate-like structure in a field, given a lovely blue-green finish with ink and paint. Within the pattern, one can discern fish, songbirds, the heads of deer or some other ungulate, and a pair of what she refers to as “lesbian peahens.”
Carl Simmons (yeah, him again!) has a semi-hidden installation amidst a few trees called “Alchemical Haskell Nocturnal Interaction.” Among the “found objects” within it are a deflated Santa Claus decoration, a Cool Whip container, a broken chair, and an old gravemarker that reads “ABIGAIL Apr. 29, 1848 in 64th y.”
More significantly, other items included are a dirty mattress, a beer bottle, a condom wrapper and a doghouse, all adding up to a less-than-subtle reference to some local folklore that is likely mingled with a bit of truth. There was also a somewhat realistic-looking toy possum on my first visit but that went missing and Simmons replaced it with a poster that reads: “STOLEN OPOSSUM LAST SCENE [sic] AT HASKELL PUBLIC GARDENS ON 8/12 AS PART OF AMBROSIA / SALAD ART SHOW CARL SIMMONS PLEASE RETURN” and lastly, “I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.” Don’t we all?
Throughout the gardens are a series of fluorescent pink strips of flagging tape, much like might be used to indicate caution, perhaps to ward off people from swampy areas or pesticide applications or some other danger. But they were not put there by the park itself, but rather one of the artists. Saskia Globig’s “Suggested Directions through Public Gardens” are a kind of simple, clever and wonderful “wink, wink, nod, nod, I got ya, didn’t I?”
Renée Greenlee’s “Decadence & Decay” featured three long lengths of blue silk dangling from a metal archway over a paved pathway. Or at least they were all long on my first visit. The wind was whipping them into a frenzy and the cloth would get wrapped around the metal bars and then somehow free themselves. On my second visit, one length was torn, four-fifths of the way up. On my third visit, only that top fifth remained. Nature itself was altering the art.
Siri Burt’s “Woman, It is the Whole World” is a simple ceramic work of arms coming out of the ground itself and embracing the base of a tree, an ode to Mother Earth and to her daughters, the true guardians of the planet and the future. Eva Goodman’s “Gloaming” includes a series of baseball-sized glass eyeballs situated on a circular path ending at a moss covered chair, with two eyes of its own (one as of last count) that made it reminiscent of Chairry of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” fame.
But of all the work in “ambrosia / salad,” the one that intrigued me the most was the one that I was most dismissive of when I first saw it. On the north end of a well-maintained lawn, there was a small roped-off area, perhaps 2’ x 3’, where the artist requested that the Haskell caretakers not trim the grass within that spot. And then I saw the QR code and I scanned it and I listened and it blew me away.
The artist is Jason Fiering, who has a master’s degree in physics and who leads research projects in biomedical engineering. For over a decade, he has been renovating and “rewilding” a building in the South End of New Bedford, which serves as his art studio and is home to nearly one hundred species of weeds.
The QR code guides visitors from the roped-off “no-mow patch” throughout the gardens to other areas where he had worked it out with the gardeners to let certain weeds just be for the duration of the exhibition. Below a large umbrella pine, there is a stinging nettle. He points out that the plant is “lush and inviting to the unsuspecting eye, but if you touch it, your skin will soon burn in a rash more rapid and irritating than even poison ivy.” He continues: “How is it that the natural world isn’t always edenic and harmonious?”
Later, he points out “the sneaky beginning of a black swallowwort colony,” noting that Massachusetts is ground zero for this invasive species, said to have escaped from a Harvard botanical collection.
It goes on for about 20 minutes, but I was especially taken by a few lines about hawkweed, saying it was “a proud and noble weed, whether or not it gets called invasive.” And Fiering gets philosophical, pointing out that “the garden lives in conflict: should it strive for ever more showy and dramatic features, or should it also be a space that dignifies the understated? And underlying this conflict is the question, will I be loved?”
And isn’t that what we all want to know?
“ambrosia / salad” is open to the public at the Allen C. Haskell Public Gardens, 787 Shawmut Ave., New Bedford through Sept. 19.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
