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In an anxious era of doomscrolling, political and social turmoil, and the counterintuitive belief that an AI prompt might somehow magically turn someone into an artist, musician or poet, a quiet walk in a public garden might, at least momentarily, offer a quiet respite from the collective dread.
The Allen C. Haskell Public Gardens is a free-to-the-public six-acre oasis of grass, flowers, songbirds, rabbits and other critters, ancient trees and clusters of bamboos just a few blocks south of the intersection of Hathaway Road and Shawmut Avenue that even some long-term local residents seem not to be aware of.
Presently, the Gardens are also hosting “Salad Days,” a unique exhibition of 63 works of art by 21 creators. Five are South Coast residents, three are from elsewhere in Massachusetts, and others hail from three of the boroughs of New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Texas, Maryland and Glasgow, Scotland.
The curator Mia (Mimi) Pinheiro is an Azorean American artist who is a cofounder of Site Specific Happenings (SSH), which she describes as “a shape shifting arts and recreation platform” for art-centric experiences. Her previous projects have been hosted in unanticipated venues including a digital gallery and a former quinceañera hall. And at the Haskell Gardens, she has transformed three humble, cluttered and long-ignored greenhouses into an unexpectedly stunning showcase.
But first, a shoutout to New Bedford glass artist Tracy Barbosa, the owner of Duende Studio, best known for her work on the tower at the New Bedford MBTA train station. In 2020, she applied translucent vinyl film, in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet, to the panes of one of the four greenhouses at Haskell Gardens. Over the years, even as the colors have faded, it has become a photo backdrop for prom dates, newlyweds and other celebrants. It no doubt inspired Pinheiro as well.
She sums up the concept for the exhibition, including the rationale for the inclusion of the selected artists, in this way: “In a world overwhelmed by mass production, digital stimulation, and algorithmic sameness, ‘Salad Days’ offers a counterpoint: objects and experiences rooted in care, imagination and emotional presence.
“The exhibition emphasizes ornamentation, traditional and novice craft, the handmade, the slow, the flawed and the found … artifacts that carry the unmistakable imprint of the human hand.”
Many of the displaying artists work in mixed media. Much of it is informed by craft, particularly ceramics, but also by glass, wood, papier-mâché, metalwork, and fiber arts. There is little that is smooth. There is nothing slick. There are rough edges, there are reworked fumblings, there are perfect imperfections. And it’s all great.
Pinheiro fully embraced the idea of the three greenhouses as mini-galleries. The artwork is displayed on benches, on concrete blocks, old wooden planks, on soil, on wire mesh screens and the remaining detritus of the space. The greenhouses are not to be entered. The art is only viewable from the outside. There is the sense of looking into a museum diorama, or an abandoned animal enclosure.
New York City artist Siri Burt’s “Her Fingers Turned into Hooves” features two crude yet shimmering aluminum horseshoes displayed on a segment of chicken wire on a cement block. At the tips of each of the U-shaped forms are fingernails, which conjures up thoughts of Greco-Roman mythological tales of maidens turned into beasts by some vengeful jealous goddess. Burt’s ceramic low-relief sculpture “Lovelock” features interwoven brunette braids, whose tips turn into three fingers, the nail painted bright blood red. That seems like a particularly Olympian punishment for some unimaginable sin.
Lily Fein of New Orleans displays an appropriately named pneumatic form called “Cloud Vessel.” It is sensuous with the suggestion of shoulders and hips without venturing into the erotic. Over a surface of pink, pale teal and off-white, bits of jet black appear as fissures in its own reality.
Oddly enough, it seems there is a common apian fascination with two of the artists, both with the same first name, who likely do not know each other. Brooklyn sculptor Stephanie Land’s “Integration No. 5” has a haunting disembodied white right hand leaning against three large clusters of honeycomb, while “Corpus Apis Vox Terra” by Beverly, Massachusetts, artist Stéphanie Williams also features a disembodied white right hand, seemingly rising from the branch of a tree. In that hand, there are a pile of dead bees.
New Bedford artist Beatrice Alder’s whimsical “Strawberry Dragons” is an assumedly functional pitcher with the fanciful creatures not breathing the fire of legend. Instead, an alternative dimension version of strawberry plants erupt from their gaping maws.
Las Vegas ceramicist Cheyenne Yu exhibits “Snake Spool,” in which a rattler is coiled around a vessel of some sort, exhibiting just enough of the possibility of a threat to spook one with even the mildest ophidiophobia. And he looks perfectly right at home in a greenhouse.
Lobbin Liu, a Brooklyn artist and bookmaker, displays “A living being, a building, and a city operate the same way.” It is a long continuous sheet of paper, folded accordion-style and standing atop a pile of dirt. There are a series of colorful illustrations along the tops of the pages but it was the text that caught my attention. They were short pithy lines about plumbing and bodily functions and clogs. Pipes of all sorts run through human bodies, through buildings, and through cities. Enough said. All things considered, perhaps the dirt should’ve been umm, umm … fertilizer?
Installation artist Carl Simmons’ “Allen C. Haskell Propagation Greenhouse Installation” furthers my thesis that he approaches physical space like a painter approaches a canvas. There is no cobalt blue or viridian or burnt umber or alizarin crimson oil paint. In this case, within the confines of one end of a greenhouse, there is Simmons’ meticulous arrangement of objects — nostalgic, eclectic and eccentric — that includes (and this a very abbreviated list) empty Pringles cans, a red plastic bucket, a toy goat, an old jar of Skippy peanut butter, a Ronald McDonald doll, an overturned chair, a box of moth balls and an orange cone. It is an optical and historical treat.
Simmons has said, “…my work will speak to the ‘objects rooted in the imagination’ theme; even though they will be found objects, they will be carefully curated to contrast the utilitarian (garden tools, etc.) with the ambiguous and dreamlike (fast food chain ephemera, etc.).” He notes that they all carry the imprint of the human hand. Add philosopher to his resume.
New Bedford artist Lara Harrington’s “Flamboyance” is a highlight of the exhibition. As pink and sweet as cotton candy, it is a short column topped by about two dozen sparrow-sized flamingos, looking like they’ve settled down for a rest after all that dancing in “Fantasia.” It’s perfectly silly and playful and it doesn’t need to be anything more than that.
Other notable works include Greer Pester’s “Wild + Wise,” Kasey Ott’s “Ode to Braque (Daffys, Bergamot),” and Pinheiro’s “Sun Jar.”
Clearly, there is much to take in and contemplate in “Salad Days.” That said, this exhibition is greater than the sum of its parts. The placement of the artwork within the greenhouse is problematic but in a kind of perfect way.
The sun glints off the glass, you see your own reflections. You see the people on the other side of the structure. There are smudges and fingerprints on the glass. Each visit (and I suggest several) might mean raindrops running down the windows. There may be condensation, fogging, perhaps an early frost. Each time, it may be different. The conditions make the experience and that is its joy.
It’s art in the oasis.
“Salad Days” will be on display at the Allen C. Haskell Public Gardens, 787 Shawmut Ave., New Bedford, until Oct. 12.
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
