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Almost everything in life is subject to change.
Over the last two decades, I have curated dozens of art exhibitions in a number of South Coast venues, including the New Bedford Art Museum, the Narrows Center for the Arts, Gallery X, the Co-Creative Center and the Colo Colo Gallery. In every case, it was always pro bono publico. Well, except for the four or five years that I put up new monthly art shows at the Pour Farm Tavern and then-owner Craig Ribeiro made sure my beer mug was always filled.
I did it because I wanted certain artists to be seen for the first time or to be revisited or to be part of a collective of like-minded individuals, often focused around a particular theme or because I sensed a kinship of some sort between them.
Deb Charlebois, the previous director of the Narrows, had been generous enough on three occasions to invite me to curate art shows in their distinctively funky gallery space. She never dictated a central theme or suggested which artists might be considered. I was given free rein to do whatever I saw fit.
The first one was “The Tenacity of the Figure” in 2015, which spoke to the artistic desire to periodically return to the human figure as the most primal subject. I recruited painters Donald Beal, Nancy Carrozza CaraDonna, Diane Cournoyer, Peter Dickison, Pamela Hoss and Ben Martinez and sculptors Erik Durant and Kelly Zelen. The show was well attended and resonated with visitors, if the sign-in book is to be believed.
In 2022 came “Wise Guise” featuring mixed-media/conceptual artist Joseph Fontinha, sculptor Keith Francis, ceramicist Seth Rainville and myself (at Charlebois’ request) that spoke, in a very general way, to the absurdity of the world itself. Painters Kim Barry, William Collin, and Kat Knutsen, printmakers Taylor Hickey and Adrian Tio, and installation artist Carl Smith exhibited in “Personal Mythologies” in 2024. Their myriad distinct forms of storytelling inspired me to give that show that title.
For the last few years, I had been thinking about organizing an exhibition featuring work by painters Roger Kizik, JP Powel and Bill Shattuck, three elders of the art community that I was referring to as the Three Wise Men, or simply the Magi. They all know and respect each other and while their work is wildly disparate, there is tremendous skill and imagination, and most importantly, depth. It is the kind of depth that only comes with determination, experience and creative tenacity.
I asked them if I could organize a show featuring their work. They all got aboard. I pitched it to Charlebois. She put it on the calendar. It would be called “Three Wise Men.” It was a go.
Until it wasn’t. Some time later, I ran into Shattuck at Davoll’s General Store and we had a brief conversation. He was having some health issues and felt he could no longer commit. I wished him well and pivoted.
I wanted to stay with the theme of the elders and their wisdom, and I called Sarah Benham Spongberg, a photographer-turned-painter who I have known since my days at the Swain School of Design where she worked in the Crapo Gallery. I asked her to take Shattuck’s place. She was delighted and accepted the invite. It was no longer going to be called “Three Wise Men.” I didn’t know what it was going to be called. But it was set.
Until it wasn’t. Spongberg phoned me a few days later. Her husband was having some health issues of his own and she expressed some concern that she couldn’t say with surety that she could be involved. I completely understood.
But I had to radically rethink my original proposal. Kizik and Powel were still in play. But I realized I needed to think bigger. I called Ben Martinez, a former painting instructor at Swain and who had been in “The Tenacity of the Figure” show. He was in. I visited Pam Coomey Thornton, a painter, printmaker and dry media artist. She readily accepted. And I made a call to Gayle Wells Mandle, who serves on the board of DATMA and is a formidable painter and collagist. Then there were five.
The artists range in age from 78 to 84. Between them, there are roughly 275 collective years of artmaking experience. The “Three Wise Men” show title had been discarded. And “Three Wise Men and Two Wise Women” just wasn’t gonna cut it. I had some pondering to do.
I decided to call it “Subject to Change” for a number of reasons. One was that my original lineup shrunk by one and then increased by three. Another is that I asked the artists to exhibit works from various stages of their lives and all show work done over decades, some as far back as grammar school. The subject of their artwork changed often. Another reason was that Charlebois stepped down from her role as director of the Narrows. And I hadn’t yet met the new director. I didn’t know who I’d be working with. But I would soon meet Michele L’Heureux.
She had, in effect, the exhibition that Charlebois had agreed to thrust upon her. She asked me if she could visit the studios of the five artists with me when I would be selecting the work. I was fine with that and we spent about an hour at each of the artist’s studios in Dartmouth and New Bedford. The conversation between the two of us and each of the artists was insightful and set the tone for the exhibition.
I asked L’Heureux what that day of studio visits was like for her.
“I inherited the show from my predecessor, so the artists were all selected. It can be a little unnerving for me to put my trust in someone else to put together a high-quality show in a gallery that I manage,” noting that she was pleased that I was willing to schedule studio visits together and meet the artists as a team.
She continued, “Not knowing any of the artists or their work, I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth, caliber and sheer volume of their work … As we met with each artist, I started seeing threads between their work, not only in their commitment to experimentation and exploration of various styles and materials, but also in their themes: nature, travel, the body, domesticity, abstraction. I didn’t have a clear sense after that first day of what the show would look like, but I felt that we could curate and design a provocative, interesting and cohesive exhibition that would showcase the talents of this seasoned group of artists.”
Yeah, we did.
All five artists have proven that dedication to their craft is worth every step, every stumble and every setback.
Styles come and go, motifs morph, philosophies evolve, memories shift, and in art, as in life itself, experience is the anchor.
And it’s always subject to change.
“Subject to Change” will be open at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan Street, Fall River, on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, from noon to 5 p.m. until July 11. There will be an artists’ reception held on Saturday, June 6, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m..
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
