Visual Arts

Items

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  Bernard Langlais papers, circa 1925-2010 - Finding Aid

  The papers of Bernard Langlais measure 13.3 linear feet and date from circa 1925 to 2010. The papers document Langlais' career as a painter and sculptor through correspondence with friends, colleagues, and art institutions and organizations; writings; exhibition records, video recordings about Langlais, resumes, and other professional activity files; appraisals, invoices, inventories, and other personal business records; newspaper and magazine clippings, exhibition announcements and catalogs, and press releases; as well as scrapbooks, drawings, sketchbooks, and photographic material of Langlais and his artwork.
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  Thomas Morin papers, 1952-2015 - Finding Aid

  The papers of sculptor and teacher Thomas Morin measure 4.7 linear feet and date from 1952-2015. His career at several universities and art schools as well as his work as a sculptor and metalsmith are documented through biographical material, correspondence, writings, professional files, printed material, and artwork. The bulk of the collection consists of photographs and slides of Morin's artwork and the fabrication process.
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  Oral history interview with Jennifer Rodrigue, 2000 April 13

  An interview of Jennifer Rodrigue conducted 2000 April 13, by Paul Karlstrom, for the Archives of American Art, in Rodrigue's home, in Berkeley, Calif. Rodigue discusses modeling professionally when a student at Mt. Holyoke College; her preference for posing to working in the dormitory kitchen; working for an open workshop in Martha's Vineyard, sessions that led to private modeling; her attraction to the different ways people "view me," and the experience of "watching people watching me"; the power relationship involved in the roles of observer/observed; the power dynamic between men and women and her seeking a relationship "balanced in power" and her view that the experience is about the artist "looking" and "acknowledging anatomy" (hers) as part of the process of image making.
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  Oral history interview with Michelle Holzapfel, 2008 January 26 and March 1

  An interview of Michelle Holzapfel conducted 2008 January 26-March 1, by Josephine Shea, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, at Holzapfel's home and studio, Applewoods Studio and Gallery, in Marlboro, Vermont. Holzapfel speaks of her childhood in Rhode Island; her large extended family and their French-Canadian heritage; working with her father in his machine shop; early art education and exposure from elementary school through high school; the influence of high school art teacher Audrey Blake; trips to Rhode Island School of Design Museum and Boston Museum of Fine Arts; attending Marlboro College; meeting her husband, David, at Marlboro; traveling in Italy with friends and David; earning her B.A. from Norwich College; participating in craft shows; having two children in two years; teaching experiences at Worcester Center for Crafts and Wood Turning Center; the difference in relationships with galleries and museums; the woodturning field; and the struggles and success of women artists; and plans for the future. Holzapfel recalls Gilbert Taylor, Barry Friedman, Glenn Adamson, Nathan Ancell, Peter Joseph, Kenneth Trapp, Chris Tyler, Albert LeCoff, and others.
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  Oral history interview with Michael James, 2003 January 4-5

  An interview of Michael James conducted 2003 January 4-5, by Patricia Harris and David Lyon, for the Archives of American Art's Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America, in Lincoln, Nebraska. James speaks of his childhood in New Bedford, Massachusetts, in a large Catholic French-Canadian family; his parochial school experience; the early influence of French language and textiles; his undergraduate studies at Southeastern Massachusetts University and graduate studies at Rochester Institute of Technology in painting and printmaking; his first exposure to the craft world; transitioning from painting to quilts while starting a family; his first teaching jobs and shift to self employment; he discusses his books Quiltmaker's Handbook I and II; being male in the women's world of quiltmaking; he comments on the importance of fiber as a means of expression; his artistic influences; his 1990 residency in Switzerland; creating fabrics by hand-painting and digital printing; representational imagery in his work and themes; commissions; the impact of religion, spirituality, mortality, politics and social issues on his quilts; his working environment in Somerset, Massachusetts, and Lincoln, Nebraska; teaching at the University of Nebraska, and the International Quilt Study Center there; his wife Judy and her art; quiltmakers inside and outside academia; the value of quilts as "art"; crafts schools; his involvement in national and regional craft organizations; his early exhibitions; his relationships with dealers; the state of the art market; the lack of critical reception in the quiltmaking field; his own writings; how American fiber arts rank on an international scale; and new uses of technology in his work. He also recalls Jon Gnagy, Donald Krueger, Susan Russo, Faith Ringgold, Mickey Lawler, Ulysses Dietz, Robert and Ardis James, Florence Dionne, Lois Martin, Diane Itter, Hilda Raz, and others.
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  Omer Thomas Lassonde papers, 1935-1942 - Finding Aid

  Clippings, photographs and other documents relating to the work of the New Hampshire Federal Art Project, 1935-1942, directed by Omer Lassonde.
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  Oral history interview with Dennis Pinette, 2005 Aug. 30-Sept. 1

  An interview of Dennis Pinette conducted 2005 Aug. 30 and Sept. 1, by Susan C. Larsen, art historian, for the Archives of American Art, at the artist's home and studio, in Belfast, Me. Pinette discusses his childhood in Williamstown, Mass., and Morristown, N.J., and his early fascination with industrial scenes and railroad sightings; his family and artistic bloodline from his maternal grandparents, Harold and Frances McMennamin; his education at Mount Greylock Regional High School in Williamstown; his first influential art teacher, John D. Maziarz; his secondary education at Hartford Art School where he studied with Rudolph Zallinger; his first job out of college for a picture framer in West Hartford, Conn., while at the same time continuing to paint at night; his marriage to Megan Pinette (née Smith) in 1975, and how they first met; the couple's easel-backed picture frame business in Westerly, R.I., in the early 1980s, which they gave up to move to Maine and paint; their move to Belfast, Me., in the summer of 1983, when they bought the house in which they still live; the Artfellows art cooperative, started in Belfast in 1980; his shift back to realism from abstraction in the early 1980s; his wanderings in and around industrial parks in Maine, including the Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Wiscasset, to find inspiration for his canvases; his total refusal of the idea that his paintings have social or political messages to convey; his continuing fascination with the visceral quality of industrial scenes; his artistic influences, including American artists of the early twentieth century, such as Edward Hopper, John Sloan, William Glackens, Charles Sheeler, and Charles Burchfield, as well as later American artists such as Agnes Martin and Jackson Pollock; the influence and inspiration of Maine's varied landscape; his preferences for working, especially plein-air painting during the spring and fall; and his most recent series of works, which focus on fire and on water. Pinette also recalls Vito Acconci, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Brown, Stewart Henderson, Richard Norton, Yvonne Jacquette, Alex Katz, Linden Frederick, Stephen Pasterhoff, Neil Welliver, Dudley Zopp, and others.
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  Oral history interview with Bernard Langlais, 1973 Feb. 21

  An interview of Bernard Langlais conducted 1973 Feb. 21, by Robert Brown, for the Archives of American Art.
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  Edouard Du Buron papers, 1937-1993 - Finding Aid

  Notes on exhibitions and workshops, including Impressions Workshop, Brockton Art Center Fuller Memorial, The Art Gallery (Kingston, Plymouth), Exhibition notices regarding Grover Cronin (department store) and Cronin Gallery and artists; writings on Du Buron's work and letters.
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  Saint John Valley Folk Arts Survey collection - Finding Aid

  This collection provides data on singers, musicians, and other artists in the Upper Saint John Valley during the 1991 – 1993 research. It will be of interest to researchers of French language songs, spoken French language usage, local history and local oral history. The Saint John Valley Folk Arts Survey has identified over 200 traditional artists in the Saint John Valley. It has developed a database of traditional music and dance ensembles and also developed a database of persons and groups involved in dissemination, promotion, and sales of traditional arts (located in administrative files). The research done throughout the Saint John Valley Folk Arts Survey documented field visits with traditional artists, produced slides, photos, field notes, informant statistics, hours of recorded performances and interviews, and pages of transcriptions and tape logs. Materials were collected in the field by Lisa Ornstein who was Director of the Acadian Archives / Archives acadiennes at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. Lisa had minimal assistance from Nick Hawes, Archives’ assistant, and from Don Cyr of Lille, Maine, who served as a research consultant.
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  Greetings from Champlain, N.Y.

  Postcard of a color illustrated scenic road in Champlain, New York