Pope-Cheney Art Studio
Located on the 1st Floor of the Wishcamper Center
34 Bedford St., USM Portland Campus
Hours: 8 a.m.-10 p.m., Monday-Thursday, and 8 a.m.-6 p.m., Friday.
Exhibition Schedule
Exhibition: Mark Ford
Opening Reception, Thursday, June 29th, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., Wishcamper
June, July, August 2017
Mark Ford is a mixed media artist and teacher living in Portland, Maine. He began making artist's books in 2005, bringing to the medium a background in both photography and graphic design. His materials come largely from the beach, the street or the recycle bin (with a particular interest in repurposed packaging and discarded photo albums), and his process is improvisational and rather wet (e.g., washed up from the sea, left out in the rain, dissolved and disassembled). His work embodies a struggle born of an intimate engagement with materials, chosen for their symbolic resonance, and a psychic attempt to manifest that struggle in symbolic form. In 2015, he attended an artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center. He currently teaches humanities and photography at an expeditionary learning school in Portland.
Image (Left/Top): Stockholm, Mark Ford ‘05
Image (Right/Bottom): Blank Books, Mark Ford ‘16
Exhibition: Emily Ross '16
September, October, November 2017
Since 2005, at the age of 9, Emily Ross has been making books, albeit not with the most orthodox of techniques. Her first book showcased wrapping-papered cardboard covers for 30 sheets of printer paper bound with uneven stitches, while using a thimble on each finger.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Emily discovered the Book Arts community and found a welcoming home within the art world. Shifting to creating almost exclusively artist books, Emily combines her skills in painting, sculpting, sewing, and ceramics, along with a didactic love of history and trivia. By regularly pushing the definition of what a book can be, Emily explores the conditioned human understanding of books and their relationship to art.
Emily continually draws upon other passions for inspiration, including a strong background in holistic health, dance, and art history. When not making books, Emily is a ballroom dance instructor and studies to become an apiarist.
Image Above: Emily Ross ‘16
Exhibition: Brenda J. McGovern
December 2017, January, February 2018
Artist Statement:
My approach to my artwork is to spend time playing and experimenting with different materials. This has proven time and time again an invaluable process that leads to unexpected discoveries. This process evokes within me suggested images, memories, and emotions, leading to a process that is then explored further and developed.
My surroundings invite close observation of textures, patterns, shapes, shadows, surfaces, sounds, scents, the marks of times, rhythms, repetition, the opening and closing sequences of seasons, decay and renewal and small details. They all affect my creativity either consciously or subconsciously. I love marks that are gestural, sensitive, and expressive, layers that partly conceal or reveal, and the fine quality of a line or a torn edge. Although I sometimes love the look of perfection, I also love the beauty of something imperfect, unfinished, aged, or damaged. It holds more expression and interest for me.
It is always my intention to express sensitivity and beauty through my creative process.
Brenda McGovern retired from USM's Philosophy Department in June 2015 and continues her studies towards a Bachelor of Art in Studio Art.
Image Above: Brenda McGovern's book Spinal Angel
Exhibition: USM Kate Cheney Chappell '83 Center for Book Arts Critique Group
March, April, May 2018
The Critique Group at the USM Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts consists of artists who are bound together by their passion for making artists’ books. All members have taken classes in the Book Arts program at USM or attended workshops at the USM KCC’83CBA. Working in a variety of media, book structures, and a broad range of subject matter, we meet once a month in the Pope-Cheney Art Studio at USM’s Wishcamper Center for constructive feedback, insightful questions, and informative discussions about our books – both completed books and those in progress. Our work is on display at the Pope/Cheney studio in the Wishcamper Center during March, April and May.
In addition, we support, promote, and raise awareness for the KCC’83CBA in the Portland community and beyond by attending lectures, workshops, and exhibitions. For the past four years we have created an annual collaborative artists’ book that is raffled at the Book Arts Bazaar to raise funds for educational programming. We have also donated two of these books to the Special Collections at Glickman Library.
Image Above: Collaberation by KCC’83 CBA Critique Group, Seeking Harmony
Exhibition: Sarah S. Harvey '01
June, July, August 2018
In 1996, after working in the medical field for over 20 years, Sarah went back to school at the University of Southern Maine and graduated in 2001 with a BFA in Painting. Since then she has been pursuing art as a second career on an every day basis. Sarah makes Artist Books, having been inspired by several classes with Rebecca Goodale at USM, and paints in oil, watercolor and most recently casein tempera. She shows her work at the Centre Street Arts Gallery in Bath, Maine. Book making, using images and text, gives her an opportunity to create an autobiographical account of her observations and experiences. She considers her work of books and paintings as personal statements about the beauty and uniqueness of Maine’s lands, state forests, wilderness areas, and shorelines. She lives in Woolwich, Maine.
Image Above: Sarah s. Harvey, Undesturbed Silence
Image Below: Sarah s. Harvey, 90 Days of Summer
For more information, please contact Rebecca Goodale, Program Coordinator
at (207) 228-8014 or goodale@maine.edu
usm.maine.edu/bookarts
Find us on Facebook
Facebook.com/KCCBookArts
2017-2018
Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts