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SPECTRUM: ODE TO COLOR

Thirteen Moons is a rules-based installation project
by Cynthia MacCollum

 
November 6 – 21, 2021


Join us for a gallery talk with the artist on Saturday, November 20 at 11am (rescheduled from 11/14)

please rsvp [email protected]

 


A limited number of signed prints (edition of 15) created specially for this exhibit are available for sale at the gallery.  Prints are $100 and proceeds help underwritht cost associated with the exhibit and educational programs and materials.

A selection of MacCollum’s original watercolors and monoprints are also availalbe for sale at the gallery.

 


The exhibit takes visitors on the artist’s unique journey through 2020-2021, as experienced on walks in the New Canaan Nature Center, and guided by the cycles of the thirteen moons.  For each moon cycle MacCollum adopted a unique set of parameters and made twenty-four visits to the New Canaan Nature Center.  

For example, during Hunter Moon she collected specimens at the Nature Center, then drew the specimens on a rice paper scroll, noting the place and time. For Corn Moon, audio recordings made during each hour are compiled and played as ambient sound in the gallery.  A variety of artistic mediums and scientific methods are employed to transport visitors and simulate the artist’s experience.  Project research material and sketchbooks are displayed in vitrines, along with natural specimens and journals recording the artist’s thoughts. The exact moment when the rule was followed has been assiduously recorded, so that every piece in the exhibit is marked with time stamp.
 
The cycle of the moon has been used for thousands of years to organize time,” says MacCollum.  “In this period of cultural dislocation from natural rhythms, in particular the chaos of 2020, I found solace and structure in syncing my life and practice to the cycle of the moon.”  The project began at the height of the pandemic while under quarantine with the full moon on May 7, 2020, and follows thirteen moons through 2021: Flower, Strawberry, Buck, Sturgeon, Corn, Harvest, Hunter, Beaver, Cold, Wolf, Snow, Worm, and Pink Moon.


 

Cynthia MacCollum is a painter, printmaker, and photographer who lives and works in New Canaan, CT. Her work has been shown at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking in Norwalk, CT; Elisa Contemporary Art, NY; First Street Gallery in New York; The Kellogg Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona, Blue Print Gallery in Dallas, Panopticon Gallery in Boston, and internationally in Cadaques, Spain, the UK, France and Hong Kong.  In June, 2013, Cynthia’s work was selected by curator Donald Kuspit, one of 32 pieces out of thousands of submissions, to be part of the First Street Gallery National Juried Exhibit in New York City.

As a child, MacCollum spent countless hours out of doors, often near the creek in the ravine behind her home.  This early connection to nature instilled a reverence for the natural world that pervades all of her work.  MacCollum’s daily habit of walking through the nature preserve near her home has informed and inspired much of her work over the last several years.

MacCollum is a member of New Canaan’s Silvermine Guild, the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, and Odetta Digital. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis with a major in Art History and a minor in Fine Art, she has continued her studies at the Center for Contemporary Printmaking, and through monthly critiques with the CritLab.  Artist Residencies for three summers, at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts in Skopelos, Greece, have deepened MacCollum’s interest in the intersection of nature and art, and of painting, printmaking, and alternative processes.  In addition to private collections, her work can be found in the Fine Art Collection of the Montefiore Health System and Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Flower Moon, part of the Thirteen Moons installation

Cynthia MacCollum and Hilary Wittmann discussing exhibit plans

detail from the Harvest Moon installation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the Carriage Barn

The mission of the New Canaan Society for the Arts, Inc. is to promote the visual and performing arts, and to enrich the community through exhibitions, education, and cultural experiences, and to operate the Carriage Barn Arts Center.

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Carriage Barn Arts Center
Waveny Park
681 South Avenue
New Canaan, CT 06840

(203) 594-3638

[email protected]