Artscope Magazine: History, in juxtapositions

Boughton's American Home
July/August 2015

Opening the Door to the Unexpected

By Taryn Plumb

                                            Wingtips, 2014, pigment inkjet print, 15” x 15”.

Imagine you’re relaxing in your cozy, mid-century modern home. You’ve got a book, a drink, a comfy chaise lounge. And then you look out your living room’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

Where there might normally be a manicured lawn, kids at play or beatific waving neighbors — this is the unblemished post-war 1950s, after all — instead, here is the bottom of the ocean with driftwood, sea ferns nudged by the current, and fish swimming listlessly.

And then suddenly — Damsels in distress! Adventure! Danger! Right outside your windows, two voluptuous, bikini-clad women in peril suddenly appear (one entangled in the undulating arms of a menacing octopus) and three heroic men wielding spears and knives are to the rescue.

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Artscope Magazine: Visual poet Robert Saunders

Robert Saunders
July/August 2015

Playing By His Own Rules

By Taryn Plumb

                                                        Bake King, No Winner, 2015, antique baking pan, nuts and bolts, glass and wood.

Robert Saunders has never found amusement in other people’s games.

As a kid, for example, he would sit down to Chinese checkers with his grandmother, and although he recalls “hating it,” he would keep playing, just following his own private imaginary strategy. Similarly, in lieu of baseball – the traditional pastime of many boys – he concocted a way to run the bases, score and strike out simply by rolling four dice.

That flouting of conformity and adherence to his own rules translates into his large body of abstract artwork, composed of installations and drawings that the Gardiner, Maine artist refers to as “visual poetry.”

His pieces are composites of intersecting clean lines, crisp shapes, stray numbers and letters, as well as assemblages of various found items. The effect – once the eyes adjust to the mélange – is a unique sort of symmetry, a mode of communication and a game all of his own making.

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Artscope Magazine: The enduring appeal of Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys

It's a Mystery
July/August 2015

The Brush Uncovers Teenage Supersleuths

By Taryn Plumb

                                                                       James Mathewuse, Very Deadly Yours, 1986, pastel on velour paper.

It’s the 1930s. Three stately women in chic slim-fit dresses, heels and finger wave bobs stand clustered at the edge of a lake, inspecting a piece of jewelry.

Flash-forward roughly 30 years, and the same three women are depicted as decidedly younger, more confident and casual, even tomboy-ish — they walk barefoot in the water, button-down shirts tucked into rolled-up jeans.

In the intervening decades, the trio, featured on the cover of the classic Nancy Drew mystery, “The Clue of the Broken Locket,” goes through at least two other transformations that reflect changes in society, values and fashion.

When many of us pick up a book, the cover art is somewhat of an afterthought (even if it’s what initially drew our eye); it’s the goodies inside that we’re after.

But in the upcoming exhibit, “Book Illustration: Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys,” at The Brush Art Gallery and Studios in Lowell, cover art takes its rightful place at the forefront. On display from August 8 to
September 12, the show will feature more than 40 images that have served as the first glimpses into the adventures of the world’s most beloved youth detectives.

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