December 2007

An Incubator of Creativity

As the yearlong celebration of its 100th birthday comes to a close, The MacDowell Colony is capping off its centennial in the local community with a buoyant artistic installation by Peterborough-based interdisciplinary artist and MacDowell Fellow Amy Jenkins. Jenkins’s video installation Water Windows is the final in a series of nine Peterborough Projects specially commissioned by the Colony in 2007 to engage local citizens in the artistic process.

Opening on December 6th, and on display at the Peterborough Historical Society through January 6, 2008, Water Windows will magically bring to life visions of an underwater environment that are projected as dusk falls. The building’s arched windows will seemingly be filled with water as objects set loose in the current — a house, a chair, a swing set, a dress — drift in and out of view. Jenkins, who says her project is “meant to inspire memory-based reflections,” describes the project’s intent and meaning this way: “The aqueous void becomes a repository for the emotional resonance that possessions carry in our psyche — a search for meaning that is especially pertinent during the holiday season.” All of Jenkins’s underwater footage was filmed in local ponds and lakes, including the crystal-clear waters of Willard Pond in Hancock.

An opening reception for Water Windows will be held on Thursday, December 6th, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Peterborough Historical Society. Jenkins will be on hand to answer questions; the event is free and open to the public.

Jenkins will also be the featured artist at December’s MacDowell Downtown presentation, which will take place on Thursday, December 13th at 7:30 p.m. at the Historical Society. She will offer an artist lecture and a screening of her previous works. This event is also free and open to the public; refreshments will be provided.

Among some of the other work done in town through MacDowell’s centennial Peterborough Projects program is permanent artwork such as Peter Edlund’s Butternut-Tree-In-Little-Summer Place, a painting created for and installed at the Peterborough Town Library; and Rodney Monk’s mural on the exterior of the Toadstool Bookshop depicting Mount Monadnock and other images pertinent to the local area.

Peterborough Projects artists also brought their work into area schools. Writer Christian McEwen spent two months teaching poetry in the third-grade classrooms at Peterborough Elementary School. Filmmaker Sandro del Rosario and composer Caroline Mallonee worked with fourth- and seventh-grade students at the Well School in addition to 11th- and 12th-grade students at ConVal High School to create an animated film, which was presented at the Peterborough Players theatre. Over the past month, visual artist Karen Aqua and composer Ken Field also guided seventh graders at Mountain Shadows School in Dublin in the making of an animated film, which they are currently editing. The film will be screened for the public at January’s MacDowell Downtown event.

Varied in artistic discipline and format, each of the 2007 Peterborough Projects — and the artists who created them — has left an indelible mark on the people and places of Peterborough.