(image: Detail of installation entitled "Light" by Amy Stacey Curtis)

Amy Stacey Curtis, an installation artist from Lyman, Maine, is the Maine Arts Commission’s 2005 Individual Artist Fellow For Visual Art and the recipient of three Good Idea Grants. In the year 2000, Curtis set out to install multiple solo-biennial exhibits of specific themes. Each exhibit requires audience perpetuation, comprises large-in-scope interactive works, and takes place in a different Maine community’s vast abandoned space. Curtis has committed to this work to convey that we are part of a whole, that everyone and everything is connected and affects.

Curtis’ biennials have included: RETROSPECTIVE:EXPERIENCE (2000), twelve works installed throughout 25,000 square feet of Lewiston, Maine’s Bates Mill; MOVEMENT (2002), nine works installed throughout 16,000 square feet of Westbrook, Maine’s Old Sebago Shoe Mill; CHANGE (2004), nine works installed throughout 25,000 square feet of Brunswick, Maine’s Fort Andross; and SOUND (2006), nine works installed throughout 26,000 square feet of Waterville, Maine’s Lockwood Mill.

LIGHT runs through October 24, 2008 at the Sanford Mill in Sanford, Maine. Other locations Curtis has installed interactive works include: Grothaus & Pearl in Kansas City, Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, Forest Hills Educational Trust in Boston, Video In Studios in Vancouver, Revolving Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, Art Interactive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Shore Institute of Contemporary Art in Long Branch, New Jersey, Colby College Museum of Art, in Waterville, Maine, and in Toshei Village, Taiwan.

When did you first realize that you were going to be an artist and when did you first start making art?

When I moved to Maine in 1986, I was 16 and interested only in mathematics. At most, I had taken required fundamental art courses. My Maine art teachers moved me into a more advanced class and selected me to attend the student retreat at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts my senior year, where my career path shifted from engineering to visual art. However, I would continue math education in college with statistics and calculus.

Do you have a subject matter that inspires you or defines you as an artist? What makes you stay with it and why are you drawn to it?

While earning my Master's in Art & Psychology at Vermont College, I discovered that chaos, order, and repetition had recurred in my imagery since high school. It wasn't long before I saw the balance or sum of chaos, order, and repetition as a sort of an equation for everything, an archetype for the interconnectedness of all. Through the imagery of what would be my first biennial, I set out to intentionally explore the balance of chaos, order, and repetition, to begin to think about our part in the whole, and how I could convey our interconnectedness to others.

Has your medium changed from when you first started out?

First I completed 81 paintings in exploration of these three themes but felt that in order to connect with audience in a way that would convey how we affect everything and everything affects us, I needed to make work which would at the very least, enter audience’s physical, personal, and collective space, and vice-versa, work which would impact audience, and that audience would impact. Through temporary interactive installation I could create a tactile metaphor about how we have effect on the whole and the whole has effect upon us even if the duration of this impact or influence is momentary. The metaphor depends in part on the audience becoming component of the work and the event itself; the audience completes my creative process, invited to perpetuate, manipulate, and perceive the imagery in specific ways.

Is the process of creating your art long or short?

Each of these solo-biennial exhibits is a 22-month process: 6 months of conceptualization, 12 months of pre-production, administration, etc., 3 months of installation and the exhibit, and a month to organize my documentation. Meanwhile, during the first year, I generate a series of drawings or paintings to support the installation (which is exhibited at June Fitzpatrick Gallery every other year), and during the second year I do a "space campaign," to locate/lobby for a space, which can last 9 months.

How have you handled the business side of being an artist?

I also do all of the advertising, organize art assistants, curate, fund raise, buy insurance, apply for grants, try to get materials donated.

Are you disciplined about your creative process (in other words, do you treat the process like a job, where you keep particular hours in the studio), or are you more spontaneous?

I consider the creative process of making my art, my work (which I do about 6 to 8 hours every day), and my web design business (which I do up to 10 hours a week), my job. Until I could focus more on my imagery, I worked full-time, part-time, and finally only up to 10 hours a week as a graphic designer while honing skills I would use to advertise and administrate my exhibits.

Are you self-trained or did you go to art school?

I graduated from the University of Maine in 1993 with a double-major in studio art and advertising.

What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?

I always tell people interested in pursuing art, that it is good if you have some other kind of job you can do at first until you are established enough as an artist to earn a living making your art. At first, you paint or sculpt or draw, etc. whenever you can, until it is eventually all you do.

What have you been working on lately? Are you experimenting with anything new?

One new thing: I have been drawing and painting for drawing and painting's sake, not necessarily as part of a self-induced theme or quota to raise money for my installation. When my LIGHT biennial is documented on my website (most likely by November), I will also be uploading new drawings and paintings.

Where can we find your work?

Through October 24, you can find Amy's fifth solo biennial, LIGHT, at Sanford Mill, 72 Emery Street, Sanford, Maine. Hours are Monday through Friday, 12:00 to 5:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. You can see and hear documentation of Amy's previous biennials and drawings at www.amystaceycurtis.com. In addition, Amy has some drawings in June Fitzpatrick's portfolios.

Do you have any upcoming shows?

Future biennial exhibits include: TIME (2010), and possibly SPACE (2012), MATTER (2014), and RETROSPECTIVE: MEMORY (2016).

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites

Comments

Add New RSS

freelance artist and adult art teacher Suzette 2009-08-11 09:24:36 Morning, being a kind of recluse in Brownville I have found this site a perfect "pick me up" when getting in touch with the local art scene. Find features about artist such as Amy both inspiring and reassuring. Keep up the great work! Please look over my site at www.suzetteeast.com any advice or comments will be appreciated and I offer my 'experiences" to any artists in need of brainstorming assistance...... networking is a great tool for the home based artist. Bye for now, Suzette

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
UBBCode:	-color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."