Portland artist Daniel Minter has many talents: painter, sculptor, illustrator, teacher, community leader. The common thread is his desire to create. “I’ve always considered myself someone who makes things,” he says.

Minter, who is African American, is busy, both as a working artist and illustrator, and as an instructor at Maine College of Art. His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited internationally; his colorful woodcut prints illuminate 11 children’s books (another book, a story about Sojourner Truth, is in the works). He’s also designed two Kwanzaa stamps for the U.S. Postal Service.

But when Minter is not creating art or teaching, he’s an advocate, connecting artists of color and helping preserve the legacy of African-Americans in Maine through his work on the Maine Freedom Trails and the historically significant Abyssinian Meeting House, Maine’s oldest African-American church building, on Portland’s Munjoy Hill.

Fire In the Water

Minter is founding director of the Maine Freedom Trails and the visionary behind the bas relief signage along the Portland Freedom Trail, a walking tour of sites related to the Underground Railroad and the Abolitionist movement. This May, he organized an exhibition called A Distant Holla at the Abyssinian Meeting House, helping bring attention to stalled preservation efforts for the site, an important gathering spot for Portland’s African-American community in the 19th century. The month-long exhibition showcased other works by African-American artists, including David Driskell and Ashley Bryan, ranging from ages 18 to 90.

Bringing together artists of color is the work Minter is most proud of these days. He’s the force behind the Portland-based Black Artist Forum, with particular focus on nurturing and supporting younger artists. “We’re trying to create an artists’ group that can grow and be a resource for artists of color all across Maine,” Minter says. “A Distant Holla was an opportunity to show our art in a context consistent with our own work.”

Waiting for Omolu

Minter, who moved to Maine from Chicago more than a decade ago with his wife and son, also recognizes Portland’s potential as a welcoming community for artists. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to make this a healthy environment for younger artists,” he says. “We need the continuing support of the city and local businesses to support the interests of artists and recognize they’re important to Portland and important to its economy.”

Context and connection are important to Minter. Growing up in Georgia, he was encouraged by a high school art teacher to pursue art in college. He graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta and worked for more than a decade as a graphic designer. He began showing his personal art in the late 1980s, moved to share the context of his cultural experience with others. “It’s my responsibility as an artist to create things for other people in the community just as it is my responsibility as a fine artist to recognize and interpret things I see in the community,” he says.

A pivotal point in Minter’s career was visiting Brazil in the early 1990s, the result of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Minter was already experimenting with images in his art of okra, cotton, and wedding brooms, symbols of the African American experience in the South. He was amazed to discover these same images represented the African and Caribbean experience in South America. “I didn’t realize the significance of the choices I made putting these images in my work,” Minter says. “Brazil gave me context for the spiritual imagery I was searching for and wanted to put into my work.”

Okra

Despite being an African-American artist in a state that’s predominately white, Minter believes the rural aesthetic he employs in his art is similar to that of other Maine artists. “A lot of creativity here is inspired by the natural environment and rural sensibilities and so is my art,” he says. “I don’t see those as so different. The earth is the earth.”

In New England, Daniel Minter’s work can be viewed at Greenhut Galleries in Portland.

Daniel Minter, Artist
Portland, Maine
Website
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Top image, Cotton Trio. All Photos courtesy of Greenhut Galleries.

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I’m a little biased towards this sculpture park and museum – it was a quick drive from where grew up and walking the grounds as a teen was a budget-friendly free. Originally a summer house for visual art enthusiast and merchant Julian de Cordova (1851-1945), it was built in 1910 and made to resemble a European castle. After his death, the house was left to the town on the condition that it be turned into a museum. It appears the first group of trustees took one look at Mr. de Cordova’s own collection and decided to go in another direction, luckily for us. This initial board made a unique and bold decision to become the only museum in the northeast to focus entirely on modern, contemporary, living, New England artists. They opened in 1950 and have been a major collector and exhibitor ever since, officially becoming the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in 2009.

The deCordova’s 4th iteration of it’s biennial this fall is a mix of inside and outside works, taking full advantage of the acres of grounds. This year’s invited artists will be installing work in two locations outside and on two floors of the museum itself, in the Joyce & Edward Linde and Dewey Family Galleries, respectively.

Mike, Fanny, Martin + Maya Ladd, Paris, France, 2014 | Tanja Hollander | archival pigment print | Collection of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum | Gift of Mary, Bill, Elizabeth and Claudia Koch in memory of Cathy England

Take Magazine was excited to see our good friend Tanja Hollander’s name among this year’s invitees. If you haven’t been following along with her ‘Are you really my friend?‘ adventures on social media, you are missing out. This ambitious project has sent our intrepid photographer around the world capturing images of all her facebook friends in their home environments, she’s occupying her digital world. We reached out to see what sort of work she’ll be contributing, “I tried to pull a group that was diverse, class, race, location. But really the best part of being in the show was the great studio visit I had with (Chief Curator) Jennifer Gross.” A perfect way to get a peek of the installation she’ll be ‘posting’ in its entirety at MASS MoCa in spring 2017.

Formwork for Hill House, 2013 | Fritz Horstman | pine, 7x10x2 inches | Courtesy of the Artist

Outside, visitors will have a chance to socialize with Fritz Horstman’s wooden Formwork for a Spiral Movement and Tobias Putrih’s interactive, blocks installation Double Exchange. Both pieces embrace the deCordova’s touch-me criteria and allow guests to become more than just viewers. Putrih himself will host a drop-in workshop on Sept 17th to activate his sculpture.

Artists are displaying works in a variety of mediums inside the galleries. Theresa Ganz and Heather Leigh McPherson will be using both digital and manual techniques, writer Ashley Bryan will be displaying original collages from one of his most celebrated books, All Things Bright and Beautiful, in addition to holding a reading, and Carly Glovinski will be showing her sculptures and facilitating a series of art-making workshops throughout the event. “I’m honored to have been selected for the 2016 Biennial and excited to have the opportunity to be showing new work at this world-class institution. The museum curators and staff have been supportive throughout- from the first studio visits through the installation.”, affirmed Glovinski. Biennials allow a venue to hold multi-faceted exhibits celebrating and restating their focus and purpose and the deCordova is mining its wealth of New England talent with this show. We’ve included a list of all the participating artists below.

The Female Dollar, 2015 | Heather Leigh McPherson | painted chiffon, cast epoxy, drawing pad, lighter | Courtesy of the artist

The Biennial artists are: Academy Records, Ashley Bryan, Lois Dodd, Theresa Ganz, Carly Glovinski, Tanja Hollander, Timothy Horn, Fritz Horstman, Susan Howe, Heather Leigh McPherson, Youjin Moon, Kelly Nipper, Jason Noushin, Tobias Putrih, Cary Smith, and Craig Stockwell.

deCordova New England Biennial 2016
October 7, 2016–March 26, 2017
Lincoln, MA

Top image: Callisto 2014 | Youjin Moon | video, sound | Courtesy of the artist and DM Contemporary, New York, NY

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