The title for Abba Cudney’s group show, Things I Have No Words For, could not be more appropriate. Even before Cudney graduated from the New Hampshire Institute of Art, she had always been keen on exploring the concept of memory, something she quite didn’t have the words for.

The prints that Cudney will include in this show are ones she started in her senior year in Manchester. Most of them are scenes of the interiors of homes and fit the theme of the show really well, says the visual artist who now makes her home in Providence, Rhode Island. “These prints allowed me to think of the theme in a new way and to primarily explore the meaning of memory of a space whether it was lived in or I frequented.”

Suddenly Everything Has Changed, Part One.

In her artist statement Cudney says that she is “attracted to documenting specific moments in time within an interior space. Not only the moments themselves, but also the essence. I am able to decide what is important to me, and what can be left abstractly for the viewer to interpret.” It is important, Cudney says, for all art to have a level of relatability, and she is delighted that her paintings and prints of rooms and interiors resonate with her viewers. “It might be a specific bedroom, but I was glad that people are relating to it in their own way,” Cudney says. “My biggest goal is to focus on memory and to capture the fleeting moment of memory that spaces can bring.”

Cudney says that bathrooms and kitchens especially lend themselves well to juxtapositions, as bathrooms are the most private of places, while kitchens are for communal gatherings. “It really struck me when I moved into my first apartment while I was at school and it was an epicenter where everyone gathered, always a mess,” she says. ‘It’s also this idea of sharing a space that I wanted to explore especially as I am starting to make my own idea of home.”

Calm and Contemplation Part 2

Cudney works as an assistant at the Providence Art Club and also teaches printmaking there. Despite being a recent graduate and a young artist, the concept of nostalgia resonates deeply with her. In her work, Cudney says, “remnants of the under painting and spray paint reveal themselves as if past and present are meeting.” It jives well with the idea of moving into a new place. “I started to think what happens when people repaint a wall or put up their own objects,” she says. “It’s sort of like covering up the past and that idea was spinning in my idea for a while — this concept of past and present and memory and what that all means.”

Abba Cudney
Providence, Rhode Island
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Top image: Craft Night (cropped). All photos courtesy of Abba Cudney.

The post Home Sweet Home appeared first on Take Magazine.

Take is going on the road, checking out New England’s corners for everything from the best bodegas to tiny galleries and music spots. We’ll be adding towns as we come across them. Check back regularly for the latest New England finds. Up next? Elm Street in Manchester, New Hampshire. 

Northern New England’s largest city was named by merchant and inventor Samuel Blodget after the industrial city in England and soon became “Manchester in America.” Incorporated as a company town in 1846 under the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company, the city soon became a giant in industrial mill towns.

Today, the city’s main thoroughfare, Elm Street, is one of the longest in the world that dead ends on both sides. And in between, right around City Hall, exists a thriving downtown, given new energy by the expansion of the New Hampshire Institute of Art and the large Southern New Hampshire University campus.

And the best news? The city just signed up for a downtown bike rental program, So, now you can visit these five finds in Manchester, New Hampshire, from the comfort of a touring bike on your next visit:

Vivace Sculpture
Location: In front of SNHU Arena, 555 Elm Street

You can’t miss Vivace! Constructed by the husband and wife artist team of Jonathan and Evelyn Clowes of Walpole, N.H. Vivace’s bold shimmering green, like a giant blade of grass, shoots straight up from a hill near the arena. Since its installation, it’s become quite the meeting spot, or just a nice place for a nap in the grass.

Studio 550 Art Center
550 Elm Street

Studio 550, located in an old renovation red stone, has become an art community, bringing together local artists, photographers, sculptures and kids with a series of classes and shows. Among the events: a pie competition, a chalk art day and a teen art camp.

Milk and Honey Juicery and Cafe
889 Elm Street

For a working class mill town, the opening of a vegetarian juice bar right across the street from City Hall has been a pleasant addition to Elm Street. The items are named after colors of the rainbow with a different color menu sample featured every day. Vegan friendly too!

USA Chicken and Biscuit
990 Elm Street

Sometimes, you just need chicken wings at midnight and if you are in Manchester the family-owned USA Chicken and Biscuit is the place to go. Fresh, clean and usually crowded, this is the place to go for all things fried!

Veterans’ Memorial Park
723 Elm Street.

Manchester’s main downtown park has existed for as long as the city. Stop by to relax and watch the world go by or check out the enormous Civil War monument, sculpted by famous memorial artist Caspar Buberl in 1878. Intown Manchester also holds a series of Thursday and Saturday concerts under the big yellow tent during summer.

The post Five Finds on Elm Street in Manchester, NH appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a tiny village in Crete, photographer and New Hampshire Artist Laureate Gary Samson was walking past a dark doorway when he saw something that stopped him in his tracks. A man, a villager, was sitting by the window in a black shirt. The sun was illuminating the side of the man’s face. “I had to photograph him,” Samson says. “He didn’t know much English and I didn’t know Greek, but he nodded his head, and so I took some shots.”

Samson pauses while recalling the story. “After, I could tell he was pleased.” It’s not easy pulling art out of portraiture, but Samson, 66, has made a career out of it. He’s been taking pictures since he was a teenager. Just last month, he retired as the chair of the photography department at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, a position he held for 16 years. And for the past six years, Samson has traveled to Greece with photography students, in a whirlwind teaching experience that has been the centerpiece of his hands-on approach to the art of the camera.

Greece, photo by Gary Samson

During his trips, students take between 2,000 and 4,000 photos on a variety of subjects like architecture, graffiti, culture, and portraits. And in the end, Samson works closely with them to produce a book of each student’s work. This approach, according to Samson, allows him to become familiar with each student, to draw out their talents, to make photography personal.

Greece, photo by Gary Samson

That’s much the same approach he’s used for the subjects in his portraits. His work is expressive, and sometimes even startling in how close and personal his subjects are in his photos. “If I do a portrait, I have to talk to you to draw you out, maybe even come to your home or work. I want to get to the real person,” he says. “It can be an intimate project. With a portrait, I’m trying to connect to something that transcends language.”

Samson was born and raised in Manchester, the son of French-Canadian parents that named him after film star Gary Cooper because they wanted him to have an American sounding name. Besides his work as a photographer, Samson has also produced and filmed several documentaries about his native city and New Hampshire.

Growing up in an old mill town, Samson credits the work of Lewis Hine, who took pictures of child labor in the mills, or the great Lotte Jacobi, who lived in New Hampshire and became Samson’s mentor and friend, for inspiring and encouraging him as he pursued his craft. Now that he’s retired, Samson plans on focusing his work on laureate projects, which includes some upcoming shows and continuing to take students to Greece.

But mostly, Samson is interested in being a role model for artists just beginning to learn their trade. “The idea is that if you look at the world through the eyes of a child, everything seems fresh and new,” he says. “I’ve been able to be excited about my art, have never felt jaded. I want to continue to bring that to students.”

Gary Samson – NH Artist Laureate
Manchester, New Hampshire
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Top image, October, New Orleans, photo by Gary Samson

The post The Soul of a Subject appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a dusty mill building on the outskirts of downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, urban artist James Chase and an intern are struggling to hoist the massive iron frame of an old printing press onto a rolling flatbed cart. They are working late, with plans of cleaning and reassembling the device. Chase does not have letter blocks, but he hopes to use the press to roll out posters, or maybe even give his students a taste of turn-of-the-last-century printing techniques.

“I got word of a guy who owned a pizza shop who had this in his basement,” Chase says. “That happens a lot—somebody will show up at my door with old stuff, building material.” He pauses. “Junk!”

Chase’s specialty is found art. He takes old slats, bricks, or burned wood, and re-purposes the objects into colorful, modern installations. Then, those pieces can be fitted up in a location or at a pop-up exhibit, sometimes in site-specific installations like the one Chase once built on the grounds of a recently burned building.

Flux, photo courtesy of James Chase

The result is what he calls “art in the moment.” “That’s what gives the art life and energy, to not be in the vacuum of a museum, to never know how long it’s going to last,” he says.

To that end, his most recent installation, called Surge, is an enormous modernist mural painted directly onto the roll down gate of an old mill building just a few blocks from his studio. Against the drab red brick of the building, the mural pops like a sunflower in a parking lot. Chase, 35, was born and raised in Manchester and used to skateboard as a kid around that section of the city’s Millyard. Now, Chase believes that art, as temporary as it might be, can be a form of economic development, a way to breathe life into a depressed neighborhood.

James Chase in front of “Surge,” Manchester, New Hampshire, photo by Ashlyn McKibben

“That’s why it’s called Surge,” he says. “Art is about energy, and that space needed it!”
Chase is currently working with officials in Rochester, New Hampshire, to create a mural series for that city’s downtown. He sits on the board of the Rochester Museum of Fine Arts and is convinced of the project’s promise to revitalize the city. “The art is there so they come have dinner or drinks, take in the murals or catch a pop-up,” he says.

Placeholders, photo courtesy of James Chase

Chase also works in the art departments of Manchester Community College and the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and takes a similar hands-on approach when it comes to teaching his students, offering them volunteer opportunities, exhibitions, and art exchanges.

His own love for art developed when he was in high school in the city he now calls home. “I was a quiet, shy kid,” he says. “That’s why I took every art class I could. It gave me support and a foundation. Art was the way to get my voice heard. Still is.”

James Chase – Mixed Media Artist / Printmaker
Manchester, New Hampshire
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Top image by Dan Szczesny

The post Now You See the Art; Now You Don’t appeared first on Take Magazine.

Amidst a troubling political climate and what seems to be an upheaval of social progress, it’s important we turn to art for expression, solace, and social advocacy. New Hampshire Institute of Art is heading in the right direction by adding a new minor in the comic arts. The harmonious coming together of the Institute’s strong illustration and creative writing departments will fuel the new minor, which will be available in the Fall 2017 semester, to build on an art form and community of storytellers as ancient as cave paintings.

NHIA student using a Cintiq pad | Photo courtesy of NHIA

Comic art is already an essential part of NHIA. Adding the new minor–which will merge relevant courses to arrange a curriculum of preexisting courses including Comics and Global Media, Graphic Novel Writing, Intro to Fiction, and Intro to Illustration—is a natural outgrowth. The facilities boast state-of-the-art technology that runs the gamut of students’ comic-making needs. Upon entering the program, each student is supplied a Macbook with Adobe Creative Suite and full access to the Institute’s digital media Cintiq lab, which houses 27 QHD Cintiq pads, a top-of-the-line technology that allows students to transform their drawings fluidly onto a digital format. A screen-printing studio and letterpress shop contribute to the needs of students to print and construct handmade books. Students will become fluent in every step of the process of comic art production, affording them the confidence they need to forge their own path in the field.

Self portrait #art #artist #blacklivesmatter #blm | Photo via Joel Christian Gill’s Instagram

This initiative was prompted by comic artist, Joel Christian Gill, among other staff members. Originally from Roanoke, VA, Gill received his MFA from Boston University and later planted roots in New Hampshire, where he has established himself as a raconteur of black history through his published works. Initially, Gill tried to share his stories through painting; but the medium of comic art, which he calls his first love, proved to be the proper stage for his artistic story-spinning. In May, 2014, Gill published Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History, a collection of illustrated vignettes detailing the true stories of black heroes you never read about in your Euro-American-skewed history books. “A lot of the stories in Strange Fruit were from New England,” says Gill of his first graphic novel. “The Shame about Malaga Island, Richard Potter’s Greatest Illusion, and the Noyes Academy to name a few. There is a rich untapped vein of black history stories in New England.”

Strange Fruit vol 2 cover #wip | Photo via Joel Christian Gill’s Instagram

His subsequent works, Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, no.1, published in the Fall of 2014, and the recent graphic novel Bessie Stringfield: Tales of the Talented Tenth, no. 2, have cemented his role as an advocate for black history through an art form with a massive, ever-growing following.”Comics have a tendency to reach a larger group of people with a disarming quality,” explains Gill. “They work on a very symbolic level, which connects to an understanding of how we communicate.” It’s not surprising, then, that Gill considers it the perfect art form to teach on a larger scale at NHIA: “Comics are an important aspect of expression and furthers our goals fostering modes of expression for incoming students.”

In the year to come, Gill plans on completing Strange Fruit, Volume II, which he says will provide additional meaning to the stories in Volume I. “My work will continue to ask questions that I’ve always been asking,” he says. “I will be moving forward with these ideas about what it all means now that we’ve had a black president. Strange Fruit, Volume II will be about why the stories are important, rather than just telling the stories.”

NHIA students working in screen printing studio | Photo courtesy of NHIA

Joel Christian Gill – comic artist and educator
Manchester, New Hampshire
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NHIA – New Hampshire Institute of Art
Manchester, New Hampshire
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Top photo courtesy NHIA

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