Pleased to be one of the Visiting Artists for the MFA program at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tuft University.

The talk will take place on 12/1/23, 12pm at the Mission Hill Campus.

Folks interested in attending should rsvp by emailing kara.howgate_mello@tufts.edu

So delighted to contribute an essay on the archetype of Alchemy to Kari Adelaide’s new book “Enchanted Pedagogies: Archetypes, Magic and Knowledge”. The cover here just landed!

Excited to show new work with a range of local, national, and international artists in the group show, "Unfixed Concrete Ideal", located at Boston City Hall. Opening reception Sat, July 1, from 3-5pm. 

"After Spiritualism: Loss and Transcendence in Contemporary Art", curated by Lisa Crossman at the Fitchburg Art Museum featured the debut of my sculpture, Hummm.

This fantastic exhibition catalogue is just off the shelf and features a lovely essay by Crossman called "After Spiritualism: An Ode to Loss and Empathy," featuring my work.

Here is an excerpt from the essay. The full feature is under Project: Hummm.

"Hummm debuted in After Spiritualism, a context that begs us to consider intangibles like the artist's own body and its stories, the process of psychic transformation, or the residue of trauma that might be embedded in form. Hummm is an expression, an utterance that sends vibration through the body. It is not limited by language, and signals meditation or ritual. As part of the title, it underscores the relationships of bodies to environment, of our psyches to our physical form."

Since 1899, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts has awarded Traveling Fellowships (formerly called Traveling Scholarships) to select alumni. As one of the largest endowed art school grant programs in the country, the Traveling Fellowship program provides funds for artists to further develop and inform their practice. Each September, SMFA at Tufts awards ten Traveling Fellowships to selected alumni. Fellows receive up to $10,000 to pursue travel and research related to their art.

Ivy plans are to travel in Ireland and Scotland in summer 2020, to research Ecofeminism and pre-Christian Celtic mythology.

NOTE: Travel for this fellowship has been postponed till 2022

February 8th – September 6; Fitchburg Art Museum, 185 Elm St., Fitchburg, MA 01420
fitchburgartmuseum.org

The group exhibition After Spiritualism offers an occasion to reflect on personal and shared losses through varied contemporary art practices. The works on view materialize trauma and mourning, at times confronting historical conflicts and seeking to overcome long-standing divisions. The exhibition is inspired by Spiritualism’s aim to connect the living with the dead for comfort, guidance, and enlightenment

More Dusk Than Moth engages with folkloric and two-fold speculative notions of nocturnal and non-nocturnal rhythms, human and non-human creatures, dream-like imaginings and recordings of the earth and its inhabitants at dusk. Moths are known to feed intensely, including on lichen, pine needles, rotting fruit, nectar, tree sap and even on the tears of sleeping birds. They are devoured by Renfield as supernatural snacks, in Bram Stoker's Dracula. In Cornwall fairy lore, small white moths seen at dusk were thought of as pixies, fairy troops, or of the souls of the departed. Moths have nocturnal reputations, but not all bandy about in dusk and darkness... some are day fliers (such as the Black-and-Yellow Lichen Moth and the Three-Banded Fairy Moth), and others are quite particular about their preferred flight times, as the Peterson Guide notes of the Promethea Moth: "You can find the males flying in late afternoon and the females at night. Mating takes place at dusk." Moths are an archetype of attraction, pining after lights, flowers, fermentation, or pheromones. Moths' names transcend taxonomy to realms of stories and myth, with associations to the animal kingdom, plant world, or other worlds altogether, such as planetary moons and realms of magical creatures. Aptly named after witches, comets, fruits, gypsies, and minor deities (i.e. the Sphinx moth, the Io moth, the Gold-spotted Ghost moth, and the Black Witch moth), moths carry mythopoetic enchantment, touching upon how nature can be spiritualized in the psyche, inspiring an ode to dusk, transcendental traversals and mythopoetic storytelling. Seed packets with Evening Primrose, a native flower which blooms at dusk and releases its scent at night, will be freely given out throughout the show.