NEW EXHIBIT
NEW EXHIBIT
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS OF THE DALVERO ACADEMY: MICHELE BEDIGIAN, SUE BUROKER, ALEX CHARNER, SARA DILIPLANE, CHRISTINE FOLTZER, AUDREY HAWKINS, LABENIDA HUI, MARGARET HURST, APRIL KELLY, JEN KIAMZON, VERONICA LAWLOR, ROSA LEE, SI YEON LEE, BILL MARTIN, DANIELLE MCMANUS, NATHANIEL MILLER, KATI NAWROCKI, EDDIE PENA, TODD RAWSON, DOMINICK SANTISE, JEANETTE SIMMONS, JULIA SVERCHUK, EVAN TURK, AND LAURA VILA.
By AUDREY HAWKINS first saw the Charles W. Morgan on a cold Saturday in January 2009. Coming from what seemed to be a much warmer New York, I was shivering under layers of wool. I was struck by Mystic Seaport’s muted colors in the snow. But I was not prepared for the sight of the Morgan in drydock, and her height towering over me. Although I knew she had been used to hunt whales, she seemed like a whale herself, come ashore, tangled in scaffolding. This was the impression I tried to communicate in my first drawings of the Morgan. I was at the Museum for a weekend of reportage drawing with the Dalvero Academy, a school for drawing, illustration, design, and photography in Brooklyn, N.Y. Veronica Lawlor and Margaret Hurst, the school’s founders and instructors, often
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take the Dalvero artists on trips around the city and to locations in Florida, San Francisco, even Paris. Reportage drawing is a cornerstone of the school. We constantly practice drawing out in the world because in real life, people do not sit still for you. They amble, run, sing, or in pairs and groups, laugh, fight, kiss, and everything in between. Besides being excellent drawing practice, reportage can result in a document conveying a scene from the artist’s viewpoint. Drawing in the city, we have become inured to curious onlookers and vicissitudes of weather from 90-degree heat to torrential rains. At Mystic that January, it was so cold the ink froze onto the page. Prepared to use every circumstance, many of the artists used the texture of frozen ink to their advantage. Veronica and Margaret brought us to Mystic Seaport for the history and the romance.
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tion Shipyard. When he saw Veronica and Margaret in the café, he asked them what they were doing. After giving him an explanation, Veronica recalls that he said that the Museum was restoring the Morgan, the only wooden whaleship left in America. Veronica said, “Wow, we would love to document that!” And Quentin replied, “We would love you to do that! Maybe we could have a little exhibit of some of the drawings.” The Morgan was a perfect reportage subject with enormous potential for illustration exploring a dizzying array of viewpoints: economic, historical, social,
ecological, mythical, personal. After our first visit, we came regularly, chronicling the restoration through drawing. At each visit, Quentin provided us with access to the interior of the vessel. Inside the echoing hull, he told us about the restoration, answering our questions and sharing his enthusiasm for the whaleship and his craft. Aside from reportaging the work on the Morgan, we were also hard at work on our own projects on subjects as varied as textiles, shipbuilding, and 19th-century homemaking — all threads that we followed from the ship to the wider world around it. For my part, I drew the Shipsmith Shop, the Mystic Print Shop, and, of course, the Morgan, looking for connections between the three. After each trip, our work proliferated until our small New
York apartments were bursting. No one knew if a show was in the cards, but we kept working for the love of it, because that is what we do. Naturally, we hoped. In June 2010, Veronica and Margaret assembled a portfolio of our projects, mainly to show Quentin what we had been doing. When Susan Funk, executive vice president, stopped by, Veronica and Margaret shared the portfolio with her. Susan loved the work and invited them to present it to the Museum Board. With the Board’s blessing, and the tireless work of Jonathan Shay, director of Exhibits, an exhibit of our work became a reality last spring. The opening of the show, “Restoring a Past, Charting a Future – An Artistic Discovery of America’s Whaling Legacy,” on May 19, was the culmina-
tion of more than two years of work. I do not think I was alone that night in feeling elated. More than that, I am grateful to my instructors and Mystic Seaport. The Museum gave us incredible access to knowledge, information, and stories that inspired us to communicate through art, which is the essence of illustration. They also embraced us and our work, and gave us a place on their walls to share that work with the Museum’s members, visitors, and staff. For more information about this exhibit, which is located on the second floor in the Stillman Building, and to view some of the art work, please visit www.mysticseaport.org/dalvero. The exhibit will stay open through the summer of 2013.
ARTWORK BY MARGARET HURST ARTWORK BY APRIL KELLY
Veronica envisioned “white swirls with the black masts sticking up, and small New England style buildings dotted around the property.” While trying to capture that romance in our drawings, we gleaned all the information we could from the exhibits and the knowledgeable staff. Our instructors assigned projects ranging from editorial illustrations to animation storyboards. They also encouraged us to follow our own ideas and to build projects around them. The assignments hone our illustration skills, and the personal
projects keep our own interests at the heart of our work. We must have stood out in the eyes of the Museum staff. We fanned out over the grounds, reading through the exhibits, making notes and drawings for posters, stamps, books, and animations. We did not act like regular tourists. We lingered in the snow, drawing and peppered the staff with questions, follow-up questions, and yet more questions. We were conspicuous at least to Quentin Snediker, director of the Henry B. duPont Preserva-
ARTWORK BY SUSAN BUROKER (BELOW)
Audrey Hawkins is one of the 24 artists of the Dalvero Academy.
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