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Artist Statement:
I "paint" a landscape with
rocks collected from that
landscape.” She hunts,
gathers, sorts, crushes and
then glues these finds onto a
two-dimensional surface. She
searches for the colors of the
spectrum in every location, as
a base for her pallette. The
works range from index card
sizes to mural installations.
. Some paintings are actual
re-creations of the landscape;
others are topographical
representations of the geology
where she hunts and gathers.
Maps, if you will, a hawks'
eye view. Recent works are
spiritual in nature. ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
Black Bridge Bakery, Mexico ME
USA
"Biennale Internazionalle
Dell' Arte Contemporanea"
taking place in Florence,
Italy at the Fortezza da Basso
6-14 December 2003 extends a
formal invitation to -amb
alice mckay barnett to
participate as an exhibiting
artist representing your
country, the United States of
America. *
*The artist...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
EXHIBITS
Dixfield Ludden Memorial
Library, over 30 new
paintings, the beach series
of Pyramid, Lake, Lake Tahoe,
Donner Lake, Nevada, USA,
Maine beaches, Androscoggin
River, Swift River - Winter
2002-3
Route <2 Dixfield, ME, USA
· Annually, as solo artist,
over 20 new paintings each
show;
University of Maine
Rumford/Mexico...
Further Information
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Stephen King, Maine, USA
Bangor Savings Bank, Dixfield,
ME USA
Smartcare Physical Therapy,
Dixfield, ME USA
Dr. Bretz , Rumford, ME USA...
Further Information
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Reviews for Alice Mckay Barnett:
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Alice Kay Barnett paints with rocks. Glossy purple ones, slate blue ones, rosy pink ones, rusty-colored ones—the hues in her gravel palette could fill the page. She’s dug them up or chipped them off boulders all over Maine, affixing them to her canvas with a mix of corn starch, acrylic floor paint finish and Elmer’s glue to produce creative, and weighty, works of art. The rocks are arranged in patterns across her canvas, mimicking the landscape of the region she’s trying to depict, the jagged edges all vying for attention. “It’s too pretty not to paint with it,” she said from her new Main Street studio, explaining away her unusual choice of raw material.
Panels of crushed rocks of every shade line her walls—the efforts of her senior project at the University of Maine at Augusta. Plastic bags and glass plates, each holding elements for an awaiting project, fill every shelf in the room. Some have been crushed to fine dust, “sugar,” she calls it, and others just to misshapen lumps. They appear pretty lifeless and ordinary until Barnett gets her hands on them.
Her paintings to date have been geological representations of different parts of Maine. In a piece depicting western Maine that she presented to Gov. Angus King last summer, Barnett circled Carrabassett Valley, Fryeburg, Livermore Falls and points in between collecting samples of local rocks, laying them out on her canvas according to location. It’s a process she’s dubbed “Stop, chop, bring it home, bag it, tag it and smash it,” and eventually, glue it.
For another painting, she took the pains to measure each rock’s angle with the earth before disturbing it, gluing it onto her canvas in the same direction the original grain lay, and true to the original angles.
“I’m an artist, I get away with details,” she said.
She and her family trek across fields, mountains and forests in the summer following a 1945 U.S. Geological Survey map of mineral dikes and veins, finding new paint to work with. She cares more about color then gem quality, Barnett said, so far limiting her palette to this state.
“I’m sticking with Maine right now because it gets too complicated to get into the world.”
Since each painting takes about a year, and she’s only been at it five, her works so far are limited. She’s done one “1 percent for art” job at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and has another hanging at Dirigo High School, both celebrating the areas’ rock formations. She’ll have gallery showings this summer at Harlow Art Gallery in Hallowell and Jewett Hall at UMA.
And with her new studio, Barnett’s given the public a chance to watch her in action.
She opened over the holidays for her brother, Timothy McKay, agreeing to run the shop if she could use the other half. He’s a start-up engineer for a worldwide smelting operation, stocking the store with gems he buys directly from mines. The polished jewels in the wooden case stand in sharp contrast to Barnett’s own rough work just feet away.
She preps her work area by laying a sheet of old newspaper on the floor and setting a large, flat rock on top.
On this day, she grabbed one of her daughter’s outgrown tie-dye T-shirts, folded a greenish-silver chunk of tourmaline inside and set it on the rock for demolition. After a few quick slugs to the mound with her hammer, she peeled back the T-shirt for a look. It’s not quite what she was hoping to find inside, but, she said, one never can tell. She hit the rock a few more times for good measure.
In all her pounding, she’s slammed her fingers just once. She’s a pretty quick learner, she said, laughing. Barnett said she’s also learned e-commerce will be the way to go with her paintings in the future. She’s hoping 95 percent of her sales will come over the Internet.
“It helps us remote western Mainers have a future.” And she’d love to make her living selling the world’s oldest stuff in cyberspace. “I think it’s a cool concept,” Barnett said.
Up next for her are a painting of Tumbledown Mountain in Mt. Blue State Park and a series of panels on her commutes to Farmington and Augusta. During each car ride, she’ll pull over half a dozen times along the trip and whack off pieces of rock from alongside the road. She won’t be looking for color, she said, just accuracy.
Still, she sometimes wishes she wasn’t a stickler for accuracy. There’s one color she’d love to find more of in her paintings.
“I’m having a hard time with blue in Maine,” Barnett said.
“So one time, I said, if all my skies are clouds and gray, it’s not because I’m depressed. It’s because Maine doesn’t have any blue.”
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