Applying Berkshires to a worldwide scale
North Adams Transcript: WILLIAMSTOWN - Williams College professor and artist Michael Glier is taking the artistic lessons of the Berkshires and applying them on a worldwide scale.
Williams professor, artist
Glier's artwork took a turn when he moved from New York City to the Berkshires in the late 1980s. Originally, he worked from other people's photographs, but his move to the country — and signposts of aging such as the birth of his daughter — coincided to during a philosophical change that would transform his artwork as well.
Markedly different from his previous focus, which touched upon male gender roles with a very political presentation, his new paintings drew inspiration from his role as primary caregiver for his daughter and this theme of custodial nurturing seeped into his representations of the natural world around him, as in his series, "Garden Court."
"The garden stuff is more about being the gardener and taking care of things," said Glier, "observing things carefully, and being responsive and improvisational."
Glier delved into nature and its relationship with emotion and time with his Mass MoCA wall drawing "Full Moon on the Hoosic," his series "Backyard," and his mural for Cambridge, "Town Green." Glier is continuing use of the same ideas with his next project, "Longitude."
"I'm doing a yearlong painting that will be many panels," said Glier, "and every day that I have free, I take a walk in the morning, and I take note of the weather, the colors of the day, the palette, I pick stuff up, and I go back to the studio and, working entirely abstractly, I try to record the impression of the day."
Glier's wants to get a sense of how the local palette changes as the earth tilts on its axis. He has completed 15 paintings since October, but Glier hopes to have maybe 48 paintings done in total, from which he will pick the appropriate number to either represent the four seasons or the twelve months. He intends to take the project much further than the Berkshires.
"I want to extend this series to be about a single line of longitude that goes through my studio in Hoosic," said Glier.
"If you go north, you wind up at the Arctic Circle at Bassin Island, so I want to get a studio up there."
Going southward along the same line brings Glier to the eastern most island of the Bahamas and in the rain forest of Ecuador.
"At the arctic circle, there's some sense of a change of season," said Glier, "and at the equator, I don't think there's much sense except for a change in humidity. In the Bahamas, I don't think there's much at all; it's pretty much the same sort of palette all season long. So, I haven't quite figured out if I need to stay in these places for a few months or I need to hop back and forth. Right now, I'm thinking I will spend three months in a place and then go back and spend another three months."
Glier realizes that the "Longitude" project is ironic in a way, hearkening back to the era of men exploring the world, quite in contrast with his previous work challenging male gender roles. However, Glier's role in "Longitude" is also a throwback, but not to the conqueror explorer that immediately comes to mind.
"It's more like the guy who was the cartographer," said Glier, "or like Darwin, who was the naturalist, making observations,
rather than the conqueror who was out there bringing back the spoils. So it's an identification with a different kind of adventurer."
'Longitude'
"Longitude" will function as an extension of his previous work in many ways. Glier has already used the Hoosic River as its own timeline, to tell its own story, and his work for Cambridge "Town Green." Glier approaches nature as its own structure in its own story and "Longitude" is a natural progression.
"I see this piece as being a historical document of what the weather and the palette is at this moment," said Glier,
"and that I expect the plant life and climate to shift dramatically in the next hundred years, so I think it might be interesting to have this visual document. I hope in a way it calls attention to this issue of climate change by taking longitude as a subject and how the climate's going to change along that line."
While Glier is concerned about climate change, he is quick to point out that the intention of the project isn't to raise awareness and save the world — rather, he is working to address our cultural relationship with nature and how that shapes not only how we treat nature, but how we comprehend human interaction with nature as part of a cycle that affects our well-being.
"My attitude is that people have often said with good intentions that we need to save nature," said Glier, "but nature's completely indifferent to us and we're usually not saving nature, we're saving ourselves."
Glier points to the Bible and its statements attributed to God that man has dominion over all the world as a major cultural text that enables self-destruction through the destruction of natural resources.
"It's the text that establishes this really bad relationship with the natural world," said Glier, "and we're reaping the harvest of this really bad idea, so I've been trying to suggest a different text. That's why it's about being sensitive to the context that you are in and realizing that you aren't saving nature, nature's going to go on in some altered form regardless."
In many ways, Glier's efforts hearken back not only to his own earlier work, but to the efforts of historical explorers, who, with their discoveries, often brought the rape of the land and the creatures inhabiting it. In context of his new work, Glier might be best presented as the anti-Christopher Columbus.
"One of the traditional expectations of men is to march forward," said Glier, "and have a very specific agenda and be very forceful, maybe not very emotional but very directed. I think the new work is more about suggesting a role for men that's about being much more responsive, about being much more aware of the context and reactive to the context rather than forcing something upon it."
Williams professor, artist
Glier's artwork took a turn when he moved from New York City to the Berkshires in the late 1980s. Originally, he worked from other people's photographs, but his move to the country — and signposts of aging such as the birth of his daughter — coincided to during a philosophical change that would transform his artwork as well.
Markedly different from his previous focus, which touched upon male gender roles with a very political presentation, his new paintings drew inspiration from his role as primary caregiver for his daughter and this theme of custodial nurturing seeped into his representations of the natural world around him, as in his series, "Garden Court."
"The garden stuff is more about being the gardener and taking care of things," said Glier, "observing things carefully, and being responsive and improvisational."
Glier delved into nature and its relationship with emotion and time with his Mass MoCA wall drawing "Full Moon on the Hoosic," his series "Backyard," and his mural for Cambridge, "Town Green." Glier is continuing use of the same ideas with his next project, "Longitude."
"I'm doing a yearlong painting that will be many panels," said Glier, "and every day that I have free, I take a walk in the morning, and I take note of the weather, the colors of the day, the palette, I pick stuff up, and I go back to the studio and, working entirely abstractly, I try to record the impression of the day."
Glier's wants to get a sense of how the local palette changes as the earth tilts on its axis. He has completed 15 paintings since October, but Glier hopes to have maybe 48 paintings done in total, from which he will pick the appropriate number to either represent the four seasons or the twelve months. He intends to take the project much further than the Berkshires.
"I want to extend this series to be about a single line of longitude that goes through my studio in Hoosic," said Glier.
"If you go north, you wind up at the Arctic Circle at Bassin Island, so I want to get a studio up there."
Going southward along the same line brings Glier to the eastern most island of the Bahamas and in the rain forest of Ecuador.
"At the arctic circle, there's some sense of a change of season," said Glier, "and at the equator, I don't think there's much sense except for a change in humidity. In the Bahamas, I don't think there's much at all; it's pretty much the same sort of palette all season long. So, I haven't quite figured out if I need to stay in these places for a few months or I need to hop back and forth. Right now, I'm thinking I will spend three months in a place and then go back and spend another three months."
Glier realizes that the "Longitude" project is ironic in a way, hearkening back to the era of men exploring the world, quite in contrast with his previous work challenging male gender roles. However, Glier's role in "Longitude" is also a throwback, but not to the conqueror explorer that immediately comes to mind.
"It's more like the guy who was the cartographer," said Glier, "or like Darwin, who was the naturalist, making observations,
rather than the conqueror who was out there bringing back the spoils. So it's an identification with a different kind of adventurer."
'Longitude'
"Longitude" will function as an extension of his previous work in many ways. Glier has already used the Hoosic River as its own timeline, to tell its own story, and his work for Cambridge "Town Green." Glier approaches nature as its own structure in its own story and "Longitude" is a natural progression.
"I see this piece as being a historical document of what the weather and the palette is at this moment," said Glier,
"and that I expect the plant life and climate to shift dramatically in the next hundred years, so I think it might be interesting to have this visual document. I hope in a way it calls attention to this issue of climate change by taking longitude as a subject and how the climate's going to change along that line."
While Glier is concerned about climate change, he is quick to point out that the intention of the project isn't to raise awareness and save the world — rather, he is working to address our cultural relationship with nature and how that shapes not only how we treat nature, but how we comprehend human interaction with nature as part of a cycle that affects our well-being.
"My attitude is that people have often said with good intentions that we need to save nature," said Glier, "but nature's completely indifferent to us and we're usually not saving nature, we're saving ourselves."
Glier points to the Bible and its statements attributed to God that man has dominion over all the world as a major cultural text that enables self-destruction through the destruction of natural resources.
"It's the text that establishes this really bad relationship with the natural world," said Glier, "and we're reaping the harvest of this really bad idea, so I've been trying to suggest a different text. That's why it's about being sensitive to the context that you are in and realizing that you aren't saving nature, nature's going to go on in some altered form regardless."
In many ways, Glier's efforts hearken back not only to his own earlier work, but to the efforts of historical explorers, who, with their discoveries, often brought the rape of the land and the creatures inhabiting it. In context of his new work, Glier might be best presented as the anti-Christopher Columbus.
"One of the traditional expectations of men is to march forward," said Glier, "and have a very specific agenda and be very forceful, maybe not very emotional but very directed. I think the new work is more about suggesting a role for men that's about being much more responsive, about being much more aware of the context and reactive to the context rather than forcing something upon it."
posted by Joshua Field at 2:24 PM
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