+++Sountrack to the Ant Girls exhibition Ant Farm out now on LP!!!!!

Elliott Schwartz & Big Blood - Ant Farm 

Released by Feeding Tube Records   

Get it HERE 

or

 HERE

LP Edition of 300. Numbered.

Soundtrack to the exhibition "Ant Farm:At the Nexus of Art & Science" by Rebecca Goodale, Colleen Kinsella, Vivien Russe & Dorothy Schwartz.
Review by Byron Coley

An incredible album of music, conjoining two different sonic aspects of Maine’s Strangeness. Big Blood are well known to fanciers of contemporary sub-underground sounds. The duo of Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin have been conjuring up rural-experimental ghosts for over a decade. Feeding Tube has previously released their double LP set, Radio Valkyrie (FTR 103) to rapturous acclaim. Their music embodies the mysteries of the deep woods better than any othe artist we can name.
Elliott Schwartz, meanwhile, has been composing and playing brilliant (often keyboard based) music for decades. His 1973 duo album with saxophonist Marion Brown (released by Bowdoin College, where he has been based for many years), is often cited as one of the primest examples of a free jazz/avant classical hybrid. And all of his records are quite killer.
This LP came together as the soundtrack for an exhibit called Ant Farm, organized to showcase the work of Maine-based art quartet, The Ant Girls. This visual arts group included Ms. Kinsella and the late Dorothy “Deedee” Schwartz in its ranks, so it’s perhaps is this collab less surprising than it might initially appear.
But surprising or not, the work is an incredible syncretic fusion. Although there are certain instrumental parts we might ascribe to one artist or the other, as the music unwinds these divisions melt and become all-but-imaginary. The blend of Big Blood’s psych-tinged free-folk improvisations and Schwartz’s aleatory work on keys and percussion is a ver righteous blast.
300 numbered copies exist on our planet. Don’t delay.

!!Ant Farm iBOOK!! Download for Free

If you have an apple computer, iphone, or ipad you can now download for free our Ant Farm exhibition catalogue. Please tell everyone you know!
Go here

This was made possible by Brynmorgen Press and Rebecca Goodale. 

Ant Girl Rebecca Goodale selected as the MCA Master Craft Artist Award!!

The Maine Crafts Association Announces the MCA 2015 Master Craft Artist Award Recipients: Rebecca Goodale, Book Artist, Arts Administrator and Educator; and  Sam Shaw, Jeweler and Sculptor, Craft Community Advocate and Leader. Join the celebration: Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Friday May 15th, 7:00pm The Maine Crafts Association (MCA), a statewide non-profit organization promoting the work of Maine's craft artists, has named book artist Rebecca Goodale of Freeport, Maine and jeweler Sam Shaw of Northeast Harbor, Maine and as the 2015 recipients of the MCA Master Craft Artist Award.  Recipients are selected for demonstrating excellence in craftsmanship, inspired design, a singular voice or style, and a career of service to the field. Rebecca Goodale, Book Artist, Arts Administrator and Educator The 2015 MCA Master Craft Award process began with nominations submitted from past award recipients. The 2015 recipients were selected by Carl Little, a writer, expert, administrator and advocate of art and craft in Maine and recipient of the 2009 MCA Craft Award awarded to supporters of craft in Maine. REBECCA GOODALE Rebecca Goodale has been creating innovative and sublimely-made artist's books for many years and frequently does collaborative work with other artists as well as public art installations. In addition to being artistically active, she is the program coordinator for the Kate Cheney Chappell '83 Center for Book Arts at the University of Southern Maine, where she inspires artists at all levels. Goodale's books can be found in many institutional collections, including the Bowdoin College Library, the Maine Women Writers Collection, Library of Ilex laevigata (male and female), 2013, screen printed interlocking artist's book, edition of 3 Congress, Portland Museum of Art, State Art Museum of Hawai'i, and the Fogg Museum Fine Art Library, Harvard University. Her awards include a New Forms Regional Initiative Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts and a Mellon Grant for the Humanities at Bates College. In 1995 she was a Resident Scholar for the Island Institute in Sitka, Alaska. Goodale teaches design and book arts for the USM Art Department.  Goodale's current body of work consists of a series of artist's books about the more than 200 plants and nearly 50 animals currently listed as threatened or endangered by the State of Maine. Her intention is not to become a scientific illustrator; instead, Goodale wants to inspire sensitivity for these rare flora and fauna by using her background in book arts and textile design to interpret color, pattern, rhythm, and transition.

Ant Girls Roundup: OCTOBER 4th Ant Farm at L.C. Bates Museum Hinkley,Maine and Rebecca Goodale solo exhibition

L.C. Bates Museum is hosting part of the ANT Farm exhibition by us Ant Girls. 
Opening on October 4 with a family program.
The exhibition runs through Dec. 14. 

                        

   Below are photos from our trip to the 

L.C. Bates Museum with Deedee Schwartz in 2014.

Also...

Threatened and Endangered Artist's books 

by 

Rebecca Goodale

Solo show at Bowdoin Library, 2nd floor  Sept. 1 -Dec. 23

October 28, 7:00 PM She will be giving a talk about her work at the Kresge Auditorium at the Bowdoin Visual Arts Center with an exhibition reception to follow. 

Bug-Maineia Photos of Vivien Russe and Mary Hart at the Maine State Museum

 Ant Girl Vivien Russe and honorary Ant Girl Mary Hart(who assisted us in making the giant Ant scrolls for our Ant Farm exhibition last April), worked all day long at BUG -Maineia, a project that merged art and science at the Maine State Museum on Sept. 13th!  
Parents, teachers and kids were very involved and enthusiastic. Participants use pre-made Ant Girl stamps to make a new scroll of leafcutter ants.  Mary Hart was a champ not only providing materials, good ideas and a lot of enthusiasm.  Mary had the good idea of take-away index cards(see below). Thank you to Vivian and Mary Hart for their hard work!

The Bug Maine-ia project helped create a new ant scroll!

 

SEPT. 10th Ant Girl Vivien Russe at BUG-MAINE-ia + Maine State Museum 9am -3pm

SEPT. 10th  9am -3pm

Ant Girl Vivien Russe at BUG-MAINE-ia 

+ Maine State Museum in Augusta

 Don't miss out on Vivien Russe's workshop on leaf cutter ants.

Click here for questions and directions.

 

The leaf cutter ants and humans are two species that are farmers. The leaf cutter ants cut leaves and carry them back to the colony to be used as a substrate to grow a fungus that is the food source for the colony.

At Bug-Maine-ia, kids can participate in making an ant scroll to capture this activity. Using soft block images of ants, they will print a column of ants on a long roll of paper and will then attach the leaf fragments to each ant. At the end of the day, the scroll will show just how busy these ants and these kids can be.

A similar activity was done by Ant Girls of Maine, as part of Ant Farm; at the nexus of Art and Science, a multimedia installation supported by the Maine Arts Commission.

Portland Phoenix gives us a good review....

Keep your hands dirty - Museum And Gallery

			Keep your hands dirty - Museum And Gallery Ant Girls dig up a monolithic statement
			View onportland.thephoenix.com	Preview by Yahoo

No Sad Songs + Dorothy Schwartz 1938 - 2014

   Friends and family are mourning the loss of our beloved Ant Sister Deedee Schwartz who passed away on March 3, 2014. The Ant Farm Project is a testament to her love of life. We began meeting 2 years ago thanks to Rebecca Goodale. At Deedee's suggestion we looked to E.O Wilson and the leafcutter ants because of their cooperative nature as a Superorganism. Working together ant-style our colony of 4 created works we never could have imagined or achieved on our own. Deedee worked with infectious enthusiasm, making beautiful woodcuts(see below) and co authoring a A MAC Artists in Commuinity grant with our honorary Ant Girl USM Curator Robyn Holman which we received in February 2014.
  Deedee had been sick since mid November but with her indomitable spirit continued, despite severe pain, to attend work meetings for our project. 
She died peacefully within days, surrounded by her loving family. We are all grateful for knowing Dorothy "Deedee" Schwartz. She was a force of nature. 
Her creative spirit was boundless, compassionate, intelligent and irreplaceable.
   Deedee and her husband, avant garde composer Elliott Schwartz were a creative team. They supported each others individual endeavors and  collaborated on "Darwin's Dream", 
a multi- media performance. Elliott will be composing "Ant Girls" with Caleb Mulkerin for the upcoming exhibit. She made it clear she wanted “No Sad Songs”, feeling she had lived a very full life, with so much joy. Dorothy was a champion of  literature & literacy. She established the Harriet P. Henry Maine Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress. A quote from a collague during her time as Executive Directeor at the Maine Humanities Council, " Deedee’s energy, commitment and vision enriched not only the Council, but the state of Maine.
 This past October in 2013 the Maine Jewish Museum held her solo exhibition "Dorothy Schwartz: Evolution of a Printmaker" , beginning from her days with Leonard Baskin  in 1958 until present . Printmakers everywhere have lost a edgy contemporary whose elegant and compelling  legacy spans 7 decades.