MARIE NAVARRE

We could not have imagined how much joy our artist in residence program would bring.  We are having a GREAT time sharing our home and lives with such wonderful people and amazing creative energy. Our artist for the month of May, Marie Navarre, hails from Tempe, AZ and is a photographer and mixed media artist who creates subtle and intricate assemblages using photographs, paper, and found objects.  Her recent work is informed by her interest in poetry, especially Haiku, and the concepts of time, impermanence, and pure experiencing of the present moment. She uses traditional film and darkroom chemistry but that is were the traditional part ends.  Marie gathers images like other artists gather raw materials--she is not making images in the way other photographers try to catch a magical landscape or defining portrait.  She photographs out of need to do so and never has a subject or final piece in mind. She prints her work on clear 16x20" film.  Piles of contact sheets and hours/days/weeks of staring and shuffling around give birth to magical connections and concepts.  Sometimes photographing, enlarging, and rephotographing is next followed by sewing film to paper and collaging until a piece emerges that translates one sense to another or captures the essence of feeling.

Marie Navarre dream of Buson   film, thread, ink on paper (click to enlarge)

2003 Courtesy Lisa Sette Gallery 

We have only one requirement of our visiting artists and that is that they do something to interact with and share with our local community.  This can take the form of a workshop, gallery show, artist talk, or a public community event. Marie took this on with gusto by offering to do 3 things to share with us here--a workshop for photographers about her process, a beginning Zen meditation workshop, and a mini gallery show and artist talk for a broader audience.

 

Ellen and I met Marie through her work.  We fell in love with one of her pieces--Seeing the Song--at a photo show in 2006 which led us to her gallerist Lisa Sette which led to a wonderful friendship and going to Lisa's wedding and getting to know Marie! 

Marie Navarre  seeing the song 2004 film sewn on paper

The Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale was kind enough to ship 4 of Marie's framed pieces for our little show.  Marie also has three works in progress from her time at Cassilhaus and these along with our piece made a nice show of eight works.

 

 

We learned so much at the workshop.  My appreciation of an artist's work goes up exponentially when I get to hear first hand about their process and inspirations and the stories that come up around specific pieces.

 

 

 

I regret I didn't take any photos at her opening but a great time was had by all. She called the show incurable details which is a fragment of a title of one of her earlier pieces. 

Let us not be accused of being entirely about the visual arts here at Cassilhaus.  Last weekend a small group of us had an orientation to Zen Buddhism and meditated in the gallery followed by walking meditation outside. One of Marie's other lives is as a Buddhist nun and she is deeply involved in the Zen center in Tempe.The energy keeps getting better here!

 
NC is such a change for her from the dessert. She is like a kid with her first camera shooting all the wonderful green trees and the rain storms.  We hope there will be lots of bits of NC showing up in her work in the coming years as she assimilates all she has taken in here. She introduced us to a poem by Wallace Stevens called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and here is a small excerpt:

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

She says she is focusing these days on that moment just after.

Marie is a delight to be with and we have become fast friends.  The month is zooming by and we are taking her to Ocracoke Island, NC this weekend to show her that you actually can see the horizon line in NC.