For the past two weeks, artist Kitty Wales worked in the window of the Harbor Art Gallery on her residence project “Bare Bones: Anatomy of a Work In Progress” sponsored by Arts on the Point.
The work consisted of brilliant representations of various animals created out of regular, everyday materials: gnarly goats made of shredded car tires stood ground on the gallery floor while a shark made of washing machine and stove skins swam across the wall, and wild cutlery-birds prepared for flight in the corner. Everywhere one looked, nature was abounding in the form of quotidian assemblages.
“I thought it’d be a little strange working in a window front, but it’s been really terrific. I’ve enjoyed it very much,” the artist said of her two-week residence. “It’s been an especially great experience, because they see me working in the window, and they’re curious, so they come in, and perhaps they’ve never been in the [Harbor Art] Gallery before. I’ve had some really interesting conversations about the work, and about my process as an artist.”
Normally artists work in their studios, away from public observation, until their work is ready for presentation. Wales has broken out of this process on behalf of the UMass Boston community, and both the artist and the university are grateful to have been a part of this learning experience.
However, in last week’s Mass Media, there was some incorrect information that was relayed in the article entitled “Katherine Wales Exhibit.” The author accidentally wrote that “each month Arts on the Point plans to bring to the UMB campus…”
Unfortunately this is not true, and Wendy Baring-Gould, Director of Education and Community Outreach for Arts on the Point explained, “We were delighted to expand our programming on campus by sponsoring Kitty Wales’s residency in the Harbor Gallery this semester, and we hope to continue to enrich UMB’s experience of the arts with similar projects in the future. However, monthly projects of this kind are completely beyond the scope of our financial resources at this point. If anyone out there wants to turn over their jackpot winnings though, just let us know -we’d love it!”
And they would, too.
On behalf of the University of Massachusetts Boston, thank you Kitty Wales.