Save the Date: For Mildred's Sake!

Save the Date

Saturday, December 2, 2023

6:30-8:30pm

Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn

177 N 9th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Details, including participating artists and how to purchase tickets will be announced soon. Stay tuned!

The Labor Portraits in conversation with The Maslow Collection

The Labor Portraits of Mildred's Lane
J. Morgan Puett, Jeffrey Jenkins, Rebecca Purcell
and Fellows* of Mildred's Lane
in conversation with
The Maslow Collection*
The Maslow Study Gallery for Contemporary Art
at
Marywood University / Scranton, Pennsylvania

WORKSTYLES* of Mildred's Lane
Artist Talk / J. Morgan Puett / October 20, 2021 / 4:00 pm  / Comerford Theater 
Opening reception following.
 

Marywood University Art Department and The Maslow Collection present thirteen large-scale color photographs depicting some of the creative practices ongoing at Mildred's Lane, PA– WORKSTYLES – an active systems aesthetics created by J. Morgan Puett with countless collaborators convening over two decades in a working-living-researching project. 
 

Overall, eighteen labors of Mildred's Lane attempt to reframe histories of women's work in the domestic environment for the twenty-first century. These photographic portraits on view were initially commissioned for an exhibition in Chicago titled  A Proximity of Consciousness, (2014, Curator, Mary Jane Jacob.) Within the production, J. Morgan Puett's art installation is complexly titled HumanUfactorY(ng) Workstyles: Excerpts from the User's Guide to Mildred's Lane.  A Costume Drama of the Everyday. The portraits are part (yet, independent of) a section of the installation referred to as The Hall of Labors. The Labor Portraits live amongst the collections/installations of Mildred's Lane and have traveled to multiple venues worldwide. 
 

J. Morgan Puett and Ryan Ward (artist and curator of The Maslow Collection) make selections from The Maslow Collection in conversation with The Labor Portraits of Mildred's Lane. The Maslow Collection's featured artists' work includes; Berenice Abbott, William Bailey, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Harry Callahan, Mark Cohen, Robert Cumming, Hamish Fulton, Jane Hammond, Karla Knight, Wendell MacRae, Friedrich Meckseper, Will Mentor, Wright Morris, Joan Nelson, Ellen Phelan, Ed Ruscha, and Robert Smithson.

Additional to the salon installation, the gallery cases feature select ephemera, papers, cloths, and books from the archives of Mildred's Lane.

Note/ Importanly, there are other collaborating artists working on this ongoing project in more detail at www.mildredslane.com.

Installation view, 2021.

*About The Maslow Collection

The Maslow Collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of contemporary art in Northeastern Pennsylvania, with over 500 works by 150 artists. The most significant part of the Maslow Collection is devoted to paintings by newly established or emerging artists working (or exhibiting) in New York during the late 1970s through the early 1990s. The Collection of Marilyn and Richard Maslow was housed initially at Intermetro Industries; it is now on long-term loan to Marywood University. 

*From the Glossary of Mildred's Lane 
Work•styles (short version) werk-stīls / noun or verb

1. the embodiment of any practitioners' work-live-research environment as a rigorous, aesthetic, intellectual, economic, and civic engagement with every aspect of life centered on new modes of being in the twenty-first century. 3. evoking social and political entanglement questioning our relationships to, a) the environment, b) people, c) systems of labor, d) dwelling, e) design apparatuses, f) inventive domesticating – composing ethics of comportment – being as practice. 

Origin: neologism of Mildred's Lane. See Gesamtkunstwerk, (German: [gəˈzamtˌkʊnstvɛɐk],1827, literally "total artwork," frequently translated as "total work of art." A work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so. The term is a German loanword accepted in English as a term in aesthetics; notes from Wikipedia.) See System Esthetics, Jack Burnham, Art Forum 1969.  See The Discipline of DE, William Burroughs' The Exterminator! 1979, and film, Gus Van Sant 1982.

Top Image / from The Labor Portraits of Mildred's Lane / Land Steward / Archival Giclée, 24 X 34, 2014. Limited Edition.
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The Mildred Complex(ity) / 37b Main Street / Narrowsburg, NY.

Other News / THE MILDRED COMPLEX(ITY) Project Space

CURRENTLY ON VIEW / OCTOBER
Apicultural Curiosities from The Grafter's Shack at Mildred's Lane

UPCOMING / NOVEMBER
SILVER–IRON–LIGHT
Works on view from Fellows of Summer Sessions 2021 at Mildred's Lane.
Opening November 6, 2021

MILDRED'S LANE/ SESSIONS / 2021 - Landscape / Democracy / Wellness / in an age of Coronavirus Horror

MILDRED'S LANE / SESSIONS / 2021
Landscape / Democracy / Wellness /
in an age of Coronavirus Horror
Accepting Applications Now.

MAY/JUNE
May 17- ongoing
WORKSTYLING the WILD
Deborah Davidovitz, Donna Cleary, Sarah Doherty, Juliet Dunn, Jeffrey Jenkins, Joe Lerro, Barry Puett, Rachael Schmoker, Laura Silverman 
There is a sleeping, shady garden at Mildred's Lane. We let it go after several years; competing with varmints destroying our work is heartbreaking. Reclaiming it has taken several years, we are nearly there. Previous Wilding fellows rehabilitated the soil, priming the garden for a new beginning. Others ripped out the invasive species and leveled the site. We are rethinking how to coexist, allowing for a vibrant community of flora, fauna, and creatures sharing and turning toward a wellness program. 
We are working in tandem with the Outside Institute, foraging the deep forest. Listen to wisdom from the non-humans, master gardeners, botanists, beekeepers, landscapers, and herbalists as we take field trips to fantastic gardens in the region. 
More, let's get down and dirty with daily events as we rebuild a garden of medicinal rhizomes, roots, flowers, and herbs; foraging-digging-rearranging-building-planting-swimming -- come workstyle the wild with us. 
 
JUNE 
June 7 through 27
SILVER – IRON – LIGHT 
Noah Doely and others to be announced. 
Set in the landscape with an extravaganza of 19th and 20th-century equipment, we will facilitate a series of plein-air tintype, cyanotype, and anthotype processes using various materials hand-coated plates, paper, fabric, and plant-based pigments. You may bring your own equipment or learn to use ours. These alchemical processes combine science and wonder; collaboration and experimentation will be part of events and activities throughout the session. Participants will set up a photography studio in the field for processing and development. 
The work will culminate in an exhibition at The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space in nearby Narrowsburg, NY. 
 
JULY 
July 5 through  25
FOREST – BODY – CHAIR 
Gina Siepel, Sara Smith, and Kate Wellspring.  
A tree becomes a chair and enters our lives as an intimate partner. The relational dynamics between the forest, the human body, and the wooden chair provide an entry point for exploring nature and culture's mutuality. In the domestic environment, chairs are utilitarian objects for resting the body and are social facilitators. As we know them, Chairs can also be poorly designed for the human body, causing a variety of physical problems. Multi-modal investigations of vernacular American furniture design will form the basis for experimenting together with these potentials and challenges through the framework of sustainability. 
Explore Mildred's Lane's forests with a field naturalist, practice and study somatics and ergonomics with movement facilitators, and source wood directly from the site for greenwood chair construction with a woodworker. We'll conduct research to develop unique, experimental chair forms that actively consider sustainability in the forest, body, and domestic sphere. No previous experience with movement or woodworking is required. We will end the session with an exhibition/installation/event open to the public. 
 
AUGUST 
August 2 through 9
ORDER OF THE THIRD BIRD: ATTENTION LAB 
Anna Riley and Justin Ginsberg + Distinguished Associates, D. Graham Burnett, Leonard Nalencz, and Sal Randolph. 
Indiscreet friends of the Third Bird Order continue their investigations into experimental protocols of Practical Aesthesis and various tactics for Sustained Attention. The Attention Lab is part guerrilla seminar and part meditative/ kinetic practicum. A discipline of the senses is pursued; the conditions of attention are investigated. Beginning with available traditions and protocols of the so-called "Birds," our aim will be to develop and test new durational practices of attention. 
 
AUGUST
August 10 through 30
OPEN SESSIONS
Wellness Retreat.

SEPTEMBER
September 7 through 27
BIBLIOPHANTICS
Featuring special author appearances to be announced.  
An intensive reading and archiving Retreat. Enchanting stays in the Mildred's Lane Library, with volumes to consume, quietly -- aloud -– socially– privately. We will take Field trips to local bookstores, collecting. Silent periods of reading grow into evening socials, plein-air parlor games, and authors' performances in the height of autumn. 
 
OCTOBER
An excellent time for Class programming, retreats, Group visits; contact us to organize your program and experience. The Mildred's Lane Commons offers essential tools for the future. Mildred's Lane is an experiment in alternative pedagogies – for over two decades ongoing; institutions need more space that is safe. Consider the strategic possibilities for challenging creative minds–students, faculty, and colleagues– during the COVID-19 pandemic months and years ahead. 
 
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ONGOING
Joe Lerro is a Resident-Artist-in-Complex(ity) and LAND Steward at Mildred's Lane. Joe will be leading several workshops throughout the spring and summer including soil preparation, composting, planting, and other fine arts of gardening.
 
Rachael Schmoker is a Resident-Artist-in-Complex(ity) and WELLness Steward at Mildred's Lane. She is founder of the practice, Bed-ga, (yoga motion suitable for the bedroom.) She defines this as slow-flow movement, deepening understanding of our bodies by listening to alignment. Gently moving into restorative postures using pillows and bolsters. Flow softly from mat to bed with soothing ease. 
Join in this innovative movement practice focused entirely on the tender relationship with your body. Relax in the comfort of your home or from beds in the landscape, while at the same time coming together as a community. 
 
Visiting-Resident-Artists-in-Complex(ity) to be announced later in spring.
Lists of Contributing Artists grow throughout the year, so check the website for updated lists for each session.
 
IMPORTANT NOTICE/ 
VACCINES or NEGATIVE COVID TEST REQUIRED TO ATTEND.
All sessions are scheduled subject to minute-by-minute pandemic guidelines. If by chance a session is cancelled due to these dangers, we will reschedule your residency accordingly.