FLEA MARKET PROJECT // The Mildred Complex(ity)

The Mildred Complex(ity)

FLEA MARKET PROJECT
Everything Could Go

Opening Saturday / July 23, 2022 / 12 – 5
37 b Main Street / Narrowsburg, NY 12764

MARK DION / AMY YOES
with
MARY JANE JACOB / MERETE RØSTAD

in collaboration with the Abakanowicz Fellows:

Inés Arango / Elisa Benzo / Sophie Buchmueller / Johnny Doley / Miguel Espinoza / Ella Fainaru-Wada / Kelly Johnston / Jad El Khoury / Alice Matthews / Meghan McCray / Scott O'Brien / Vanessa Payne / Kirsten Schuck / Sarah Sekles / Katherine Skwira-Brown

A transient site for gathering and commerce, flea markets attract a range of publics: discerning collectors, professional pickers, resourceful vendors, and casual browsers. This summer, a cohort of Magdalena Abakanowicz Fellows attended the Circle Drive-in Flea Fair in Scranton, PA to delve into the mechanisms of the flea market and engage in alternative modes of production and exchange. 

Drawing from the ethos of Mildred's Lane, this project builds off the social ecology of the flea market while collapsing boundaries between art and life. The interdisciplinary project plays with the layered dynamics between objects, place, time, and interpersonal connections. 

The exhibition Everything Could Go, opening at The Mildred Complex(ity) Saturday, July 23, is one of a few iterations of this investigation. The show features artworks made from reimagined flea market finds, documentation of the group's booths at the Flea Fair, and records of conversations and interactions that unfolded.

The Flea Market Project and Exhibition are made possible by The Madalena Abakanowicz Arts and Culture Charitable Trust and The Department of Arts and Crafts in the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO). Thank you all.

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MARK DION is an American conceptual artist best known for using scientific methodologies in his installations. His work examines how prevalent ideologies and institutions influence our understanding of history, knowledge, and the natural world. The job of the artist, according to him, is to "go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention." ( Art 21). Dion is the co-director of Mildred's Lane, Pennsylvania.

AMY YOES works in a multi-faceted way, alternately employing installation, photography, video, painting, and sculpture. An interest in decorative language and architectural space permeates all of her work. She responds to formal topologies of ornament and style that have reverberated through time, informing our mutually constructed visual and cultural memory. Visit Hot Corners, a site-specific installation at MASS MoCA in North Adams MA. It is a multi-room, immersive environment with thematic forms and functions. 

MARY JANE JACOB is a curator and writer who championed public, site-specific, and socially engaged art as a shared practice and discourse. She is Professor and Director of the Institute for Curatorial Research and Practice at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2018 she published Dewey for Artists with the University of Chicago Press. She is curating the Magdalena Abakanowicz exhibition at the Tate Modern opening this November.

MERETE RØSTAD is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and artist-researcher whose projects are rooted in examining collective memory, representation, and archives in the public sphere. Røstad is an Associate Professor in Art and Public Space (MFA) and head of research at the Department of Arts and Craft at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO).

THE MILDRED COMPLEX(ity) project space is the public face of Mildred's Lane. Located on Narrowsburg's Main Street, working-living-making-researching exhibitions, programs, and events by artists questioning our impact as cultural producers in every aspect of life in the 21st century. 

YEAR of SILVER / Exhibition - The Mildred Complex(ity) presents Susanna Crum and Rudy Salgado 'On the Map'

YEAR of SILVER / Exhibition
The Mildred Complex(ity) presents
Susanna Crum and Rudy Salgado
On the Map
May 28 through July 4 / Reception / Saturday / May 28th / 1 pm through 5 pm

How and when does a town begin? In the US, the naming and establishment of a post office have inscribed the intention and identity of a town on maps and within communities. From the 1860s to the 1930s, itinerant tintype photographers traveled the country with mobile portrait studios. They summoned ghosts in the atmospheric backgrounds of their images or documented soldiers and the deceased for inclusion in the newly-popular family photo album. Tintypes were the first affordable means for Americans to share images with distant family and friends, as the photographs on metal could be reliably placed in the mail. Rudy Salgado and Susanna Crum traveled with a mobile darkroom around the state of Kentucky, investigating historical post office sites with this 170-year-old method. In their hours spent producing hand-poured plates on site, they met property owners and history keepers who shared stories of the post office as a crucial community-powered site for information and social exchange. On the Map includes photographs, drawings, and postcards from this research-led journey
                                                                                                                      _ The Artists / May 2022

Susanna Crum and Rudy Salgado live in Louisville, Kentucky, where they operate Calliope Arts, a shared workspace for artists working in print media. They received MFA degrees from the University of Iowa in 2012 and moved to Louisville to work as artists, collaborators, and educators. Together, they care for property and a house built in 1885 in downtown Louisville, including their residence, printmaking, wet plate collodion photography studios, a large kitchen garden, and a chicken coop. They have exhibited solo and collaborative projects across the US and abroad, and have received numerous grants and awards. They have recently attended artist residencies at Kunstarhuset Messen, Ålvik, Norway; Edinburgh Printmakers, Edinburgh, Scotland; Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, CA; and Mildred's Lane, Beach Lake, PA. Susanna and Rodolfo have made many ongoing contributions to Mildred's Lane Projects, including Mildred Archaeology. 
Insta/ @susannacrum and @rivercitytintype
Image / Bryants Store, 2021 /Wet plate collodion tintype, 8x10

Year of Silver marks our 25th anniversary – hence Mildred's Lane is closed to refresh the site, the artist projects, and upgrade our organization. We are fundraising to expand our impact as a cultural site for the future throughout the year. To support these efforts in fundraising, in the landscape, supported internships, and general assistance, please send letters of interest with your skills and available working dates to mildredslane@gmail.com 

ARTFORUM / On Site

image / Views of Mildred's Lane, Beach Lake, PA. Kitchen Laboratory, 2018. Photo: Robyn Lea.

... Mildred’s Lane is not a product to be consumed or an “experience” to be Instagrammed. It is a link in a larger countercultural chain that, like the variegated ecosystems of the property, may be critically endangered.
Read the article /

ARTFORUM / ON SITE

GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Ian Bourland on Mildred’s Lane
Please DONATE / Help Protect Mildred's Lane
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SILVER–IRON–LIGHT Opening / November 6, 2021 / 3-6pm

The Mildred Complex(ity)

SILVER–IRON–LIGHT
Opening / November 6, 2021 / 3-6pm
37B Main Street. Narrowsburg, NY

Noah Doely, Shoshana Fink, Rich Garr, Leila Gordon, Nancy Grace Horton, Elizabeth Kelly, Leah Koransky, Joe Lerro, Rachael Schmoker, Samiha Tasnim,

The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space is pleased to present alchemical works created by fellows during the Summer 2021 session, SILVER–IRON–LIGHT. The exhibition features handmade 19th-century photographic processes including tintype, cyanotype, and anthotype, as well as other works revealing the landscape of Mildred's Lane. 

Please visit the storefront project space located at 37B Main Street. Narrowsburg, NY 12764. We will be open on Saturdays from 12 to 5 pm and Sundays from 12 to 4 pm throughout the exhibition's run; or, contact mildreslane@gmail.com to visit by appointment. 

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

The Brooklyn Rail in conversation with Mildreds Lane

Mildred’s Lane

Featuring J. Morgan Puett, Mark Dion, David Brooks, Alastair Gordon, Barbara Bourland, and Thyrza Nichols Goodeve

Ambassador of entanglement J. Morgan Puett is joined by Mark Dion, David Brooks, Alastair Gordon, Barbara Bourland, and Thyrza Nichols Goodeve for a conversation on Mildred’s Lane. We conclude with a poetry reading by Patrycja Humienik.

In this talk

Read more about Mildred’s Lane on their website »

What is Mildred’s Lane?

J. Morgan Puett

Trans-disciplinary creative producer J. Morgan Puett works with installation, clothing and furniture design, architecture, film, photography, and more, rearranging these intersections by applying conceptual tools including research-based methods in history, biology, new economies, design, textiles, and collaboration. Puett is the architect of The Mildred’s Lane Project, which continues to forge new ground citing that being is a profoundly social and political practice. Puett has received several awards, including the Magdalena Abakanowicz Arts and Culture (2019), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (2016), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2016), among many others.

More on J. Morgan Puett

• jmorganpuett.com

• @ jmorganpuett

Mark Dion

Artist Mark Dion’s work examines the way dominant ideologies and public institutions shape our understandings of history, knowledge, and the natural world. The job of the artist, he says, is to go against the grain of dominant culture, to challenge perception and convention. Appropriating archaeological, field ecology and other scientific methods of collecting, ordering, and exhibiting objects, Dion creates works that question the distinctions between ‘objective’ (‘rational’) scientific methods and ‘subjective’ (‘irrational’) influences. Dions holds a BFA and an honorary doctorate from the University of Hartford School of Art, Connecticut. He is a cofounder and co-director of Mildred’s Lane. He was born in New Bedford, MA in 1961.

David Brooks

Artist David Brooks' work considers the relationship between the individual and the built environment, considering how cultural concerns cannot be divorced from the natural world while questioning the terms under which nature is perceived and utilized. He has exhibited at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT; the Dallas Contemporary; Tang Museum, NY; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; Sculpture Center, NYC; The Visual Arts Center, Austin; Nevada Museum of Art; and MoMA/PS1, among others. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards and grants including the Rome Prize, grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Coypu Foundation, and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Born in Brazil, Indiana, he currently lives and works between New York City and New Orleans.

Barbara Bourland

Writer Barbara Bourland is the author of two previous novels and an avid Mildred’s Lane Bibliophant. Her third novel The Force of Such Beauty is forthcoming from Dutton in Summer 2022. She lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

Alastair Gordon

Critic, curator, artist, and cultural historian Alastair Gordon has covered art, architecture, and the environment for the New York Times for more than twenty years and is Contributing Editor on design for the Wall Street Journal Magazine. His essays have been published in Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, Le Monde, and others. He is the author of Weekend Utopia: Modern Living in the Hamptons(Princeton Architectural Press 2001), Naked Airport: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure (University of Chicago Press 2004), and Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Sixties (Rizzoli 2008). In 2016, he launched Poetics of Place, a critical writing program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.

Thyrza Nichols Goodeve

Writer, editor, artist, and interviewer Thyrza Nichols Goodeve writes “with” rather than “on” contemporary art and artists. Her interests range across art as a “structure of feeling,” human/nonhuman animal ontologies, the aesthetics of wonder, the interview as essay, surrealist methodologies, and the metaphysics of technology. She has published widely on artists such as Ellen Gallagher, Tom Friedman, Hadieh Shafie, Joan Waltemath, among many others. She is the author of How Like A Leaf: A Conversation with Donna Haraway (1999) and is compiling her collected writings, No Wound Ever Speaks for Itself: Writing, Art, Vulnerability, Conversation, Attitude with a preface by Avital Ronell. She was Senior Art Editor at the Rail from 2017 to 2019 and is currently an Editor-at-Large.

In the Rail: Thyrza Nichols Goodeve

The Rail has a tradition of ending our conversations with a poem, and we’re fortunate to have Patrycja Humienik reading.

Daughter of Polish immigrants, Patrycja Humienik is a writer and performer based in Seattle, WA. She serves as Events Director for The Seventh Wave and works in the Office of Equity & Justice in Graduate Programs at the University of Washington. She was a recent semi-finalist for the 92Y Discovery Prize, and is working on her first book of poems, Anchor Baby.

More on Patrycja Humienik

• patrycjasara.com

• @jej_sen

The Mildred Complex(ity) April/May

The Mildred Complex(ity)
37b Main Street, Narrowsburg, NY 12764

The Mildred Complex(ity) is a project space exhibiting creative thinkers and makers working at Mildred's Lane, an art site and residency. Mildred's Lane comes out of the woods and onto Main Street USA to form a series of projects and events for the Upper Delaware River Valley community and beyond. The aims of town projects are in the spirit of exchange, making connections to this distinctive river town, Narrowsburg, New York. 

Topics include contemporary, post-recession economic strategies for artists, changing art world dynamics, and expanding creative practitioners' roles. We define storefront practices as spaces for emergence – particularly concerning environmental action and social engagement. The storefront allows us to directly engage the public visiting Main Street, taking on the challenge of reframing new possibilities for community involvement by activating curiosity.
 

Balanced Rock, Idaho 2019 / 28.5”x 38” / B+W Archival Giclée

MAY at The Mildred Complex(ity)
A Guide to the Field
presents

JEFFREY JENKINS
Angles of Repose
April 30 through May 30
Closing reception, May 28, 2021.

The Mildred Complex(ity) consists of a studio, office, experimental retail storefront space in Narrowsburg's quaint hamlet, a hundred miles northwest of New York City. Year-round we present projects, workshops, lectures, and exhibitions. 

Currently, A Guide to the Field is occupying The Mildred Complex(ity), at 37b Main Street, Narrowsburg, NY 12764

Unlike a typical 'field guide,' where one searches for the natural world's identification and definition, A Guide to the Field creates a field by naming it. It offers alternatives to what needs guiding, interpretation, and consumption and questions what a future field looks like.

Upcoming projects and collaborations include:

APRIL MAY / A Guide to the Field presents / Angles of Repose / Jeffrey Jenkins

JUNE / Mildred's Lane Remembers / Matthew Solomon

JULY / Mildred's Lane / Silver - Iron - Light / Noah Doely and Fellows 

AUGUST / River Valley Arts Collective / Candice Madey and Alyson Baker / featuring  Miranda Zhang / Shari Mendelson

SEPTEMBER / Mildred's Lane / Forest - Body - Chair / Gina Siepel, Sara Smith and Fellows 
 

Find more updates and information about projects, exhibitions, collecting, and hosting short stays; go to www.mildredslane.com and www.aguideotthefield.com.
 

Year of LANDSCAPE / DEMOCRACY / WELLNESS
2021 at Mildred's Lane in the Age of Coronavirus Horror

Become a Fellow/ SUPPORT a Fellow
Accepting Applications for Summer Sessions Now!

Year of LANDSCAPE / DEMOCRACY / WELLNESS2021 at Mildred's Lane in the Age of Coronavirus Horror

Year of LANDSCAPE / DEMOCRACY / WELLNESS
2021 at Mildred's Lane in the Age of Coronavirus Horror
with
Alyson Baker / Barbara Bourland / David Brooks / Nina Burleigh / D. Graham Burnett / Donna Cleary / Jorge Colombo / Liz Collins / Susanna Crum / Deborah Davidovits / Mark Dion / Noah Doely / Sarah Doherty / Jeff Dolven / Juliet Dunn / Coco Fusco / Justin Ginsberg / Hope Ginsburg / Pablo Helguera / Aaron Hicklin / Jeffrey Jenkins / Alex A. Jones / Cameron Klavsen / Athena Kokoronis / Joe Lerro / Candice Madey / Kristyna Milde / Marek Milde / Leonard Nalencz / Nate Padavick / Claire Pentecost / Rebecca Purcell / Barry Puett / J. Morgan Puett / Sal Randolph / Anna Riley / Rodolfo Salgado Jr. / Rachael Schmoker / Gina Siepel / Laura Silverman / Sara Smith / Dannielle Tegeder / Mark Thomann / James Voorhies / Amy Yoes /
and many others to be announced in May

MAY/JUNE / ongoing
WORKSTYLING the WILD

Deborah Davidovitz, Donna Cleary, Sarah Doherty, Juliet Dunn, Jeffrey Jenkins, Joe Lerro, Barry Puett, Rachael Schmoker, Laura Silverman

Reclaiming the garden has taken several years; we are nearly there. Previous Wilding fellows rehabilitated the soil, bushwacked through the overgrowth of invasive species, and took command of the compost, priming the site for a new beginning for this vibrant community of flora, fauna, and creatures -- come workstyle the wild with us.
 

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. The work will culminate in an exhibition at The Mildred Complex(ity) Project Space in nearby Narrowsburg, NY.
 

JULY / 5 through 25
FOREST – BODY – CHAIR 

Gina Siepel and Sara Smith

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. No previous experience with movement or woodworking is required. We will end the session with an exhibition/installation/event open to the public.
 

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 – our aim will be to develop and test new durational practices of attention. 
 

SEPTEMBER / 7 through 27
BIBLIOPHANTICS

Featuring special author appearances to be announced. 

An intensive Reading Retreat. Enchanting stays in the Mildred's Lane Library, with volumes to consume, quietly -- aloud -– socially– privately. There are Plein-air installations situated in the forest, designed for creative repose and relaxation, awakening all senses for complete comprehension – reading amongst the trees.
 

OCTOBER / open for scheduling

Mildred's Lane is an experiment in alternative pedagogies; an excellent time for class programming, individual retreats, or group visits; contact us to organize your program of experience. The Mildred's Lane Commons offers essential tools for creating the future. Consider the strategic possibilities for challenging creative minds–students, faculty, and colleagues– during the COVID-19 pandemic months and years ahead. 
 

Become a Fellow/SUPPORT a Fellow

Accepting Applications for Summer Sessions Now!

Year of LANDSCAPE / DEMOCRACY / WELLNESS 2021 at Mildred's Lane in the age of Coronavirus Horror

Year of LANDSCAPE / DEMOCRACY / WELLNESS
2021 at Mildred's Lane in the age of Coronavirus Horror

The Mildred's Lane community nestles in the Upper Delaware River Valley; for the past twenty years, creative fellows join together, forming an environment for working, researching, making, thinking, living – being. There are no studios; the entire site is the studio; people are a rhizome cultivating discursive topics and projects for the 21st-century – home earth.

Mildred's Lane does not predetermine titles or themes for each year. We identify the emergent confluence from many contributing resident-artists-in-complexity projects and the ideas they bring to this art-site. Living through this age of horror feeling omnipresent disorientation, naming multiple concerns seems fitting for Sessions 2021. 

Landscape/ With the environmental crisis amongst us, creative minds are called upon to submit new solutions, new problems. Most importantly, to demand that the world is assured clean water for everyone and everything, now and in the future. Democracy/ The threat of losing our freedoms with white supremacy taking strongholds in our communities; we need to find ways to navigate this period of confrontation and growth to achieve mutualism. Wellness/ Our bodies and minds require nurturing more than ever. The pandemic continues to take our loved ones. So many are left alone and without. We need time to mend our broken hearts from witnessing the inequalities of illness, race, gender, and immigration.  And, we will – with more exchange and collaboration toward critical healing.

Let's maintain and embrace the fundamentals – community. Wit and tact are the jewelry redressing these times. Gather and swarm around experimental domesticity and topics that tool along with creative forces necessary to reinvent a future.

Take a look at the Mildred's Lane Info-Zine describing the commons of discreet landscape interventions, environmentally site-sensitive installations, vernacular outbuildings, and exhibition spaces. Embedded is a section of upcoming projects, workshops, lectures, think tanks, and events with visiting artists throughout the season. We hope to see you here. Happy April,  _Mildred's Lane.

Become a Fellow/SUPPORT a Fellow
Accepting Applications for Summer Sessions Now!

Photo/ Robyn Lea from BOHEMIAN LIVING

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.