Library, art institute team up for a month of art

MELANIE PLENDA, Correspondent
(Exerpt from Encore Arts - Published: Thursday, September 10, 2009)

If You Go ...

Brookline Seventh Annual Library Art Show

  • WHEN:     Sept. 14-26. An opening reception will be held from 6-8 p.m.
              Thursday, Sept. 17.

  • WHERE:  16 Main St., Brookline.

  • COST:      Free.

  • MORE INFORMATION: Call the library at 673-3330.

11th “Bridges and Connections” International Sculpture Symposium

  • WHEN:     Sept. 13-Oct. 4.

  • WHERE:  Andres Institute of Art, 98 Route 13, Brookline.

  • COST:     Free.

  • MORE INFORMATION: Call 673-8441 or go to www.andresinstitute.org.


Someday, say a thousand years from now, when the community has passed into its future incarnations, explorers who
do happen by the quiet hillside of Big Bear Mountain will likely stumble upon what today we call The Sculpture Park, and
there they will see the granite and stone ghosts of our history and learn of our community.

“Artists record the time. The past supports the future, and art is a constant presence,” said John Weidman, artistic
director of The Andres Institute of Art and Sculpture Park in Brookline. “ Art is universal like music. We identify as a
people with things we see, hear, touch and feel. . . . We want information that tells us we're alive. That's the thrill of
being alive; touching something if you can't see it, feeling something if you can't hear it. We always have a way to get at
that. And art profoundly demonstrates that to us every day.”

And to that end, Weidman, along with Andres co-founder Paul Andres, each year brings together local and international
artists and members of the community to collectively create and show the art representative of the area and our times.

Part of that effort is the Brookline Library Art Show, which begins Monday Sept. 14 and runs through Sept. 26. The
event showcases the work of local artists, including creations from artists at the Andres Institute. The show runs in
tandem with the Andres Art Institute's International “Bridges and Connections” Symposium, where several artists from
around the world are brought to Brookline to sculpt for three weeks.

The three-week creationfest is all part and parcel of the philosophy of the institute, which, according to its Web site, is to
“bring art to our community by making the experience of art an everyday relationship” and to “bring the visitor into a
closer, and perhaps more comfortable, relationship with the works of art.”

And the symposium has lived up to its intent of taking art to the people. This year, 20 artists from around the region
were invited to submit their work for the show, said Nancy Zadravec, co-coordinator of the library art show. Zadravec
marveled at how, though the artists had no theme, all the work fits together, sort of the unspoken theme of the show and
symposium.

“We receive all of the art with its kinetic content, and it's all different, but somehow it all comes together,” Zadravec said.
“Somehow we manage to get it up in a way that when it's done, it all looks as if it was meant to be that way.”

And just a few minutes' walk or drive from the library is the hill where people can watch the magic happen. Folks can
walk up and see several sculptors, working, all speaking their native languages but communicating through the common
language of art.

The symposium started 11 years ago with the marriage of a few good ideas: Artists as a group like working together,
and if they worked where the public could see them, that would be a great way to get art out into the community,
Weidman said.

Back then, seven artists were invited to come to Brookline for two weeks to create sculptures which would be placed on
permanent display on the mountain.

Sculptors from Lithuania, Latvia, England, Czech Republic, Ukraine, New Hampshire and Vermont attended. The results
of the years of symposia are more than 50 original works of sculpture nestled throughout the 140-acre sculpture park.
One of them, “Phoenix,” is still the largest work in the sculpture park at 15 feet tall and weighing in at 11 tons.

This year, four artists hailing from New Hampshire, Ohio, Iraq and Ghana are going to add to the tradition.

“If they don't speak English, there's always a lot of body language,” Weidman said. “But the arts are kind of a universal
language. . . . We have a theme we do each year, but some of the artists decide to do something on their own.
Something from their hearts and their minds. . . . We don't want to limit what they want to do. They are all saying
something to the world with their art.

“I want them to take back this experience in America, their experience in this part of the country, in this town, with the
people here,” Weidman said. “There are things they will experience here that are worth sharing.”

All of the artists stay with volunteer host families in the community during the three weeks they are working on the
sculptures, and all of the families help to feed the artists.

Weidman said having buy-in from the community helps to enhance the experience for the artists, and that involvement
draws the community into the art.

“We are the only people left on this planet. We've got to learn about each other,” Weidman said.

“When you get to know people, no matter where we are from, we all want the same things really. When I go talk to my
neighbor, he may believe something completely different than I do, but when you get right down to it, we're not so
different. And we find out all that we have in common when we work together.”
One of the paintings that will hang in the
Brookline Public Library.