The Magic And Spirit Of Three Female Artists,

Celebrated In Mattatuck Museum Exhibition

By Shannon Hicks

WATERBURY — The Mattatuck Museum is offering a very short-term exhibition, “Magic and Spirit,” that offers a look at contemporary art created by three women. Each woman has lived and/or worked in Connecticut.

The show, which opened December 17 and is on view only until January 16, features work by Imna Arroyo, Carey McDougall, and the late Lois Livingston McMillen.

Imna Arroyo is a professor of art and chair of the visual arts department at Eastern Connecticut State University. She is a painter, woodblock artist, and printmaker; she also works with clay. Her first love, says the art critic and art historian (and friend) Gail Gelburd, is printmaking.

The Puerto Rican native finds inspiration in her Puerto Rican and African heritages, which has led to a fascination in Orishas, the guardian spirits in which many Puerto Ricans and Cubans believe. The two multimedia works Ms Arroyo has installed at The Mattatuck pay homage to Yemaya, the goddess of the sea. (A new work, honoring the Orisha Abbatala — The God of The Path, The Journey We All Take — is well underway for Ms Arroyo’s next exhibition.)

The first work is “The House of Yemaya,” which presents three fabric walls, each covered with prints done with woodblocks carved by the artist. Images on the outer walls of the house show Yemaya as a queen, representing the Virgin Mary, while the inner views show the goddess in a mermaid form.

Rolling scrolls of fabric in greens and blues, stretching from within the walls of the “house” out into the gallery, represent the sea’s waters, as do representational manufactured items like rusting anchors and propellers resting amid the fabric (representing water) also made by the artist.

“Imna is giving us the house of Yemaya, where she would live, using shells and images the goddess would be surrounded by,” Gail Gelburd explained recently. Ms Arroyo was due to give a gallery talk on December 29, but when she found herself delayed by traffic her friend and fellow ECSU professor stepped in with a very informative and interesting look at her friend’s work.

The second multimedia work on view shows more of the sea and the elements that surround Yemaya. A repeating video offers the sights — and more importantly, the sounds — of moving water. A large mobile of fish (and each of the dozens of aquatic animals were hand printed by Ms Arroyo) hangs over another representation of the sea’s bed, where additional fish and turtles and shells are found.

A series of prints, one set of three and a second set of four , also cover two of the walls in the gallery space dominated by Ms Arroyo’s mixed media works. These also pay tribute to Yemaya, depicting the beautiful goddess in varying forms — including the protector of the spirits of African slaves, many of whom were tossed into the sea upon their death while en route from their homeland to America — and show her powers such as swimming, and her capacity to move the sea as she wishes.

“When you walk into this space, you are within the space, strength, and spirituality of Yemaya,” explained Ms Gelburd. Ms Arroyo’s fascination with Yemaya continues in her newest works, which she is “feverishly working” on in order to have them exhibited later this winter at Trinity College.

Carey McDougall is an assistant professor of sculpture and coordinator of women’s studies at Kent State University’s Stark Campus. She is a Woodbury native and was the program coordinator at The Mattatuck Museum from 1991 until 1995.

Many of her works are done in pastel colors and appear innocent at first glance. Hers are the type of works that need a closer, second look before they can begin to be appreciated.

Ms McDougall likes to use her work, she said during a gallery talk on December 29, “to point out that boundaries are quite porous.” The artist focused on abortion, marriage, and conjoined twins during her talk, and explained why many of her new works on view deal with conjoined twins. The series has been in progress since last summer.

“What do people do when they hear about [conjoined twins]?” she challenged. “The public is usually curious about them, and many parents begin thinking about separating them.

“The most common response by parents is to separate the twins, even though this means in most cases that one or both will die,” said Ms McDougall. Once her interest in conjoined twins was piqued, the artist began thinking about fairy tales.

“There’s a lot of weird stuff in there. Children just hear these stories and soak it up, no questions,” she said. “Why then, as adults, can’t we see something like conjoined twins and just say OK?”

“1 or 2 Birds” appears to be a pen and ink with watercolor image of a pair of birds, plus a pair of bunnies (the latter being an image the artist uses in many of her works). It appears initially to be something to hang in a child’s nursery.

Upon closer inspection, viewers realize that the title is posing a question. Are the birds, which are joined at the chest, and the bunnies, joined at the lower back, one single animal or a pair of animals? Are they single one animal now, but hold the potential to become two animals in the future?

The bunnies also appear in “1 or 2 Houses, 3 Spoons, 5 Chairs,” a work that clearly blends the artist’s fascination with conjoined twins with elements of fairy tales.

Another work, “Pygopagus Parapagus, Decorated,” is a line drawing based on the X-ray of female twins who are joined at the hip. The sisters, who live in Pennsylvania, are then depicted in the lower third of the drawing, in three different views.

The drawing of the pelvis replicates the twins’ bone structure, while the artistic embellishments — their portraits — were done to celebrate their uniqueness, explained the artist.

“I’m kind of confused why we don’t celebrate them more. Conjoined twins used to be taken into circuses. They had a living, and an income, and were allowed to live like that,” Ms McDougall said. “We may look back and think of people treating them as freaks, but they really weren’t. They were being celebrated.”

The blurred boundary comes about because the artist also said she feels “almost stigmatized” because, now in her late 30s, she has not yet coupled.

“Our first response is to separate twins, yet society also wants us to get married in order to be complete.

“When, and why, is it OK to separate some people, yet so many are so concerned with getting others married off?” she asked. “And why is it OK for some people to live together but not marry?

“Conjoined rabbits, houses, flowers, and women are all situated in domestic scenes saturated with growth and blurred potentials,” she said in explaining her recent works. “How does our emphasis on individuality actually play out in our interdependent and often physically connected lives?”

It’s an interesting idea, and the artist has tried to answer it through her intriguing paintings, mixed media works, and line illustrations.

Lois Livingston McMillen was a Middlebury resident who also lived in New York, California, and Tortola, British Virgin Islands. She was a passionate advocate for the vibrancy of art in life, and worked as an artist, model, and actress. Ms McMillen was murdered in January 2000 in Tortola. (Her death was the subject of Lisa Pulitzer’s November 2003 book, Murder In Paradise.)

Her works tended to use explosive colors, and there are a few series of three to four works in the Mattatuck show. The bright colors of her paintings, as with the bright outfits she sometimes wore in life, are in strong contrast to the shy, socially struggling person the young artist has been described as.

An article in the February 6, 2000, issue of The Hartford Courant concerning the murder of the 34-year-old artist said Ms McMillen’s art reflected her strong feelings about violence against women, a concern that became more pronounced while she studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, where she earned a degree in 1996.

An unfinished work by Ms McMillen combined a Queen of Hearts playing card, stars and crescent moons, and a page from the Old Testament that had been torn in half. Her father, Russell McMillen, believes the work has something to do with death. Another work, “The World is Killing Women,” is full of symbols of death, tear-filled female eyes, and a bare breast pierced by a sword.

At the Mattatuck, works like “Gambler’s End Explosion, 1995,” “Enigma,” and “The Eight Ball, 1992” offer less fearful looks at life. They don’t necessarily celebrate the world of gambling, but perhaps look at something the artist had strong feelings about.

Another piece, the large-scale (it measures 2 by 3 feet) “The Magician,” presents unconnected hands, handkerchiefs, top hat, bowtie, and pocket watch, all floating in a cloudy but blue sky, is very Daliesque.

Taken as a whole, the show is a good look at the recent past, present, and future of contemporary art by female artists with a connection to Connecticut.

The Mattatuck Museum is at 144 West Main Street in Waterbury. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday from noon to 5 pm.

Call 203-753-0381 or visit www.MattatuckMuseum.org for additional information.