Home > About us > Press room > Archives > Outdoor Sculpture

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (RIDGELY, MD – JUNE 7, 2006)

Adkins Arboretum Outdoor Sculpture Invitational Debuts

Every other summer, unusual sights appear in the forests and meadows at Adkins Arboretum. The Outdoor Sculpture Invitational, “Artists in Dialogue with Landscape,” is on view from June through August. An indoor exhibit by the same artists continues in the Arboretum’s Visitor’s Center through July 28. The public is invited to an artists’ reception on Saturday, June 24 from 3 to 5 p.m.

The exhibit features 14 artists, from as near as Chestertown and as far away as North Dakota, who have created sculptures along the Arboretum’s paths. Over the last year, these artists visited the Arboretum’s 400-acres getting to know the land and choosing particular sites to work with.

Since January, three artists from Northern Virginia have become fixtures in the Arboretum woods. Rebecca Kamen, Peggy Feerick and Lisa Hill spent many days walking the paths, photographing the trees with pinhole cameras made from birdhouses (taking literally a “bird’s eye view”), and finally, after turning the same birdhouses into colorful sculptures, installing them in trees along the sightlines shot with the pinhole cameras. The photos are on view in the Visitors Center, while the birdhouses wait to be discovered nestled in the forest’s leafy trees.

Artists have a reputation for being individualists, and these artists interpreted the show’s theme, “Artists in Dialogue with Landscape,” in some surprising ways. Collaborating artists Beth Morrison and Michael Diaz, of Jersey City, NJ, chose sites that seemed to be just waiting to become sculptures. They rearranged a clearance pile of wood into a huge swirl of heavy logs and joined the four trunks of a tulip poplar together with a giant spider web of orange cords.

Other artists used manmade materials to complement or contrast with the natural environment. Several of the sculptures mimic nature. Baltimore artist Linda Bills’ suspended wire sculptures over the meadow to echo the clouds above in both shape and movement. Tubes formed from handmade recycled paper resemble oversized wind chimes, peeling bark, and mud dauber wasp nests in a hanging sculpture by Melissa Burley, of Laurel.

The closeness of humans and nature is the basis for a work by Deborah McLeod, of Pasadena, and Faith Wilson, of Chestertown. They paired individual trees and people by age group from 10 to 90. Luminous photographs of human hands hang on young trees and old. A bowl carved from wood and stained with a watery blue image of hands stands before each tree, turning this quiet site overlooking Blockston Branch into a respectful, meditative place.

This show is part of Adkins Arboretum’s ongoing exhibition series of work on natural themes by regional artists. It is on view June through August at Adkins Arboretum Visitor’s Center located at 12610 Eveland Road near Tuckahoe State Park in Ridgely, MD. Visitor’s Center hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily, except holidays.

Directions: From Route 50 south, take 404 east to Hillsboro (west of Denton). Turn northeast onto 480 and immediately turn left onto Eveland Road. The Arboretum is two miles on the left. For further information, contact the Arboretum at 410-634-2847 or visit www.adkinsarboretum.org.

Pictured is “Gather,” by Tazuko Ichikawa, one of the outdoor sculptures featured in Adkins Arboretum’s Outdoor Sculpture Invitational, on view from June through August. Right-click on the following link to save a full sized image: outdoor_sculpture_ ichikawa.jpg, 761 k