ANNUAL OPEN STUDIO IN NOVEMBER

Showing Collage

Studio Display

Opening my studio each year gives the community of Durango and the surrounding region an opportunity to view my art works that span almost 40 years. I offer paintings, prints, collage, drawings, sculpture, and artists' books for sale during this event. Studio visits allow the artist and viewer to have a personal connection which is not always the case when the artist only shows work through the gallery system. Thus I have always tried to make this a regular practice, beginning in Southern California with other artists and craftspeople... and in recent years on my own.

RECENT FOREST INSTALLATIONS

Lichen Tree

Sandy Creek


I have just finished my outdoor installations at Edgemont Highlands, Durango, CO for this year. Over a period of three years I have created over 30 environmental art sites along the wild trails of this development in my role as artist-in-residence. These sites are meant to be slowly discovered as residents wander and hike. Many of the sites are designed to be interactive and educational, acquainting residents with the history of the area, seasonal change and animal life. These sculptures are created from primarily natural elements...one exception being the use of fragments from an historic water system. As the residents hike along the trails, "forest rooms" offer a place in which to sit, rest and meditate. Other pieces are meant to be seen from a distance. All these sculptural works bring to the community a sense of place and a heightened awareness of the surrounding natural landscape.

ANNOUNCING PUBLICATION: "DETRITUS"

"Detritus" Book

The artists' book, "Detritus" has recently been published. This book documents a series (15 in all) of outdoor open book sculptures that were completed from 1992-2001. The edition is 50 and 18 pages are offset printed with photos and text - enclosed in a handmade paper cover, pamphlet style. This book joins other editioned books (4 in all so far) that document my work in the environment. Available through the artist.

CALIFORNIA VISIT

Artists' Books display, Del Mar, California


October: A drive to Southern California (my home for my first 47 years) and a ten day visit with family and friends. Artists' books were placed at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, La Jolla and UCSanDiego Mandeville Library, Special Collections. Fire pushed by Santa Ana winds were part of the experience.

INTERVENING SUBTLY WITH NATURE

This article was written by Jules Masterjohn for Durango Magazine, Winter-Spring 2006-07. (click on images to enlarge)





(cont.) photographs and paper sculpure are then exhibited in galleries and museums, and purchased by collectors. Other outdoor artworks include her "Offerings" series, which was inspired by seeing lily pads floating on pond water. Long has placed circles of handmade paper on the surface of lakes, streams and canals. To date, 20 "Offering pieces have been created in bodies of water all over the world.
Natural materials like pine cones, leaves and twigs are also used by Long to create non-permanent outdoor artworks. "Concentric Circles" - 16' in diameter - is a sculpture that is made of mounded pine needles and paper pulp. It rests on the forest floor. During its ten-year existence, each spring the artist reshapes the circular mounds, renewing it for another season. Permanence is not one of Long's goals, her inspiration instead lies in working with the changing cycles of nature.
Meandering through the tall ponderosa pine forest on the acreage where she and her husband have lived for 23 years, she developed "Forest Walk". This trail through the woodlands connects various designated areas where Long has intentionally placed fallen tree limbs, gathered pine cones and arranged rocks and bones in circles, spirals and random patterns. These compositions of indigenous materials indicate nesting spots or places for contemplation along the trail.
Long is at work in the forest developing another art trail. She is artist-in-residence at Edgemont Highlands, a private residential development in the forest just northeast of Durango, where she has been commissioned to create outdoor sculptural artworks along the community's hiking trails.
Choosing to "intervene subtly and temporarily with nature", her art lends itself to documentation in film. Currently in production, a documentary film, "Seeing the Forest for the Trees, is scheduled for release at the Durango Independent Film Festival in 2008. Highlighting Long's outdoor art trails and productive diverse artistic career, the film focuses attention on one of Durango's unique artists, whose perspective on nature draws attention to and enriches one's appreciation of the surrounding natural wonders.

SEQUENCES OF MEMORY:THE VISUAL BOOKMAKING OF MARY ELLEN LONG

Link to artsperspective.com archive Winter 2006 for this article written by Connie Gotsch.

GRACE AND MARY ELLEN

Check out the Tex Jernigan's Public Gallery - ONE:Aperture of Durango - part of the Colorado Art Ranch's (coloradoartranch.com) weekend in Durango, CO

BLACK/ WHITE & READ

This is a traveling exhibit of artists'books, curated by Gloria Helfgott (who sadly passed from this world recently) The exhibit opened at the Center for the Book, New York City in April and I was able to attend the reception. It is now at the San Francisco Book Arts Center and will be arriving in the L.A. area at the end of October - at the Cerritos Library (October 28-January 14, 2008). It then travels to the University of Western England, Bristol, United Kingdom January 28-March 16, 2008 and then back to the states April 4-June 27 at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Here is one of the works that I have in this terrific exhibit. These one page books have text relating to the objects on their covers.

Memory

DREAMCASTIING

This wonderful book of prose and poetry has just arrived - A Response to "Forest Walk", by Singular Twin Cities poet SANDY BEACH. "Forest Walk" at the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July-August, 2007 . A video of this performance will soon be available.

excerpt:

Maintain a Certain Distance

VIII
The artist says
this is what she does Make offerings
to be in communion
with the forest
this work
is her activism

Forty years of creating Half a life time
spaces for reflection
appreciation
meditation
using that which the forest
in its bounty gives up freely
its quiet ever replenishing gifts

COLORADO ART RANCH

Following the Passage: Mapping a Friendship Installation

September 7-9, Durango Arts Center, Durango, Colorado
A collaboration with Grace Cavalieri, poet and playwright, along wih movement artist Kathryn Moller
and artist/musician Maureen May. The presentation mapped Grace and I's 43-year friendship in written
word, spoken word, sound, installation and movement. The installation included 100 laminated images
of mine and 25 of Grace's poems over four decades amongst seven scrolls documenting Grace's essay
about our friendship. The two dancers,Talia Bamerick and Desiree Henderson, directed by Kathryn,
beautifully activated my installation. A video will hopefully be available to link to in the near future.

Dancers at Rehearsal

The Cast

FOREST WALK at Adams State College, Alamosa, CO

Forest Walk


Encyclopedia


The circular space at the Cloyde Snook Gallery, August 24 through September 14, gave my FOREST WALK installation yet another form. HOT PURSUITS, featured Southwet Colorado artists and was curated by Gerry Riggs, past director of the CSU Colorado Springs gallery. I also showed two book sculptures from the ENCYCLOPEDIA series, a series of photographs from the OFFERING performances and WINTER PRESSING, paper buried under winter snow and shown on the wall. One of my open book sculptures, DETRITUS at CLEARVIEW was the centerpiece in the FOREST WALK installation.

The path to Minneapolis - FOREST WALK exhibit

I have just returned from transporting a carload of art to the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis, MN. . The show is titled "Forest Walk" and is a small retrospective of my work in nature and about nature. (sculpture and installation, nature-altered and handmade paper). The show was installed in one day with the help of gallerist Susan, husband Wendell, and art student Zach Pearl. This is a gallery of narrative art which I has intrigued me for a long time. Lots goes on there. Currently there is an outdoor installation being done in a side yard. On August 4th there will be an original performance by Sandy Beach "Dreamcasting", a response to "Forest Walk". The exhibit included a floor installation of small "bark" books, nature-altered book pages hung in the 2 store fronts, two of my large open books, a variety of smaller artists' books that document my work in nature, wall works of photography and paper buried under winter snows, and hanging scrolls of handmade paper telling forest stories.



The road trip getting to Minneapolis turned on many levels. Leaving Durango in SW Colorado we (Wendell and I) journeyed through Boulder to Rapid City, SD. Landscape raw and minimal. Solitary ghost farms on the horizon. The Badlands interupt with rock formations and the windblown grasses of prairie. Then Mitchell, SD and the Corn Palace, a splendor of maize and corniness! Spent a day in Fargo, the town where my maternal grandparents lived and Grandpa Peter Johnson built a hotel. I had heard about this town as part of my family's oral history so I had always wanted to experience the town. Visited museums of history and a Viking ship, all connecting me with my Norwegian heritage.

Minneapolis beyond the exhibition activity gave us a memorable time...amazing collections at the Walker Art Museum and an anniversary lunch at Wolfgang Puck's resturant there. We stayed with 2nd cousin Bonnie Chase and her husband John. We visited the Center for the Book at the Open Book building and the new Geary theater by the river. And we walked and dinnered by the Mississippi with school friend Joan Williams Phelps and her husband Al....a much longed-for reunion after 30 years.

Offering: Nokomis Lake, Minneapolis

At Nokomis Lake in the city I performed my on-going ritual of floating rounds of handmade paper on waters around the world...as a prayer for the healing of our environment. Then we were off to Kansas to visit cousin Edna and her sister Marjorie in Salina. Frank Taggart, Marjorie's son took us to a farm auction which was Americana at its best and his wife Linda treated us to a lovely dinner. Arrived home late the next day weary but happy to be home.