![]() "Shell Symphony," by Margaret Roleke, at the Fitchburg Art Museum. “But when you get closer - and see it’s a bunch of shot gun shells - you begin to think beyond it,” Crossman mused. “It’s submerged in the pieces and not totally obvious.”įrom a distance, artist Margaret Roleke’s red, yellow, pink and blue wall sculpture titled, “Shell Symphony,” hangs in pretty loops and curls, kind of like garlands for a Christmas tree. “The organic forms that I carve - and the fact that I’m making them out of these decidedly unnatural materials, implies that tension,” he said. After he coats them with car paint they look like slick, colorful amoebas or slugs on the gallery’s walls. Thompson creates organic-looking figures from man-made material. “It’s used by a lot of industrial designers for model-making and prototyping,” he said, “so it’s absolutely perfect for what I do.” Boston artist Bill Thompson standing in front of his sculpture made with polyurethane - which began as a block like the one he is holding. “It’s super easy to carve, and it’s stable,” Boston artist Bill Thompson explained holding a dense, polyurethane block in his hands. #Plastic flamingo zip#There are pieces made of Plexiglas, foam, zip ties, polyurethane. This kind of tension fills the exhibition. Crossman calls the material a "conservator’s nightmare" because while it doesn’t biodegrade readily, it’s actually difficult to preserve artworks made of plastic. So I think the show really captures that, along with some of the playfulness of plastics and the possibility that it provides - but also some of the darker implications.”Ī number of the artists seem to have something of a love-hate relationship with plastic. “It’s part of 20th and 21st century art,” Crossman says, “and it’s part of so many things that we wear, hold, use, make - all these things. “He and his wife actually wore matching outfits.”Įarl Tupper’s image is up on the wall, too.Ĭrossman says the new exhibition, “ Plastic Imagination,” links their pasts with 10 present day New England artists who use the ubiquitous, versatile material as their medium. “There are a lot of great pictures of him,” she said. He’s included in a timeline of plastics pioneers who fueled a manufacturing boom in the area. In the FAM’s gallery, curator Lisa Crossman points to a picture of Featherstone. He created that flamingo in 1957 by carving a mold out of steel.” “It was created by an artist, Don Featherstone. A parade of plastic pink flamingos in front of the Fitchburg Art Museum. Some people assume the iconic plastic lawn ornament hails from the South, but it’s actually homegrown in Massachusetts. Then there’s the flock of pink flamingos striding across the museum’s front courtyard. #Plastic flamingo tv#Foster Grant sunglasses - made famous in TV commercials starring Sophia Loren - were also made in Leominster. Think Tupperware and the popular mid-20th century plastic container’s “burping” seal. “Because Leominster, our sister city, was the plastics capital of the universe for a long time,” Capasso said. #Plastic flamingo series#The answer? A series of shows that connects to the area’s long industrial legacy of producing furniture, paper and plastics. But the FAM director says he and curators including Mary Tinti also wanted to create exhibitions that would engage with the community and surrounding region in a real, accessible way - which can be challenging with contemporary art. It made sense, for example, to make the gallery's labels bilingual because one-fourth of Fitchburg’s population is Latino and many residents speak Spanish at home. And we need to do everything we can do to help the community in any way it makes sense for a museum to do that.” Fitchburg Art Museum director Nick Capasso. “But one of the great strengths of this city is its art museum. "Fitchburg is a Gateway City - the euphemism for old, dying mill towns - and it’s got a lot of problems,” Capasso told me on a recent visit. Over the last three years Capasso has been working with leadership, curators and educators to devise ways they can make a difference in a city that’s struggling. "We are here to serve people."Ī new exhibition reveals how he and his museum team are using contemporary art, industry and plastic pink flamingos to connect with the community. "Many art museums are very busy serving art - and we look at it a little differently," director Nick Capasso explained. The Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM) in central Massachusetts is on a mission to redefine its role. (Andrea Shea/WBUR) This article is more than 6 years old. Fitchburg's Don Featherstone created the original plastic pink flamingo back in 1957. ![]()
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