HOOSICK FALLS, NY — A longtime Vermonter, teacher, and current Bennington graphic artist will be showcased in a new solo show in Hoosick Falls this week called “Above & Below,” incorporating hints of the darkness and mood of our current times amid a glimmer of hope .
Barbara Ackerman has been an artist for as long as she can remember.
“I remember watching the Friday fights with my grandfather in New Jersey, and I would sit there and draw, and he would watch boxing,” she said.
That kid who would draw and paint pictures next to Grandpa has become an artist striving to reconcile unresolved feelings about what she sees as the beauty surrounding her with what the artist is witnessing in our greater world. The exhibit, opening this Saturday at the 3rd Eye Gallery in Hoosick Falls, is a collection of graphic prints using various shapes and textures and a series of moving, immediate, and sometimes dark pieces searching for connection.
“I started this based on a piece of art that I saw at the Clark,” Ackerman says. “There was an incredible tapestry exhibit. These artists had a team of weavers creating their vision, and one of the last pieces I saw was a piece by Kiki Smith. It was all gray, and then, way down in the corner, there was a bright color. I loved that concept. I worked really hard at it, but I just had to put it aside. It wasn’t happening, but this idea of above and below, heaven and earth, good and bad, stuck with me. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded here in Vermont. I look out of my window. I can watch the sunset. I have a field full of grass and animals frequenting the property. I’m just so privileged to be able to enjoy all of that, but I had a real issue with making art that was pleasurable to create and looking at when such horrible things are happening in the world right now.”
A good portion of the show is about that dichotomy.
“I had to find some connections between the light and the dark,” Ackerman says. “I started connecting these two realms with just line and paper.”
The Banner spent the afternoon with the artist as she hung her show, chatting about how she grew up, what art is to her, and what the genesis was of creating immediate and relevant art today.
“I don’t think that it’s even fully realized yet,” Ackerman says as she looks over the art, some not yet framed, that lines the gallery floor. “You know, I feel like what I have to do is to find out what’s happening, to make sense of it all. Well, it doesn’t really make sense, but I think it’s too easy to ignore because I can, you know, make myself coffee and walk down to my studio without ever having to really look. I just want people to be thinking about that. Most of the art is about art making, the process of actually creating the art. I think most of it is still cerebral. It hasn’t come to the place where I’m acting out what I might have experienced. Some of it is purely visual, just for art’s sake, but some is there to let people know that I’m thinking about what’s happening, which, in turn, hopefully, can prompt other people to think about some of that stuff.”
Ackerman’s work can be pure graphics, line, space, form, and color, the way she uses texture to create cohesion and beautiful order in disorder is visually stunning. There’s no mistaking the type of artist she has been. But, beyond that purely visual and pleasing graphic, there’s now a stark thread of something beyond what might please the eye. There is a developing tension to the lines, a conflict, the tones, gray on dark grey connected only by the thinnest of threads or none at all.
Ackerman was born in New Jersey. Her family moved to Shaftsbury when she was in grade school, over 60 years ago. She has fond memories of the quiet and pure joy she experienced there, especially in winter, being the oldest of six and an exemplary and focused student. Ackerman eventually attended the Graphic Arts department at the University of Vermont, where she was exposed to new art ideas and got her first experience teaching middle schoolers at the Fleming Museum. She became a professional graphic designer soon after in Burlington, working in the field for over 15 years. A life circumstance had her moving south, where she became a graphic arts teacher at Mount Anthony, eventually retiring in 2019.
After retirement, Ackerman continued producing art and teaching part time at Monument Elementary, but sought something more.
“I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I saw an announcement or this introduction to solar plate printing on the Cape with Dan Weldon,” Ackerman said. “I looked at his work and went, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I decided, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I hadn’t spent time in the cape before, which was fantastic. Printmaking was magic.”
Ackerman worked with Dan for two years, spending much time in Sag Harbor on Long Island, where he was based. She eventually started producing her art using solar plate printing as her medium. Ackerman said that the process freed her, that the immediacy of seeing what you just felt at the moment, patterns and textures, lots of layers and textures, helped her get to know the spontaneity of her art. Later, she was introduced to Sarah Amos, another master printer using patterns to create texture.
“When you’re working with Sarah, she loves to make you move fast,” Ackerman said. “She urges you to make decisions quickly. You have to have all of your inks together. You have to have all your plates inked up ahead of time. I did these with Sarah, and I think they’re great examples of art not being premeditated.”
As to how Ackerman began incorporating what she felt were important subjects, Ackerman says it happened organically.
“The initial piece happened when my son and I were just playing in the studio,” Ackerman said. “I love heavily embossed pieces, so I was working on that. And then, I had color on the top area and decided to protect some of the emboss. It was cool. It separated these two related but different areas.”
Ackerman became emotional when we spoke about that moment.
“Sometimes this stuff is not a thought-out process,” she said after taking a moment. “Sometimes it just happens.”
Today, the art meets the moment.
“It’s meant to provoke a response,” she says. “I mean, that’s why we do it to get out of our daily routine, our preconceived ideas, to just explore something new, to be open, open to your neighbor saying, hey, you know you want to go downtown and protest, or, hey, do you want to, you know, hop on the bus to Burlington? The process of art-making is just so unexpected. You can go into the studio with ideas, but I think you know that to be successful, you have to let things happen to some degree. Let it go.”
Ackerman is a Boston Printmakers International Association of Artists member and a board member of Two Rivers Printmaking Studio in White River Junction. She is also an exhibiting member of the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester, The Current in Manchester, and an active member of the arts community in her hometown of Bennington.
“Above and Below” opens on Saturday, June 14. There is an opening event at the 3rd EYE Gallery at 9 John Street from 5-8 p.m. The event is open to the public. Some of the proceeds from art sales will be donated to the Bennington County Indivisible, a grassroots organization with a mission to elect progressive leaders and help rebuild democracy.
