The following is an article about Long Time Passing, an upcoming Exhibit at the Rahr-West Art Museum, by Diana Bolander, Assistant Director/Curator at the Rahr-West Art Museum for the Art Forward weekly column.
In an upcoming exhibit at the Rahr-West Art Museum, two Wisconsin artists, Lorraine Ortner-Blake and Roberta Condon tell the story of the Midwest farm, painting vast pastoral landscape, and the intimate details of rural family life. The show confronts two concepts that are relevant to all: memory and change.
Ortner-Blake and Condon have witnessed the constant changes of Midwest farming and the shift from small acreage family farms to two extremes: very large and very small. The show, titled Long Time Passing, after a phrase from a Pete Seeger song, features over 50 paintings that address physical and economical change to the Midwest landscape.
Ortner-Blake’s bright and lyrical work in gouache takes an intimate, detailed look at family farming. She presents the familial view of life on the farm through her mother’s reminiscences and the memories of childhood. Through the eyes of her octogenarian mother, her richly detailed paintings illustrate the Midwest Family farm life of the 1930s – 70s.
Her pieces distort viewpoint and perspective the same way memory does. “My mom is nearly 90. The adventures of her young days remain her strongest memories,” says Ortner-Blake. “My family enjoys hearing the tales of her childhood and early married life.” This series of paintings reflects those stories.
Roberta Condon’s pastel paintings in the Long Time Passing exhibit are from a series entitled “American Pastoral” and present vast rural views in hauntingly beautiful depictions where farms and their landscapes almost melt off the paper. They echo the change in rural landscape as it shifts from family farm to industrial agri-business. Condon’s modern abstract works shout out the landscapes of Wisconsin’s farms and fields, presenting rich, vibrant pastels in large contemporary splashes of line and color.
Each of her paintings addresses an issue facing modern farmers and is presented in the manner of an alphabet book. Condon states, “As a child, my favorite author was Maurice Sendak. An American artist, he wrote and illustrated an alliterative alphabet book for children called Alligators All Around. As I walked the side roads of Wisconsin, I noted the ‘agriculture all around’ and the idea formed to illustrate both the beauty and the ills of the Midwest small farm community following the format Sendak used for his children’s book.” Thus, the book Agriculture All Around – Agriculture Run Aground was born.
The book brings together the 26 paintings along with facts and ideas about agriculture. Condon’s paintings constitute an ode to the beautiful pastoral scenes in the Midwest and a tribute to those who work the land and tend animals. It stands as a warning that one day we will look up and these scenes will be lost.
The Rahr-West Art Museum is proud to be the first venue to host these works. Aside from the strong narrative and conceptual element, the works are deeply rooted in the landscape and narrative traditions of western art bringing to mind the work of artists in our own collection, such as the playful narratives of Marc Chagall’s Le Cirque and moody landscapes of the Tonalist J. Francis Murphy.
After the exhibit debuts at the Rahr-West Art Museum this spring and summer, Long Time Passing will tour the Midwest for three years. “I am proud to debut in Wisconsin as a Wisconsin artist, painting and writing about the Midwest. I am especially proud to debut at Rahr-West as the saving of the old and honoring the past to protect the future is what the series and show is all about,” says Roberta Condon. Lorraine Ortner-Blake agrees, remarking that Manitowoc “has a tradition of respect for farmers and farming.”
You can see more of Lorraine Ortner-Blake’s work at LorraineOrtner-Blake.com and more of Condon’s work at robertacondon.com. Long Time Passing will be available at the Rahr-West Art Museum from April 18 – August 1, 2021. Find hours and visitor information at rahrwestartmuseum.org.