Page 25 - The Bell Tower - Summer/Fall 2015

Buckwheat, a solo exhibition of “en plein air” pastel paintings by UMFK’s Adjunct Visual Arts Instructor, Thérèse L. Provenzano was on public display at the gallery of the Acadian Archives/Archives acadiennes
from December through March. The pastel paintings depicted the buckwheat fields
in Wallagrass belonging to the Bouchard Family Farm of Joseph and Janice Bouchard.
It took three growing seasons to com- plete the body of work on location.
A painter wrestles with an ever-chang- ing light, an unexpected strong wind, the possibility of intermittent sun showers or a sudden downpour. It required an artist’s patience and skill.
Provenzano said, “A direct and unfil- tered experience with nature was essential to my process as the distant fields pulled me close.”
Lise Pelletier, director of the Acadian Archives acadiennes said, “Provenzano evokes not only the unique beauty of our geographical area in this body of work but also expresses what is special about the cul- tural heritage of the people who inhabit this land and are deeply rooted to it.”
The Bouchard Family Farm harvests buckwheat to make and sell their famous ployes mix. Ployes are a version of a crepe or pancake and are part of the Acadian cul- ture of the St. John Valley.
The gallery of Maine Farmland Trust in Belfast, Maine, exhibited Buckwheat in April. Buckwheat can be viewed at: www. mainefarmlandtrustgallery.com
In 2002, Provenzano left New York to reside at her great-grandfather’s homestead in Wallagrass and to teach the visual arts and history of art at the University of Maine at Fort Kent. The Maine landscape and arti- facts of Acadian culture have been and con- tinue to be a source of inspiration for her work. Provenzano earned a Masters of Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art) and a Three-Year Certificate of the Fine Arts from the National Academy of Design School of the Fine Arts in
New York. The Woodmere Art Museum
of Philadelphia awarded her the Edith Emerson Prize Award at their Sixty-Sixth Annual Juried Exhibition. The Metropolitan Museum and Art Center of Coral Gables Florida awarded her the First Prize Award
at the Fabric On, Third Annual International Design Competition. Presently, her charcoal drawings are traveling in an international group exhibition, Acadie Mythique, curated by Harlan Johnson, a Fine Arts faculty mem- ber of Dawson College in Montreal.
Provenzano shared her experience in a poem she wrote as her artist statement:
Buckwheat
Each day is different.
There lies the challenge. What’s given is different. What I see is different.
Mostly, the light changed. Then, the field changed. Patient, with intent,
I search for one constant
and rest my gaze on a shape that is familiar.
It grounds me to trust my instincts.
I take off, willingly.
I found myself in a place of wanting to paint
Bouchard’s red that glistened. I identify land with my grandfather.
He was a farmer of Wallagrass.
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