Life’s Odd Ephemera

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Over the past three years we have lived very closely with our objects. The pandemic was a period of great loss and deepening awareness of what matters most but it has also been a time to review why objects matter at all. Some have opened boxes covered in dust to review memory materials while others have taken up scrapbooking and crafts. Others purchase while the family member in the next room purges. Everyone has been forced to review their surroundings while considering their own mortality.

Featuring the work of Roz Chast, Claire Messud, and Diana Weymar, Life’s Odd Ephemera explores the multifaceted relationships we’ve forged with our belongings, how they hold value in our daily lives, and what might happen to them once we are no longer here.

In conversation with the works of Chast, Messud, and Weymar is Adriane Herman’s sixth Emotional Value Auction, which capitalizes on the power of witnessing to release blocks and facilitate letting go. Herman gathers and displays items people provisionally entrust to her, along with written statements from each object’s owner about how they came to own (or in some cases steal) their item, and anything they wish to share about why it is time to let go. No money changes hands; “bids” take the form of written statements of interest from viewers, foregrounding alternative metrics of value. Authentic written expression and shared vulnerability are rewarded, and are rewards in themselves.

About the Artists

Roz Chast’s work has appeared in numerous magazines through the years, including The Village Voice, National Lampoon, Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, Redbook and Mother Jones, but she is most closely associated with The New Yorker. Chast attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied painting. After graduating in 1977 she returned to New York City, where she quickly established her cartooning career. In addition to collections of her New Yorker cartoons, Chast has written and illustrated a range of books. Her latest, Going Into Town: A Love Letter to New York (2017), a personalized travel guide to New York City that began as a going-away present to her youngest child, who was moving from the family’s home in Connecticut to attend SVA. Her first memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (2014) won a National Book Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for a National Book Award.

Claire Messud is the author of six works of fiction. A recipient of a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.

Diana Weymar is an artist and activist. She grew up in the wilderness of Northern British Columbia, studied creative writing at Princeton University, and worked in film in New York City.

She has worked on projects with Alabama Chanin, The Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Build Peace (in Nicosia, Bogota, Zurich, and Belfast), the Arts Council of Princeton, the Nantucket Atheneum, the W.E.B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst, the University of Puget Sound, The Zen Hospice Project (San Francisco), the Peddie School, Open Arts Space (Damascus, Syria), Trans Tipping Point Project (Victoria, BC), New York Textile Month, Textile Arts Center (Brooklyn, NY), The Wing (NYC and SF), Alabama Chanin, and Alison Cornyn’s Incorrigibles project, as well as Syrian journalist and activist Mansour Omari. She has also curated exhibitions at the Princeton, NJ headquarters of Fortune 500 company, NRG Energy, and exhibits for the Arts Council of Princeton.

Diana is the creator and curator of Interwoven Stories and The Tiny Pricks Project, both of which are open for public participation. Her work has been exhibited and collected in the United States and Canada.

Winky Lewis is a photographer based in Portland, ME, who has gained recognition for her heartwarming and empathetic portraits of children. With a unique approach that combines sensitivity, empathy, fun, and joy, Winky's photography captures the innocence and wonder of childhood in a truly beautiful way. 

Winky's love for photography began at a young age. She studied fine art photography at Princeton University and later honed her ability to capture just the right moment through years of wedding photography in NYC. 

Adriane Herman orchestrates witnessed releases to harness the power of witnessing to facilitate letting go; highlight the generosity inherent in receiving; and occasion meaningful connections between strangers through publicly shared vulnerability. “Out of Sorts,” her 2017 exhibition at SPEEDWELL contemporary, pressed pause on the recycling process, inviting contemplation of the impact of consumption and our cultural commitment to convenience and disposability. Other solo exhibition sites include Adam Baumgold Gallery (NY); Western Exhibitions (Chicago); Epsten and Kiosk Galleries (Kansas City); Center for Maine Contemporary Art; and Rose Contemporary (Portland). She has participated in group exhibitions at The Dalarnas Museum (Sweden); The Portland Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Chapel Street Gallery at Yale University; Chosen Barren Land, Taiwan; and Print Center New York. Herman’s work is held by collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art; The Progressive; Walker Art Center; Ulrich Museum; and Bates College Museum of Art.

Chair of Printmaking and Coordinator of Public Engagement & Art + Entrepreneurship at Maine College of Art & Design, Adriane Herman is included in: Printmaking at the Edge; A Survey of Contemporary Printmaking; and Thomas Kinkade: The Artist in the Mall. She holds a B.A. from Smith College, an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and maintains an undisclosed number of storage units.