PROPOSED ACQUISITIONS Winter 2020 PROPOSED PURCHASES Shan Goshorn Eastern Band Cherokee, 1957–2018 Uncovering the Past 2017 Arches watercolor paper, archival inks, acrylic paint, artificial sinew 10.5 x 5.5 x 5.5 in (26.7 x 14 x 14 cm) $8,000 Proposed purchase from The William A Oates Jr ’65 Endowed Fund for the Museum The subject of a forthcoming retrospective organized by the Gilcrease Museum, Shan Goshorn was a multimedia artist acclaimed for her conceptual adaptation of traditional weaving techniques A self-taught weaver, she introduced Cherokee basketmaking into her practice beginning in 2008, innovating with patterns and materials in order to “present the friction between state and tribal governments.” Baskets would typically be fashioned from rivercane, but, instead, she created splints from archival paper printed with historical text and imagery and used these to construct elaborate single- and double-weave vessels. Entitled Uncovering the Past, this piece responds to the history of the Brafferton Indian School established at the College of William and Mary in the early eighteenth century As Goshorn learned in the course of her research, the school was constructed in 1723 and the Indigenous pupils enrolled there were groomed to function as translators and intermediaries between their tribes and settler colonialists To make the basket, Goshorn incorporated fragments from the royal charter which outlined the original vision for the school and some of its associated financial documents In the artist’s own words, “To symbolize the parallel experience of uncovering facts layer by layer, I chose the traditional Cherokee basketry pattern called ‘Arrowhead Point.’ This is a valuable story that needs to be made available and shared because it is vastly unknown, even among native people.” An incredibly powerful object, and one that is particularly apt for an academic museum collection, Uncovering the Past offers a technical and cultural counterpoint to Color in Winter, the recently acquired basket by Wabanaki artist Jeremy Frey Mining these archival texts for her constituent materials, Goshorn generated a basket that illuminates one fraught historical institution, but simultaneously condenses and permits access to centuries of conflict, subjugation, and sovereignty In light of her tragically premature passing, there is a very limited inventory of available artwork, and what remains has recently been added to collections such as the National Museum of the American Indian and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Séan Alonzo Harris American, born 1968 Salix, Annick, and Dore Munezero 2019 Digital archival print 22 x 17 in (55.9 x 43.2 cm) One of eight proposed acquisitions from the series, “I Am Not a Stranger” $900 each (total $7,200) Gift of Marjorie Lunder in honor of her father Peter H Lunder’s 85th Birthday This proposed purchase of eight photographs by Séan Alonzo Harris would establish a lasting record of a major photography commission by the Colby Museum in collaboration with multiple community partners In 2018, Harris was invited by the Colby Museum and Waterville Creates! to photograph people who live and work in Waterville within a studio arrangement inspired by the photographer Irving Penn The title Harris gave to the series, I Am Not a Stranger, captures his commitment to documenting the city’s diversity and the contributions of people who are new to the area as well as those whose ties go back generations While on display in the fall of 2019, a complete set of the portraits—fifty-seven in all—was shared between the Colby Museum and Common Street Arts, and additional selections from the series were on view at fourteen local businesses and institutions throughout the city The portraits proposed for acquisition in honor of Peter Lunder were chosen in consultation with the artist to ensure that the strongest and most compelling images would enter the collection The project was an invitation to consider the lives and the stories that enrich Waterville, including multiple members of the Colby community. Included in the proposed group are Lihua Lei, 2006 Currents artist; Board member and artist Theresa Secord and her son, Caleb Hoffman, a swim coach at Colby; and Colby Dining Services employee Ralph Merrow with his family Colby students enrolled in Civic Engagement seminars utilized the exhibition and the accompanying brochure in their coursework and, if this acquisition is approved, faculty will continue working with the photographs in the future. Séan Alonzo Harris was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968, and studied photography at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University; Accademia di Belle Arti Lorenzo da Viterbo, Italy; and the Maine Media Workshops He participated in the 2018 Portland Museum of Art Biennial and a recent project, Visual Tensions, received a Kindling Fund grant from the Warhol Foundation He is currently an artist in residence at the Indigo Arts Alliance. Maya Lin American, born 1959 Interrupted River: Penobscot 2019 Glass marbles, adhesive 288 × 264 × 58 in (731.5 x 670.6 x 147.3 cm) $95,000 Proposed purchase from Sandy ’78 and Sissy Buck, Laura Keeler Pierce '07 and M Vassar Pierce Jr., Seth A Thayer ’89 and Gregory N Tinder, the Bruce C Drouin ’74 and Janet L Hansen ’75 Maine Art Endowed Fund, and the Robert Cross Vergobbi ’51 Museum Acquisition Fund This site-specific commission was developed for the Museum’s 2019 exhibition O ccupy Colby: Artists Need to Create on the Same Scale That Society Has the Capacity to Destroy Curated by Phong Bui, publisher and artistic director of The Brooklyn Rail, this exhibition focused on environmental issues, particularly climate change It galvanized productive dialogues and collaboration among artists, faculty, students, and citizens at large, culminating in associated programming and the publication of a special issue of The River Rail. Last semester, I nterrupted River: Penobscot joined three other Lunder Collection works by Maya Lin on view in the Museum Unlike these other representations of waterways (the Kissimmee River; the Arctic Ice Shelf; the Thames), this dimensional drawing depicts a Maine-based river In the course of mapping the Penobscot watershed, Lin took note of the abundance of dams and, for the first time, represented this infrastructure through breaks in the marbles Her tactic calls attention to the extraordinarily wide-reaching ecological, cultural, and economic impacts that dam construction has had in the region, and is a particularly timely topic given ongoing river restoration efforts and the recent removal of some of these structures Here, as is so often the case in her work, Lin reorients viewers by challenging the localized, fragmented, or transactional relationships we have to bodies of water and instead presenting the Penobscot to us in its entirety as a living organism. Museum staff worked closely with the Maya Lin studio on the realization of this ambitious installation in the Lower Jetté Gallery, where it became a centerpiece of public and curricular engagement during the run of the exhibition On view at the same time as W íwənikan…the beauty we carry, it also resonated with discussions about the Wabanaki homeland which we hope to continue. Confirmation of Purchase Purchased jointly by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with funds from the Film and Video Committee; and the Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine, with funds from Bernard and Barbro Osher. Theaster Gates American, born 1973 Do you hear me calling? Mama Mamama or What Is Black Power? 2018 Edition of + 2AP Two channel video Duration: 42 minutes 40 seconds $75,000 Gifts of the Alex Katz Foundation Bob Thompson American, 1937–1966 St John and the Island of Patmos 1965 Oil on canvas 18 x 14 in (45.7 x 35.6 cm) Martha Diamond American, born 1944 Span 1990 Oil on linen 72 x 48 in (182.9 x 121.9 cm) Chantal Joffe British, born 1969 Fraser in his Arsenal Top 2019 Oil on canvas 24 1/8 x 18 1/8 x 3/4 in (61 x 46 x cm) Chantal Joffe British, born 1969 Moll 2019 Oil on board 14 3/8 x 11 1/8 x 3/4 in (36.5 x 28 x cm) Nicole Wittenberg American, born 1979 Savannah Sound 2 2019 Oil on canvas 72 x 96 in (182.9 x 243.8 cm) Barnett Newman American, 1905–1970 Untitled Etching #1 1969 Etching and aquatint on J Green paper Image: 14 7/8 x 23 ¾ in (37.8 x 60.3 cm) Sheet: 19 x 29 5/8 in (48.3 x 75.3 cm) PROPOSED GIFTS From Michael L Gordon ’66 Joaquin Torres-Garcia Uruguayan, 1874–1949 Pintura Collage 1917 Oil on board 13 3/4 x 18 3/8 in (34.9 x 46.7 cm) From Paola Borgatta, Mia Borgatta, and Francesca Borgatta Isabel Case Borgatta American, 1921–2017 Maya 1991 Red marble 28 x 10 x 10 in (71.1 x 25.4 x 25.4 cm) From Terry Winters Terry Winters American, born 1949 Red Stone 2019 CP (Colby proof) Lithograph in colors on Revere Standard White Felt paper 51 5/8 x 39 in (131 x 99 cm) From Seth A Thayer ’89 and Gregory N Tinder in honor of Sharon Corwin Louise Dahl-Wolfe American, 1895–1989 William Edmondson 1937 Gelatin silver print Print size: x 10 in (20 x 25 cm) Image size: 1/4 x 1/4 in (13 x 13 cm)