Nat Hemenway, May, 1995

For Immediate Release:

The Main Street Museum Of Art, yawning and stretching after its annual winter hibernation is very pleased to announce an exhibition of the works of Mr. Nat Hemenway, of Strafford, Vt.: Photographer, Painter, And Sculptor Of The Shocking Brutality Of The Human Condition as an opener—a teaser—for the up-coming 1995 Downtown White River Junction art season.

from the 13 May, til the first week of July, 1995.

with an opening reception on May 13 from 4:00 o’clock til 9.

Imagine, if you will, Jacobs heroic wrestling match with the Angel Of God. Update yourself almost three thousand years; add a paint brush and hammer and nails and “Diana”™ (brand) Camera and a lot of glue. Now change the setting from the dense and pre-Talmudic forest glade to the Buzzing & Hustling Downtown of one of Vermonts jewel cities, White River Junction.

Teleported in such a manner, where might you be? Nowhere else but an Exhibition of the oeuvre of a Neo-expressionist painter-photographer-sculptor; and the Gallery full of totems in bright colors laid on with a kind of “slash and burn” æsthetic. Imagine our little Galleries filled to the gills with mixed-media art. Imagine Sculpture much like the choppy attack, in song, of Jell-O Biafra. Photographs adorn many of these Concoctions, as well as found objects and some of Mr. Hemenways Old Breakfast Dishes. Dont look surprised, the msm is the perfect place for this kind of “Outsider Art” for we are indeed Outsiders in the World of Art, and Strangers in a Strange Land of Culture & Quality (words we try to avoid).

Enter the artist, a thoughtful, thought-provoking young intellect who came to Vermont many years ago from the marts and hurly-burly of Boston where he had endured: “severe training in the school of difficulties and reverses.” as well as being subjected to nightly punk-rock revelries at the Rat(skellar) and the other Sordid Dens-Of-Vipers where folks learned that Corporate Greed and Neo-cons and the Easy-money-of-Real-Estate-Scams were not all there was to the 80’s. That decade offered Alcoholism and Roach Infested Apartments and The Primordial Mosh-Pit and Cursing-And-Glorying-In-It as well. It was in this Prep-School For Disillusionment that our young hero came to the end of his rope, as it were, suffered the trials of Job and embarked on the stormy seas of the world of art.

¶ We can only add, at this juncture, that some kind of suffering, or at least introspection to a baleful degree, is the surest path to creation; and our highlighted talent for the first part of the summer is qualified in these adversities in spades.

Artists and great minds from Jean Genêt to the painter Dubuffet have been obsessed with the insane, with criminals, with Bad People and Bad Art. We can count ourselves fortunate to have our very own Bad Artist in our neighborhood. We can only add, that this is an artist who is “on to” something. He attended the University of Vermont and from that point decided that this State held secrets about living that should be in�vestigated. While this can never be Nirvana; we cant help think that some Ineffable Mélange fritzes our Cloud-Scapes and our Gentle Little Green hills and the aggregate is approximately what Mr. Lao-tzu described as The Way. Or per�haps its just Something In Our Water Supply.

So once again its Real-Life down here in the Junction and all are cordially invited to come on down to be greeted by Real People and see some Real Art. See Mr. Hemenway and what he has done; what he has wrestled with, and what is the Climacteric Result. And when we survey Mr. Hemenways work, we cant help but be reminded of what the Angel Of The Lord told Jacob, “you strove with God and with people and you pre�vailed.”

We are open anytime, any day, by ap�pointment. Our formal hours, for the duration of this show, will be: Fridays and Saturdays from Noon Til Six p.m.

Our membership drive, part two, is underway in an effort to expand these hours. Write for our free booklet! And, as God did to Jacob, may Mr. Hemenways art grab you by “the hollow of the thigh,” so to speak.

may it please you, at The Main Street Museum Of Art