Berta Walker Gallery

208 Bradford Street • Provincetown • MA 02657

p 508-487-6411  •  f 508-487-8794  •  info@bertawalkergallery.com

www.bertawalkergallery.com  

FOR RELEASE:  UPON RECEIPT

 PROVINCETOWN GENERATIONS IN THE ARTS SERIES SERIES 2:  THE NORMAN MAILER FAMILY

Norman Mailer, writer, filmmaker,“doodler of droons”; Norris Church Mailer, actor, writer, painter; Danielle Mailer, sculptor, painter; Maggie Mailer, painter
 
Opening September 28 and continuing through October 14, 2007
Reception:  Friday, October 12, 4 – 6 PM
(Please note:  The artists will be out-of-town until Oct. 12, and thus the reception to greet the artists is scheduled for Friday, Oct. 12 in collaboration with the Norman Mailer Society reception at the Gallery)

Berta Walker opened her second gallery in Provincetown on Bradford Street in Provincetown’s East End, fifteen years ago. Walker was part of three generations of creative people in Provincetown, starting in 1916 (writers, musicians, painters, art dealers),and was inspired to premiere the opening exhibition with a unique and exciting show entitled “Provincetown Generations in the Arts”.  In that exhibition, over thirty families of artistic Provincetown generations, dating back to 1916, were presented. Even more families are now coming to Walker’s attention and in the future, an expanded version will be presented as so many individuals and historians are very taken with this subject.
This year, Walker has decided to create an ongoing series of Generations exhibitions, taking a more in-depth view of the work of these amazing families who have generationally enriched Provincetown’s art colony, “the oldest and most productive art colony in the United States for over 100 years!” says Walker.
In July, the Generations exhibition focused on the Nancy Whorf Family, and in this exhibition, we are treated to an expanded view of Norman Mailer’s family of painters.


NORMAN MAILER
Writer, filmmaker, Doodler of “Droons”
 
Norman Mailer started drawings his “Guys and Droons” as he refers to them, ten years after he spent two months pouring over the “Zervos books of Picasso prints  in research for his book. Asked by Jerry Tallmer of the New York Post, "What's a Droon?", Norman responded "A Droon is an oddball, someone who's seriously skewed."
For the original "Generations" show, Walker invited Norman to bring in a page or two from a manuscript; Norman suggested he bring in a drawing.  And a new match between Gallery and artist was made.   Walker was so taken by these Droon drawings, that she pleaded with Norman to have a show of them.  Resistant, she suggested the show be a benefit for the 25th Anniversary of the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown’s prestigious residency program for emerging artists and writers. This seemed a great idea to Norman – a writer, using drawings to raise dollars and further awareness of the Center’s great program on behalf of young writers and artists from all over the country. “Half of me said I shouldn’t do it;” Norman told Robert Taylor of the Boston Globe, “but half of me wanted to do it, so…(a shrug and a grin.)….Without in any way taking myself too seriously, my drawings came out of studying thousands of Picasso prints" (in preparation for his book “Pablo and Fernande. A Portrait of Picasso as a Young Artist”.) The seed was planted over 40 years ago, and the first drawings appeared ten years after the planting.  The exhibition at Berta Walker Gallery was a great success, and led Norman to a little book entitled “Modest Gifts”, a collection of poems and drawings. In discussing this book with Susan Harrison of the Provincetown Banner, Norman Mailer said. “I wanted to put out a book that would be fun for people and I think this is it."  He continues, "The test of these little snippets of prose broken into short lines, (is) do they have something in them you never thought of before?" "I have no illusions that I have any talent (as a poet or visual artist), I have a flair,” he says. “I have a small facility." I can draw faces because I spent my life studying faces as a novelist would. Picasso gave me that respect for the form of the line.  The line can say so much, the curve of the mouth can say just about everything….It was a relief to do a book that I realize was not going to change literary history.” Both “Modest Gifts” and a selection of Norman’s “Guys and Droons” will be on view during this exhibition.  There are also a few autographed posters from Mailer's "Guys and Droons" exhibiton available for sale, the proceeds of which will be donated to the Fine Arts Work Center.
Pultitzer recipient Norman Mailer is always a man to surprise, from silently helping to start New York’s Village Voice, to running for Mayor of New York, to Drooning and writing “snippets of poems”, as Mailer describes them, we are always enamoured and in for a treat.   Soon, we will be treated to yet another surprise publication by Norman, to be announced.
 
NORRIS CHURCH MAILER
Actor, painter, writer

Norris Church Mailer will be represented in this exhibition in two of her three art forms:  painting and writing. We’ll have to wait for a different opportunity to see her on stage.  Norris’s new paintings are small, original portrayals of women posing as models, which parallels her book “Cheap Diamonds,” the story of a young woman becoming a model in New York in 1970. Norris Mailer’s life has been so full in recent years with writing and acting as well as assuming a leadership role in the formation of the New Provincetown Players in Provincetown, that she is only now returning to the canvas. “I’m excited to get back to painting which I haven’t been able to do for over ten years,” she said recently. She has just returned from an intense six week road trip promoting the new book, and is eagerly working on new paintings for the exhibition “which might arrive a bit wet,” she confides. Autographed copies of her book will be available for purchase during the exhibition.

Norris Church Mailer received a BA in Art and English from Arkansas Tech in 1972, and has had nine one woman shows of her paintings, three in SoHo at Central Falls Gallery, others in Hollywood, Washington DC, Little Rock, Russellville, Arkansas, and Wellfleet, Massachusetts, as well as numerous group shows particularly from 1980-1995, when writing became her calling.  Her first novel, “Windchill Summer” was published by Random House in 2000, as was her recently-premiered second novel “Cheap Diamonds”.  She is a portrait artist as well, receiving numerous commissions from Henry Luce II, Patricia Kennedy Lawford and Arthur Schlesinger, to name a few.

She was a Wilhelmina Model for five years, and also worked at the Actors Studio in New York as a playwright and actress, performing in her two person play “Go See” with Rip Torn, and wrote “Double Feature”, produced by the Actors Studio, starring Rita Gam and Patrick Sullivan.  She has appeared in several movies and plays, and on television in the daytime Drama, “All My Children”.

Norris Church Mailer is the mother of two sons, and stepmother to two sons and five daughters.  She is the grandmother of one and step grandmother to nine.  She lives in Provincetown with her husband of thirty two years, Norman Mailer.

DANIELLE MAILER
Painter, sculptor

Danielle Mailer will be represented in this exhibition by a series of life-sized cutouts made from quarter-inch steel, some unpainted and some intricately painted, as well as a dozen small collages on rice paper.  The focus in this group is the myriad shapes of the female body in dance and yoga, presenting  a sensitive, sensual,  and personalized mystique of women of the twenty-first Century.
Danielle writes in her artist’s statement:
“My larger then life cutouts sometimes floating upside-down or leaping through the air attempt to express the female as exuberant, dynamic, brimming with life force. Through a female landscape of pattern, color and texture, I wish to convey issues of sexuality, mythology, fashion and exhibitionism. As I paint the patterns over the form and they begin to emerge, I imagine the figure turned inside out revealing the spiritual underpinnings. Although I have worked for most of my life with a rectangular format these new works require a physicality just to maneuver and paint the shape that is both challenging and exhilarating.  Through painted symbols and the mixing of visual imagery I express my dreams, passions, fears, etc. It is my hope that the imagery will go beyond my own personal themes and resonate in a broader context.”

Over the past twelve years Danielle Mailer has shown her work in numerous galleries in Connecticut and beyond.   Her one woman shows include: The Wisdom House Gallery, Litchfield CT. 2000, The Norfolk Library, Norfolk CT., 2005,  "Little Gorgeous Things Gallery", in Provincetown Mass. 2005." Columbia Teachers College, New York City, 2007. She is scheduled to show her work at the Bodell/Fahey Gallery (Umbrella Arts), New York City, NY, Nov, 2007. She is also scheduled to have a two person show with the renown kinetic sculptor Tim Prentice at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury CT in the spring of 2008. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions.  She now runs the Danielle Mailer Gallery in Goshen CT where an ongoing exhibiton of her work can be viewed.  Recently she sold a painting to Random House Books to be used for the cover art of the book titled "The Heart of a Family".

Danielle Mailer's work is collected by the Rockefeller Foundation and also by the renowned movie director, Milos Forman. The Norfolk Library purchased two of her outdoor sculptures where they remain on permanent display. She lives in CT. with her husband, musician Peter McEachern and their three children, two Cockateels and a Jack Russell Terrier, Simon.

MAGGIE MAILER
Painter

Maggie Mailer will be represented in this exhibition with six or more paintings from her “Marble Dust Forest Series” –abstract landscapes of emotion, color and light.  In discussing these paintings, Maggie Mailer writes. "I paint in layers, starting with a ground made smooth with marble dust,
which I think of as a layer of architecture.  I then wildly apply colored oils with a painting knife, a process I tend to imagine as feral nature suffusing or reclaiming the constructed world.  These layers trap each thought and emotion I encounter while painting.
In an urge to soothe or civilize, I then level the painted surface with fine sandpaper, hoping to regain the once smooth ground. This process repeats itself over many layers.  Finally, the contrast between the turbulent gestures and the cool, polished surface reveals an inner state, akin perhaps to a wild love affair.  At a given moment, after many days and nights of building up the surface and taking it apart, the painting will finally look back, as if to say “enough.” Meanwhile, as if growing out of the process itself, images of trees and foliage have begun to emerge, a fragile forest planted in marble dust.”
Maggie Mailer received her BA in literature at Columbia in 1993, and in 1998, she received a Residency at the Vermont Studio Center, returning to Columbia in 1999 for a semester in Architecture.  As a professional artist, Maggie Mailer has participated in over 30 exhibitions throughout Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Illinois and has received grants from Pittsfield Cultural Council, through Massachusetts Cultural Council (2003 & 2004); Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, A.R.T (2003 & 2005); and Ferrin Gallery Artist Grant, 2007.
Maggie is the founder of “The Storefront Artist Project” and incredibly successful revitalization project in downtown Pittsfield, MA that makes use of abandoned buildings and factories and has created studio and performance space for artists of all mediums – creating an ever-changing environment for the downtown area. The success of “The Storefront Artist Project” has positioned Pittsfield, MA as a leader in the “cultural corridor” that is forming between New York City and Bennington, Vermont which also includes Storm King, Dia Beacon, Art Omi, Berkshire Museum, MassMoca, Williams College Museum, Clark Art Institute; Storefront’s Director Peter Dudek writes:  “Invariably at the core of the Storefront is Maggie Mailer, artist, founder, guiding spirit and lightning rod. Possessing the necessary character and chutzpah required to envision and realize this project Maggie has been able to negotiate the codependent relationship of artists and real estate. Through the Storefront she has fashioned a mutually beneficial, symbiotic
arrangement in which artists, property owners and the public reap benefits.  Art is made, space is used, the downtown is more active.”

 

For further information please contact the Berta Walker Gallery at

508-487-6411.