Jones’ art featured in Portland gallery, Press Herald reports
The Portland Press Herald reported Samantha Jones, an assistant professor of art at the University of Maine, has work on display as part of “The Way Life Is: Maine Working Families and Communities,” an exhibit at the Union of Maine Visual Artists Gallery at Portland Media Center. The exhibit, which includes works by 38 Maine artists, is free and open to the public, and will be on display Feb. 1–22, according to the Press Herald. Jones’ installation of three bundles of balsam fir tips arranged on totem-like sapling poles is titled “Tipping,” and references the wreath-making industry and the seasonal brush-gathering, or tipping, required to sustain it, the article states. Jones, who spent the early part of her working life in seasonal employment, said tipping is “a seemingly superfluous endeavor that could make or break a family’s survival.” Her bundles are decorated with survey tape to reference the tension between private landowners and Maine’s underground brush-gatherers, according to the article. “These will be very foreign objects to most people, and that speaks to how under-the-table this stuff is,” Jones said.