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| Aroostook Republican Photo/Lisa Wilcox San Francisco artist Zannah Noe recently stopped by the Nylander Museum in Caribou to display her “American Bones” art exhibit. Noe travels the country with her rescue greyhound Diesel and her van, “Foxy Brown.” |
By Lisa Wilcox
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — On Aug. 14, artist Zannah Noe, originally from Concord, Mass. and now residing in San Francisco, brought her art exhibit “American Bones” to the Nylander Museum in Caribou.
“American Bones” is a three-year project that Noe undertook in 2012 when she embarked on a five-month road trip in her cream-colored early 1980s model van she calls Foxy Brown with her rescue greyhound Diesel.
During the road trip, Noe traveled to many different destinations all across the country, beginning in San Francisco and making her way north to the East Coast. She captured many photographs and created paintings that highlight the many cultural differences of the regions Noe explored.
“Traveling into the guts of America to find its bones,” is how Noe described her journey.
Her photographs range from capturing the image of a young African American Girl Scout in Washington, DC, wearing a vintage uniform that she would not have been allowed to wear during the time of its origination, to participants in a prison rodeo in Louisiana, to Native Americans in full dress participating in sacred rituals in New Mexico.
“The photographs are always about the moment,” Noe commented.
The majority of the paintings Noe created for “American Bones” are mash-ups of different landmarks and icons from each of her stops.
The trademark Noe chose to use for “American Bones” is a famous roller coaster on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.
“The roller coaster is a shared American experience,” Noe explained. “And it’s the perfect example of the journey I took, full of ups and downs and thrills and excitement.”
Noe has studied photography under Carrie Mae Weems at Hampshire College and art at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. More recently she studied under master painter Dough Schneider to further her studies in non-linear oil painting. She runs her own art space, Velcrow Studios, in San Francisco and her work is widely collected and on display in galleries in San Francisco, New Mexico, New York, Massachusetts and Maine.
The Nylander Museum is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The board of directors asks that the public keep watch for news of more upcoming events like “American Bones” in the near future.
