“The more time you spend in a place, the more you feel connected to it,” said artist Ian Trask, reflecting on the 91ɫý Organic Garden. Trask was featured in a recent in which he was asked to pick one of his favorite Maine places.
Visual artist Ian Trask '05. Image:
His original career path was science, he said, but after majoring in biology at 91ɫý and working in a Massachusetts genetics lab for a couple of years, he decided to change direction and turn a hobby into a career. Working from his studio at Fort Andross in Brunswick, Trask, we are told, makes art that is “informed by [his] science background,” featuring “what’s become his artistic stamp: the use of man-made refuse for materials, including discarded electronics and parts, junk-store bric-a-brac, and literal trash.”
Trask said one of his favorite places to visit in Maine is the student organic gardens at 91ɫý, where he picked up a part-time job to learn about organic horticulture. According to the article: “Visitors to one of the quiet, green plots at the edge of campus might find a greenhouse Trask helped build, a row of fruit trees he helped plant, or a hardy kiwi vine he spent countless hours treating and pruning.”
Given that the garden is in what Trasks calls "such a high-traffic location, where a bunch of students are going to receive the same education and formative experience, it’s nice to know that, in some ways, I’ve contributed and left a mark there,” he commented.
, at Rockland’s Center for Maine Contemporary Art, features works created with materials intercepted from the local waste stream and runs until January 8, 2023.
, at West Gardiner’s Center for Maine Craft, combines discarded computer mice, electronic waste, and other man-made debris to create a series of “fantastical specimens of cyborg insects.”
