|
Manbites Dog Theater's Tiny Gallery presents
At Home in the World
Photographs by Ann Arbor
February-May 2010
Opening Night reception: Friday February 18, 7:00-7:30.
The lobby is also open on all performance nights prior to show time.
Please check the schedule for our current show online
or by calling 919.682.3343.
Artist's Statement
From temples in China to farmland of the Midwest, from faces of grandmothers in Tibet and grandfathers in Li Jiang, China, to the feet of my newborn grandson in London, England, I find beauty everywhere I go. And that’s because I’m looking for it, thirsting for it, hungry for it.
 
Born in Rumford, Maine, a descendant of immigrant Lithuanian and French Canadian grandparents, I grew up in Mexico, Maine, in a small house with a large family with a clear view of the paper mill. Life in families such as mine depended on hard work, getting by, and making do.
The song I am singing as an artist is written in the key of beauty. With a camera in my hand I can record the immediacy of the world around me that jumps through my lens into my chest and takes my breath away.
My art processes grief into food for my soul. If I am successful, it will feed the soul of others and perhaps inspire them to pick up a paintbrush, dust off an old instrument, an old desire, and begin to play. I believe we all need to transform our grief into beauty so it doesn’t damage the world, so it doesn’t repeat painful patterns we learned in childhood and go on to damage others. If my efforts can give a few people the courage to get up and dance to the music inside them, then I have done what I set out to do.
For years I have been trying to understand the history of photography and to participate in its future. The collection of photographs hanging here in Manbites Dog Theater’s Tiny Gallery visually records a part of that artistic adventure. With gratitude to my teachers, I am delighted to share my work with you and I thank all of those who have welcomed me to this community and made this event possible.
About the Artist
Ann Arbor is a photographer, novelist, and poet. She has taught English to students from pre-kindergarten to graduate school, coached the Beloit College women’s basketball team, and served as Foreign Expert in China at Fudan, Nankai, and Zhejiang Universities. Since 1975 she has been a participant at Robert Bly's Annual Conference on the Great Mother and the New Father. As a photographer she has published work in national and international magazines ranging from The Chicago Tribune to Geo (Germany). Her most recent show, Beauty: A Retrospective, at the University of Maine at Farmington, featured more than seventy of her works and was scheduled in conjunction with the honorary doctorate bestowed upon her by that university in May, 2009.
Return to Manbites Dog's Home Page
(c) 2001-2010 Manbites Dog Theater Company, Durham, NC |
