mayersnatasha@gmail.com

Selected Solo Exhibitions:

2006 University of Maine at Lewiston-Auburn, Atrium, Signs of the Times
2005 University of Maine at Presque Isle, Bearing Witness
2003 Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine, State of War map paintings
2001 Railroad Square, Waterville, Towards a regional road map of Maine
2000 Southern Ohio Museum, Portsmouth, Ohio, photographs of pole paintings And road map paintings                                                                   2000 Davidson and Daughters Gallery, Portland, Maine, Towards a regional Road map of Maine
1998 Davidson and Daughters Gallery, Portland, painted columns, acrylic and vinyl tape
1998 Downtown Gallery, Washington, painted columns
1997 Gallery House, Nobleboro, Social Fabric (monotypes)
1996 Gallery House, Nobleboro – with Katherine Bradford
1994 Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Inside/Outside drawing series
1994 College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor: Blum Gallery, monotypes

Selected Group Exhibitions:

Feb 28 – March 28, 2008. Untraceable is an exhibition of artists’ responses to political control, violence and torture. The exhibition is curated by Cooley Gallery director Stephanie Snyder, and is inspired by the work of Reed College political science professor Darius Rejali, an internationally recognized expert on modern torture and the author of Torture and Democracy (Princeton, 2007). Untraceable explores the invisible and covert forms of violence that have come to characterize both modern torture and political oppression. The exhibition includes painting, photography, sculpture and new media.

The group exhibition is curated by Stephanie Snyder, Curator, Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, with contributions by Stuart Horodner, Curator, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, Georgia and Mack McFarland, Exhibitions Coordinator, Pacific Northwest College of Art.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:
Nubar Alexanian
Hans Haacke
Adam Helms
Emily Jacir
Natasha Mayers
Walid Raad

2007 Weather Report: Art and Climate Change, curated by Lucy Lippard, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art

some of the participating artists included: the Yes Men, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Marjetica Potrc, Chrissy Orr, Mary Miss, Pierre Huyghe, Agnes Denes, and Helen and Newton Harrison

2007 Censorship, Brecht Forum, NYC

2007 Portraits of Guantanamo, Amnesty International, Lincoln St. Center for the Arts, Rockland

2006 Innovative Techniques/Alternative Surfaces in Printmaking,
Maine Print Project, UMA, Augusta
2005 2005 Biennial, Portland Museum of Art
2005 Warflowers: From Swords to Plowshares, USM, UMF, Camden Library,
College of the Atlantic (Blum Gallery), 44 artists curated by N Mayers
2004 Naked, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland (curated by Katherine Bradford)
2004 The Personal is Political, Area Gallery, University of Southern Maine
2004 Family Values, installation with 3 Monkeys Collective, in New
England/New Talent, Fitchburg Art Museum
2004 Eliminating Racism, Galeyrie, Falmouth, Maine
2004 Drawing is a window, Chocolate Church, Bath, Me.
2003 Mapping Maine: Four Contemporary Views, Portland Museum of Art
(with Yvonne Jacquette, Sam Cady, and Eric Hopper)
2002 Preserving Memory: American‘s Monumental Legacy, Smithsonian
2002 9/11: Prelude to an Apocalypse, University of New England, Portland
2002 Past, Present, Future(50th Anniversary Invitational), Maine Center
for Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine
2002 The Day We Saw the Edge of the Earth, Firehouse Gallery, Damariscotta
2001 Reactions: Public Response to 9/11, Exit Art, NYC
2001 Library of Congress permanent collection: Witness and Response
2001 Sense of Place: Visual Arts and the Environment, Chewonki Foundation
2000 Domestic Culture: Home in Visual Culture, Institute of Contemporary Art ,
Maine College of Art, curated by Mark Bessire
2000 On Paper – Maine Art Gallery with Jacquette, Bradford, and Hildreth
1999 Past Personal/Present Personal- University of Maine at Augusta
1997 The Eccentric Image – Icon Gallery, Brunswick
1996 Skowhegan at 50 – Maine Coast Artist Gallery and Maine College of Art
1996 Mother Tongue – A visual dialogue originating in Amherst, Ma, and exhibited in many locations, curated by Mary Bernstein (Queens Center for the Arts, 2007)

1994 Lure of the Local - Curated by Lucy Lippard, UC at Boulder
1994 10 x 10 show, Portland (also in 1995 – 2000)
1990 Home installations in Congress street storefronts in Portland
1989 Farnsworth Museum 40th Anniversary Show
1987 Inside/Outside: Private Art show, USM UMO Hampshire College
1987 Maine Coast Artists, Rockport: since 1975: Works on Paper, Promising Younger Artists, Skowhegan Graduates, Maine Women Artists

Awards:

Abbey Mural Workshop Fellowship, National Academy of Design, 2008

Great Spruce Head Island 2011, awarded fully-funded residency
Peacemaker Award, Peace Action Maine, January 28, 2006
Americans Who Tell the Truth, travelling exhibit of portraits by Robert
Shetterly of historical and contemporary Americans who “have had a
profound impact on American life”, now includes a portrait of Natasha
Arthur Hall Award, 2005, “for an artist whose work, community service
and commitment to their craft that inspires others around them to reach to
their highest potential” (criteria: a history of creating positive change
through the arts throughout the state of Maine; fostering quality artistic
expression and the integration of the arts into daily life; inspiring others to
use the arts as a tool to bridge gaps in their community)
Millennium Artist, a national residency program of the National
Endowment for the Arts: Artists and Communities: America Creates for
the Millennium (a White House project), 2000, 3 months in Portsmouth,
Ohio (only artist in Maine to be chosen out of 90 in Maine who applied)
Individual Artist’s Fellowship 1998 Visual Arts Maine Arts Commission
Maine Alliance for Arts Education’s Bill Bonyun Award in 1995, for
community arts, presented at Portland Museum of Art
New England Foundation for the Arts, Artists Projects: New Forms
Award for utility pole-painting project for 20 poles painted by me in
February 1996-( painted 45 poles)
Maine Humanities Council Century Project grant for documenting pole
project in 1996
Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts funded residency by Maine Arts
Commission in 1993
Zorach scholarship to Skowhegan School of Painting in 1976

Mural Making Residencies and Teacher Workshops and Community Murals
As Maine Arts Commission Visiting Artist: (some highlights of the 500+murals)

2009 Lubec Arts Alive in Lubec, “arting up the town”,working with community to paint a bicentennial mural, portraits of beloved members of the community, visual street signs, storefronts, and more

2009 Bicentennial Mural project with Whitefield School 7th grade and community members

2009 Upward Bound students, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.

2009 under auspices of VSA (Very Special Arts), worked at Spurwink School, Cornville, with severely emotionally-disturbed youth

2005 Tile project with 150 Portland residents, making clay tiles that are cast into bronze and inserted into the sidewalk on Congress St., Portland Mayor’s Office and the Public Art Committee (working with Portland Coalition for the Psychiatrically-Labelled, Center for Cultural Exchange, and Portland Parks and Recreation at Reiche School)

2005 American Hero/ine Portrait project, Whitefield School 5th grade, Whitefield Historical Society with grant from Maine Humanities Council

2004 Changing Face of Maine, Peace Action Maine, artist-in-residence, Riverton School, Portland, traveling exhibit of self-portraits by culturally-diverse 5th graders (portraits and bios travelled to rural schools)

Auburn Great Wall community mural 692′ long, City of Auburn and
Lewiston/Auburn Arts…

Artists in Communities project; Millennium Artist in Portsmouth, Ohio,
for 3 months, Southern Ohio Museum

Whitefield School, pole-painting project with 4th-5thgrade; History of town and people’s life stories painted on 17 Central Maine Power utility poles

Heifer International, New American Sustainable Agriculture Project,
Lewiston, Maine, mural
Calais Middle School Champlain mural for Visitor Center
Brunswick Area Arts and Cultural Alliance
Androscoggin Gifted and Talented Program (Bau Graves)
Mesalonskee Gifted and Talented Program
MECA Summer Program (Pleasant Street Park mural and Congress St.
University of Southern Maine Summer Art Institute

Center for Cultural Exchange ………………Reiche School, Portland
Spindleworks………………………………..Gardiner Community Mural .
Lewiston-Auburn AIDS Coalition…………. Tanglewood 4-H Camp
Hall-Dale Middle School……………………Aroostook Arts Institute
Gardiner High School………………….. …..Saco Middle School Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation.. Plummer-Motz School Winthrop community murals four years…….Gray, Raymond schools

Community Arts Organizer: (some highlights)

Maine Draw-a-thon (2010): 40 Maine artists came together to draw images of how they want their war dollars (taxes) spent, as part of the Bring Our War Dollars Home campaign, with Kenny Cole and Union of Maine Visual Artists, followed by: Draw-In at the Maine State House, where the artists presented their legislators with hundreds of ‘zines created at the draw-a-thon, and drew passersby requests for how they would like their taxes spent, and artwork was delivered all around the offices. Press conference with artists, poets, musicians, organizers, followed by: Drawathon at Space Gallery, Portland, Veterans Day, 2010, in which 44 artists came together to draw how they want their war $$ spent and portraits of veterans and how they would like to spend that money. Drawathon  III (January, 2011), silkscreened posters.

Lubec Arts Alive 2009, a model of community revitalization through the arts. Twelve artists from the Union of Maine Visual Artists went to Lubec for a week to “art up the town”. They brought their energy, vision, skills, and willingness to serve. Some of the artists involved were Robert Shetterly, Kenny Cole, Rose Marasco, Karen Adrienne, Diane Dahlke, Barb Sullivan, Alan Crichton, and Brown Lethem. They painted people’s portraits, a historical mural for the bicentennial, iconic signs for the town, and decorated storefronts,  Community members helped paint the mural and signs, conducted interviews as portraits were painted, photographed and filmed, and fed and housed us. We gave slide shows, held a public viewing of the portraits, and had a sign sale to raise money for the next year’s events.

Columbus and the New World Order art show
Home installations on Congress Street in Portland storefronts to call attention to homelessness issue, 1990 (for Portland New Year’s)
Inside/Outside: Private Art show at University of Southern Maine, University of Maine at Orono, Hampshire College
Organized an extensive exhibition schedule of mental health consumer art;
Mural-painting projects in the tunnels of AMHI (state mental hospital)

4th of July parades in Whitefield
The most effective art that I do might be in my hometown. For every 4th of July parade in Whitefield (for at least 20 years) we make a float about  current, potentially divisive issues, like global warming, tax cuts for the wealthy, clear cutting, our addiction to oil, Gulf oil spill, etc. We always provoke laughter, thought, and puzzlement. We find that humor and creativity disarm people and get them to pay attention, like having grown men in diapers try to lift the national debt.   Or a gas-guzzling  SUV that eats protestors, and life-size camels dancing through the eye of a 17 ft. needle.

Other Work Experience: (highlights)

Salvadoran Artists Association (ASTAC), work, studied and lectured at the University of El Salvador
International Arts for Peace (Children are the Future) 3-weeks in U.S.S.R. to supervise the painting of the first public painted bus in the Soviet Union
Boston Arts for a New Nicaragua, first U.S. Artists Brigade invited by the Ministry of Culture to paint 17’ x 80’ mural in Granada
Peace Corps Volunteer, Gombe, Nigeria; taught art and literature

Public speaker:

Convocation speaker at University of Maine at Lewiston-Auburn, 2007
Presenting slide show and talk about my work, Art and Social Responsibility, Social Activism in the Classroom, Art and Community, Women, Art, and War (USM), Making Art about Conflict (Creativity and Social Change, UMF),  at 35 schools, conferences, etc.

Set Designer:

Gravel, Grovel, Gorilla, Aw Henry, The Complete History of Whitefield – Sets for three original plays by Art Mayers
Arterial - Choreographed by Sam Costa, Ram Island Dance Company
Art Circus at the Maine Festival, Bowdoin College: created the House of Real Horrors – Six rooms of politically-motivated art about United States policy in Central America

Performance Art:

Maine Story Project at the Maine Festival: It All Comes Out in the Wash
Fusion grant from Real Artways, Hartford, collaboration with Mark
Melnicove on Resolutions – Directed play and designed the set
Red, White and Blue vs. Red and Black at the Portland Museum of Art
with Mark Melnicove, 1985
I Dream the Dream You Dream – Multi-media performance with
Melnicove at the Maine Festival in 1984

Education:

1967 Sarah Lawrence College, BA
Academy of Art, Rome, Italy, junior year
1968 Antioch Graduate School of Education, Yellow Springs, Ohio, MAT in
Social sciences
1974-6 Unity College, studied painting with Leonard Craig
1975 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture

Publications:
Beem, Edgar Alan ,Maine Art Now, Dog Ear Press, Gardiner,
Me., 1990 Abby Shahn and Natasha Mayers, Natasha Mayers and Kathy Bradford, and Inside/Outside: Private Art
Beem, Edgar Alan, Maine Times:
Natasha Mayers Making a Difference Through Art, Dec. 25, 87
Two Stars of the 3rd Magnitude, June 11, 1982
Prayer and Protest, Aug. 5, 1988
Barak, Marcy Black, What’s in a map? PortCity Life, May/June, 2003
Ensign, Betty, Still Life, Sarah Lawrence Alumnae Magazine, 2001
Farr, Maureen, I’m a Community Artist and Activist Artist-interview: cover
story: Preview! February 1st-28th, 1994, p. 8-9
Gold, Donna, Maine Profile, Maine Progressive, Oct. 86
Gold, Donna, Natasha Mayers Unplugged, Kennebec Journal, Jan 7-8,
1995 color feature
Graves, Laurie Meunier, Mapping Maine: Four Contemporary Views,
Wolf Moon Press, 2003
Isaacson, Phillip, Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland:
New Kid in Brunswick, Protest in Portland, 1985
Imminent Bloodshed, Sweat and Tears at Rockport, 1987
To be a Fly on a Gallery Wall to Hear a Talk among Prints, 1996
Drawn to the Dark Side of the Human Spirit, Sept.29,200
Klein, Deborah, Community, Artists and Communities: America Creates
for the Millenium, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and NEA, 2004,
P.62-3, 118.
Lippard, Lucy, “All at a Glance”, in Mapping a City, by Nina
Montmann, Yilmaz Dziewior, Galierie fur Landschaftskunst
the Kunstverein in Hamburg, 2005-6
Lippard, Lucy, The Real Ronnie Horror Show Comes to the Fair,
In These Times, Sept. 4, 1985
Lippard, Lucy, Lure of the Local - Senses of place in a multi-centered
Society, New York: The New Press, 1997 p. 192, 289-91
Lippard, Lucy, High Notes, Inner Vision: Contemporary Visionary Art:
Outsider Artists with Disabilities, catalog Off-Site Santa Fe
Arts Commission, 1997
Martin, Lucy, Arts Enrichment at Whitefield School, Community Fills
Void Left by Budget Cuts,” Maine Progressive, 1981
Mayers, Natasha, Demo-Tactics, How to ’92, Alliance for Cultural
Democracy 1991 published as insert in Z Magazine and by itself
(edited by Lucy Lippard)
Mayers, Natasha, Inside/Outside: Private Art catalog introduction; with
essays by Lucy Lippard, Margot Clark, Bunny McBride, Stephen
Petroff and others, 1987
Mayers, Natasha, Home/Homeless, catalog introduction, 1990
Morison Leslie, Art in the Street, Casco Bay Weekly, Jan.11, 1990

O’Brien, Heather, Case study 1: Natasha Mayers, Activist Art: Moving the Artist, Shaping the work, thesis at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2010
Petroff, Stephen, Art for the Homeless Finds No Home in Portland,
Maine Progressive, Feb. 1990
Portland Museum of Art, Mapping Maine: Four Contemporary Views,
Summer, 2003
Ryan, Susan, Five Political Artists in Maine, Artists in Maine, vol.II,no.
Vision Magazine cover lithograph vol. 1

Articles about the Pole-Painting Project in Whitefield:

Beem, Edgar Alan, Whitefield, Downeast magazine, summer 1999
Beem, Edgar Alan, Yankee Magazine guidebook, article about the
Poles, 1999 publication date
Ensign, Betty, “Whitefield History Project creates Pride in Community,”
Lincoln County News, July 4, 1996
George Robert, “Pillars of History-Maine youngsters paint the town with
their past,” Boston Globe, New England section feature in color,
Sunday, Dec. 31,1995
Gold, Donna, “Stop, Look, Listen,” Maine Times, Jan. 13, 1995
Gold, Donna, “Utilitarian Art,” Arts of Hope, Hope Magazine
(Humanity Making a Difference), Aug. 1996, p. 93
High Performance, A Publication of Art in the Public Interest;
“Portfolio” – three photos and caption about poles,
Summer 1996, #72, p. 26
Kennedy Kate, “Natasha Mayers: Of Sentiment Action and Utility Poles”
Appeared in both Arts Every Day - Journal of the Maine Alliance
of Arts Education, Vol. 8 no. 2 Winter 1996
Learning Magazine - Successful Teaching Today – “From the Field”
p. 65 Vol. 2 31 Aug. 1997
Lippard, Lucy, Lure of the Local, New York: New Press 1997 color
Plate 8, p. 192, 289-291
Maine Humanities Council “What People Did Before TV,” Fundraising
Brochure featuring as article about the pole project, Dec. 1996
Martin, Lucy, “Video Immortalizes Whitefield’s Painted Poles,”
Lincoln County News, Dec. 17, 1998
Muir, Bryce, “Community Art,” UMVA Journal, Dec. 1994-Jan. 1995
Rayfield, Susan, “Pole Painter’s Work Brightens Whole Town,”
Portland Press Herald, Jan. 17, 1997, p. 1B (color)
Weekly Reader, “History on a Stick,” edition 4 vol. 78 issue 3
Sept. 20, 1996 (color feature)
WCSH TV News, Feb. 20, 1997, feature with Bill Green
“Tall Tales,” 22 minute video made by Cyclops Productions
Vanessa Barth and Doreen Convoy, with a grant from the
Maine Humanities Council about the painted poles:
1998 includes interviews with Lucy Lippard and Alan Taylor,
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian

Quotes from Lucy Lippard:

“Natasha Mayers is the best public artist in Maine!”
“Natasha Mayers is the most committed activist artist in Maine.”

Collections:

Corporate:
Payne Webber Co.
Sonesta Hotel
Woolworth’s
McDonald’s in Freeport
Sun Savings Bank
Maine Wood Products, Inc
Wiscasset Family Medicine
Augusta Family Dental Associates
American Express, Joel Davis Associates

Institutional:
Portland Museum of Art
University of Maine at Presque Isle
United States Department of State Art Bank

Selected Individuals:

Bruce Brown, Lucy Lippard,
David Hitchcock, Donna Gold,
Rob Elowitch, Edgar Allen Beem,
David Hitchcock, Phil Isaacson,
June LaCombe, Marcia Stuart,
Nancy Davidson, John Holverson,
Katherine Bradford, Dr. Sandy and Mary Allen,
Alison Hildreth, Leonard and Barbara Keilson,
Alice Spencer, Dr. Gary Astrachan

Per Cent For Art Commissions:
Peru Elementary School, Peru, Maine, MSAD 21 (2008)

Solon Elementary School

Miller School in Waldoboro

these are the 323 images that appeared, in order, on commondreams.org website from may 1, 2007 to may 1, 2008

Everywhere I go, kids, and adults, want to know how you got started. What was the defining moment that triggered your dedication to fighting for justice or peace, or the environment? What was your epiphany?  Your AHA! moment? Were you a child or adult when this awareness came about? What kind of change was necessary in your life? What courage?

We want to put your story up on the Americans Who Tell the Truth website right next to your portrait. We think it will add a personal quality that will help young and older people identify with your work, and help them make the decision to act themselves. It will demystify the movement from bystander to activist…. that little leap from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Natasha Mayers’ Awakening

In 1982, I read an important book that stirred my conscience, Bitter Fruit, by Stephen Kinzer, about the overthrow of the democratically-elected leader of Guatemala by our CIA.*
I went to a teach-in about Central America and heard a remarkable German theologian (Erhard Kepler?), urge us to action: “Every drop counts, even if you think it is like pissing in the ocean. No matter how insignificant your action might seem, you must do it to get beyond the powerlessness, the cynicism, the paralysis.”
I was nearing 40, I had a young child, and had this new sense of responsibility for the state of the world. If I wasn’t going to do anything, who would?

A march was organized in Portland to mark the anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero’s assassination in El Salvador.  Peter Gourfain designed a banner that was so beautiful that I cried. I made a boring poster. I didn’t know how to make a visual statement without words and I wanted to.
I wanted to make art that could move people to action, that could stir their souls.
I thought the only way I could learn how to do it was to go to Central America and see it firsthand.

There was an artists’ brigade, “Arts for a New Nicaragua”, which formed out of Boston, invited by the Ministry of Culture to come down and paint murals with Nicaraguan artists.  Some of us painted a mural on the outside wall of a soap factory in Granada.  Workers made suggestions about content and told stories. It became a talking wall. Even the food vendors would park in front of it because it drew so much attention.  I also helped a group of young people paint their own compelling vision of the new Nicaragua.

That gave me a new awareness of what an artist can do. I saw a government that validated and recognized its artists. I saw a community of artists at work It changed a lot of my attitudes about the power and effectiveness of art, what my art should be about, and what my role as an artist in the community of artists and non-artists could be.

With these constellations of potent images, Natasha decodes the mystifying density of symbol and sham and lets them sound like sirens. She presents the colorful bars and stripes of military decorations and exposes what is really being honored and rewarded. But their purpose is the opposite of what you might expect. Yes, they are shouting, “Emergency!” But they are not telling you to be fearful and run for cover. They are not telling you to let the experts handle it. Instead, the paintings are asking you to stop and think and feel and act. With the little girl scout who hides her eyes from the dark swirl of bones and skulls engulfing her, Natasha is saying our innocence is long gone when the witnessing eye of the torture victim is also the eye of the storm, is the “I” addicted to oil, and the eye of fire at the top of a smokestack. All our symbols are complicit in an unsustainable, hypocritical, and violent life style. See the hand that fondles the clouds and makes them weep. See the reduction of human lives to speed bumps before the juggernaut of imperial power. As art, Natasha’s paintings succeed because they transcend broadside. Full of ambiguity, humor, allusion, and innuendo they invite the viewer to collaborate in finding meaning. They are powerfully and intensely painted, their raw, bright, patterned style perfectly matching their message. She uses her immense imagination to tease layers of meaning out of images. A fearful helicopter gunship becomes a heart with rotors becomes a flying charnel house becomes the big brother eye in the sky. Installed in poetic groupings, they seem like gnarled musical phrases, the visual representation of snarls and moans, snickers and sighs. When I was visiting Natasha’s studio to preview the show, she asked me, in looking at the paintings, if I saw hope anywhere. I said yes because there can be no hope without the truth. Until we are willing to face the worst aspects of our culture, we can not begin the process of reclamation. Natasha’s paintings command us to open our eyes, to see through the hype, the fear, the patriotic myth, the symbol. They are saying that if we care for ourselves, we must care for each other.

First I want to thank the University of Southern Maine and Robyn Holman for promoting this exhibit — my short talk will make it clear how important I think it is.
(INSERT FROM END OF TALK: This show of Natasha’s is very important because it rejects the creative economy in favor of the sustainable economy. It embraces the creative society, makes its allegiance with a just economy and a humane community. Natasha, when most other artists were looking the other way, always recognized that the house was on fire, because she has always had the imagination and courage to identify with the disadvantaged and outcast whose world is always in flames.
The obligation of the artist in times like these is to explore, to report, to reject cant, to spit out the artificial sweeteners in our
commercial, suicidal brew. We honor explorers because they are courageous. William Sloane Coffin said there are no other virtues without courage. So we honor the artists who have the courage to tell us the truth. For this is what Keats meant about truth and beauty, they can not be separated. And if compassion and justice are virtues ( and beautiful), they will not exist if there is not courage to demand them. Without that courage we will not survive — either individually of collectively.
James Baldwin said :
People who shut there eyes to reality simply invite there own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
Natasha’s paintings show us the reality we have ignored and the destruction denial has wrought, and they make plain what price the monster exacts from our earth and our souls.
Natasha said recently that she has never been better known than she is now and at the same time she has never been poorer. As long as truth and courage are incompatible with the power and money, we will all be in peril. I love Natasha for her conscience, her courage, her compassion, her great talent, her good spirits, her persistence, her insistence that we attend to the victims of our duplicity, her refusal to never shirk the obligation of an artist in our society)

A Dream of Trees Mary Oliver
There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company,
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way from everywhere.
There is a thing in me still dreams of trees.
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.
I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?
When I ask children why they make art, & how they feel making it, the usual replies are:
Entertainment.
To put something on the wall — decoration
To feel good
To make something beautiful.
And always some kid will say, Making art makes me feel most myself. Unlike other subjects in school, when I make art, I’m an individual.
One doesn’t have to be a cynic, just an observer, to wonder if because art promotes individual thinking, feeling, and discovery, promotes self knowledge, the investigation of conscience, that art programs are not being funded in our public schools.
We all know that our culture no longer values individuals. It values over working, no-time-for-the-kids, complacent consumers. Parents trying to make millions or simply trying to make the most of humiliating jobs — they agree that kids need to know how to divide 130 by 17, and that Custer’s mistake was strategic rather than moral.
Art education is an effete luxury, cute for the first grader, a waste of time for the tenth grader who needs a job. And we’ve got TV for entertainment.
So, if you are not encouraging a generation of children to explore their individuality and consciences through art and not rewarding that search, you are also not teaching them how to respond to art. It’s very hard for homogenous people to understand heterogeneous images and words that challenge their vestigial imaginations. Art teaches us to think & feel deeply and with subtlety. What’s a harried, unsubtle, flat screen mom or dad supposed to find in serious art other than resentment at its demands?
But the problem isn’t just that our society fails to encourage art education, art discovery, many of our artists choose the hermetic gimmickry and ingrown conversation of the art world. Curious people looking to art to explain or tell the stories of their lives, looking for an affirmation of conscience, won’t find it there. Rather they find themselves in the presence of an objet d’art that aspires to be a prestigious investment hung in the lobby of General Electric’s corporate headquarters before moving on to the new wing of the museum, both the wing and the art the tax deductible gift of GE’s billionaire CEO. The more expensive and irrelevant the art work, the better.
It is not a long leap from the corporate world’s expansive embrace and simultaneous neutering (this is an important topic, how our culture seeks to, at once, embrace and castrate messages and people subversive to the status quo) — it’s not a long leap to our own “creative economy.” Tony Hoagland’s poem Hard Rain
puts if very well.
Hard Rain

After I heard It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there’s nothing
we can’t pluck the stinger from,

nothing we can’t turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people

quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.

You can’t keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,

one day at a time—

and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.

Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.

I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,

but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—

whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.
So, why should we as artists and as a society not be humbled with appreciation for an Arts Commission and enlightened state government that tries to enhance the art biz in Maine? What’s wrong with artists enlisting as the good soldiers in the battle for a positive state balance sheet. Win/ win. The problem is that artists are rewarded then for the tax & tourist money they attract rather than the probings of their unfettered imaginations and their willingness to use their freedom to tell the truth. A good soldier in the creative economy, like a good soldier in the market economy, makes something that sells. Serving the public, the common good, is reduced to ringing the cash register rather than leading people to epiphanies of thought and feeling that they need to know to become fully human and fully humane. What sells is what comforts, not what confronts.
When Arthur Miller said, “I think … the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget,” he was not suggesting that people have forgotten how to be willing cogs in the economic machine, he was saying that those willing cogs have forgotten their essential humanity as they compromised their lives away, in fact, become participants in a great exploitation of humanity for the benefit of business.
There is no true art without truth. So, the first obligation of the artist is honesty, witnessing for the truth. What Brad Will died for in Oaxaca a couple of weeks ago. Witnessing for the truth is subversive because it must strip away the masks of hypocrisy. We also all know that when we have serious problems, we can’t fix them if we don’t face the truth about what they are. If the problem is global warming, installing heavy duty windshield wipers to wipe away the heavy duty rain won’t help because the problem is in the brakes, there are no brakes on the system which is causing the problem.
It’s the obligation of the artist to air out our minds & hearts, to throw open the windows & doors of a self-satisfied society whose economic engine runs on exploitation and collateral damage, to show us what’s gnawing in the walls, swaying the roof, and grinding away under the floorboards. I know, some of you are thinking, but what about Matisse, don’t we all need Matisse? Of course we do, but not when blood is dripping from the ceiling onto his old easy chair. Not when the house is on fire.
This show of Natasha’s is very important because it rejects the creative economy in favor of the sustainable economy. It embraces the creative society, makes its allegiance with a just economy and a humane community. Natasha, when most other artists were looking the other way, always recognized that the house was on fire, because she has always had the imagination and courage to identify with the disadvantaged and outcast whose world is always in flames.
The obligation of the artist in times like these is to explore, to report, to reject cant, to spit out the artificial sweeteners in our
commercial, suicidal brew. We honor explorers because they are courageous. William Sloane Coffin said there are no other virtues without courage. So we honor the artists who have the courage to tell us the truth. For this is what Keats meant about truth and beauty, they can not be separated. And if compassion and justice are virtues ( and beautiful), they will not exist if there is not courage to demand them. Without that courage we will not survive — either individually of collectively.
James Baldwin said :
People who shut there eyes to reality simply invite there own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
Natasha’s paintings show us the reality we have ignored and the destruction denial has wrought, and they make plain what price the monster exacts from our earth and our souls.
Natasha said recently that she has never been better known than she is now and at the same time she has never been poorer. As long as truth and courage are incompatible with the power and money, we will all be in peril. I love Natasha for her conscience, her courage, her compassion, her great talent, her good spirits, her persistence, her insistence that we attend to the victims of our duplicity, her refusal to never shirk the obligation of an artist in our society.

Next week (May 1) is the end of the first year of my volunteering as artist-in-residence for Common Dreams. Thank you for the opportunity to create and show my images on your important and superb site.

At this point I am not sure what to do. Because of a significant lack of communication, I have had a dificult time knowing if Common Dreams even values my work. I think/hope my images help bring more attention to your site–but I have no way of knowing (aside from the many positive personal emails I have received over the year from your readers). I would like to know how you feel about my work and what you think is the next best step.

Hi Natasha,

I wanted to introduce myself to you because I watched and absorbed each and everyone of your artworks
created on commondreams last year.
I am a public school art teacher and did indeed share your work with my students
and your work blew them away. I can think of no other artist I have ever shown them
who made such an impact.
As an artist myself, I must tell you I so respect your visceral candor, your
unapologetic witness, your commitment.
I wish I had the money to pay for a book of your work and help you
write lesson plans for art students based on your work.
That is my dream.
Thank you for your energy and dedication to
sharing your powerful views with the internet world.
I know my students and I are forever changed by looking and interpreting
your work.  Shana

Natasha, Natasha — who are you? Are you famous? Does the New Yorker know your work? Or Mother Jones? Harper’s? I’m sitting in front of my little computer tears running down my face. You are a force of nature. Powerful, powerful stuff! Robert W.

I am so pleased your work will be a continuing presence on Common Dreams. You have left me both breathless and full of hope. Not since my first sight of Guernica have I been so moved. I am a 74-year old grandmother whose belief still survives that we can leave a better world for all children. Your stunning work strengthens that belief. The world is not often a pretty place. Your special insights into what most would rather not see are what can truly engender change. It is perhaps more important to recognize what we abhor than to blindly avoid having to feel the reality of our surroundings. Not only is your work wonderful artistically, it shows your courage in these politically poisonous times. Norma G

Your understanding of how a partial truth hides the real truth is so intuitive….Peter S

I humbly sit in the piney-smelling pews of your cathedral of talent. Your paintings jar me but are so beautiful they add a reassuring comfort too – so I’m aware that jarring and comforting are contradicting one another – don’t know – complicated… but simple… Amen! From Reverend Billy:

Natasha, it looks great ! What a great gig. You do fine saying things in your own words. Don’t take lessons from pompous artists’ statements in catalogues etc. Just say what you’re up to and why! Lucy Lippard

I love what you have added to Common Dreams because as a former investigator I learned that most often 85-90% of what is communicated even in an interview is done so by kinesthetic and not the verbal content. Your visual representations add an entire new dimension to the progressive comment on the blog that really is like the spices and seasonings that make food delicious rather than just healthy bellyfill. Keep listening to your gut and share your visions with us, O wise woman. Tim McC.

Thanks for all you do to keep us all better informed.
I love your art. Wow! The one today with the yellow star in the blue field in the center of the images of blocked faces is haunting and historical. Wonderful. What a great conscience you have. I’m glad you are working with CommonDreams.
Thank you for your awesome inspiration and intention! Roxanne A
I cannot imagine a more arresting image.

Your art work that has been displayed on the Common Dreams site is very moving. I was a Navy Corpsman who served in Vietnam (’68/’69). I have been against the war and the “Bush”…..since the beginning! I believe your work makes a very strong statement about humanity, and what is going on in our world. It is only through artists (poets, painters, photographers) that the true word is spoken. Thank You!
Thank you for posting your artwork on Common Dreams, I find it very thought provoking. I work in immigrant rights in Los Angeles and this piece called the border fence spoke to me and the work we do.

l keep checking your images though not every day in any case………… it’s wonderful……. in the tradition of daumier etc. congratulations

Editor, Kudos for all this great art I have been getting every day along with your news stories. The “March of the Penguins” picture is priceless. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time! It gets a bit tedious wading thru all those stories day after day and it is always a surprise to happen on one of those incredible paintings by Natasha. Thanks to everyone who made this happen. It is a fantastic concept.

-I am thoroughly enjoying your art works that concentrate the eyes/mind/heart/soul on critical issues, especially life and death in war zones wrapped up in sagas of greed and indifference
Hi Natasha — I work for the Steelworkers Union………I was struck by your luminous paitning and knew what it was before I clicked and read your words. I was particularly interested in it because I work with victims and families after catastrophic accidents and fatalities. ….I live in Pittsburgh, so even though your painting is probably a refinery, it could easily be the stacks of any steel mill around ehre or anywhere else. Congratulations on your vision. your art is wonderful!

Even my brief glimpses at your artwork have impressed me and have enhanced my experience of Common Dreams. In fact, I’ll bet it’s something that sets them apart – I love your current design and imagine it would be a popular sticker or t-shirt. Thanks for adding so much to progressive news!
Your depiction of US clad in camouflage is telling, and true, and
brilliantly conceived. Lord have mercy upon on all!

I head up our network of progressive women state legislators nationwide -
So our crowd all saw your cartoon image today on Common Dreams and are circulating it. We’ll have our national conference in Washington Sept 30.
WAND Communications Director Mary Babic circulated your cartoon and I’ll share your message with her as well! You have a new set of fans in us!
peace,
Senator Nan Orrock

Just wanted to thank you for the inspiring art work. You should know that in these dangerous times, there are a lot of people, like myself, who support your work. I believe that what you’re doing is a form of communication. Your work accomplishes something, but no doubt, there’s always so much more to do. It can be hard to feel complete or satisfied. Perhaps there’s a grim satisfaction that you’ve brought some attention to others, such that they focus on these problems. Perhaps it brings some relief… but it’s like shifting sand that keeps moving. In a way, if an artist communicates (in the way that you have) to the rest of the world what is happening, they’re trying to negotiate for something positive. Maybe that’s the reason why those in charge of perpetuating wars do not like to have artists around.
In the end, we must look at reality. We’re required to look at it. We’re required to do what we can about it. If we don’t… who will?

Your art work on Common Dreams is breathtaking…and very emotionally moving. I was struck by the Iran one at first and now the us map and the corn grenades after I looked at all of them. THANK YOU FOR BEING YOU AND DOING THIS. It goes into our psyches in such a different way than words , printed or oral…as the one woman said,,like Guernica. many Guernicas you are making…I had forgotten how much this form of thought and protest means to me,,and in general sometimes I think it calms my rage, and at the same time arouses me in a quiet way..too..hard to explain.

Just want to thank you again for your complex and thoughtful work
-I do like your work…both my husband and I love art…are politically progressive..angry (very angry) at what has happened to our country and the destruction of the rule of law and individual rights by the current administration. I am a criminal defense attorney and so the suspension of habeas is particularly disturbing.

The juxtaposition of cultures, colors and patterns on your most recent piece is quite thought provoking…If americans were a little more illuminated about the art and cultures of the countries on this planet that end up being labeled ‘Evil’ and eventually invaded and destroyed, it would be quite a bit more difficult for the right wing pundits to convince them to go along with the Oligarchy’s agenda!

How the hell do you do it?
I’m a regular. Thanks for the little hit of another reality every day.

We are absolutely thrilled to see your work on Common Dreams
Your contribution to the movement for peace with justice in the world, as an artist and an activist, is immeasurable. Your work speaks volumes for all of us in the struggle. Thankyou!

Thank you for your work. You make a statement with your pieces that it would take thousands of words to express

Thank you for your art, your intelligence, your color, your passion and energy.

I love getting your art on a daily basis. Kind of like a candle flame in the darkness.

You’re work is an inspiration! Lately, I feel my art should try to be more than just pretty pictures – you’ve definitely opened the door for other artists to speak out against injustices through the creative process.

I like what you paint, put together. I appreciate your ideas about touching on our values to make us aware. I look forward to your versions of what can influence us all for a wise change, as visual is my mode of learning.

Just wanted to let you know I *love* your pictures on CommonDreams.org. Beautiful! Stunning! Disturbing! Thought-provoking! I just wanted to drop you a comment and tell you how inspiring and thought provoking I find your art work that I see every day on Common Dreams. I don’t understand how you churn them out so fast, but keep up the good work. As bleak and dark as they are, I find them to be truthful, brilliant, poignant, and current. Hats off to you.

Natasha, I just had the great pleasure of looking at your art work. You are doing just what an artist is supposed to be doing. Each picture hits you right in your heart and soul. They tell a story, and I keep wanting to go back to that story even though most of them are so sorrowful. I love the way you use color, and I love the way your art work reaches out to show that you have deep feelings for the suffering of others. You could throw away the New York times because you make the news interesting and meaningful.

I’ m 49 aged woman in South Korea.
I found your name Common Dreams News Letter first.
Your work is holding me, I don’t know why.
But I remember your says compassion must be translated into action.
I never act until now. I have worked and feed kids after marriage.
Now I think I have only 10 years until 60.
I don’t know why I take your work on my blog, but I’m sure I do it again.
I hear CNN or BBC everyday. Sometimes I fall in deep sorrow.
I want to start painting, but I have no idea where I start.
Could I start this on my age?

Super to see a relevant complement to a news site (Common Dreams). Have appreciated all your pieces. Art is the message. And good art does not match the furniture.
Well, sure…I’m a serious fan. Some real heartbreaking images you’ve created, m’dear, but then, we live in heartbreaking times….

-Your work is the first thing I seek out on my daily rounds of the progressive sites. Thanks so much for your efforts

-I hope that Common Dreams passed along to you my message to them that having your artwork on their homepage is wonderful, exciting, provocative in the very best sense of that word. In a word—I love it!
-I really like your art. Look forward every day to Common Dreams — that did not used to be my favorite “alternative” source (the only sources I read).

-wow, you are really pushing some powerful images. I look foreward to Common Dreams everyday and yours is the first thing I click on. Your work lately has been quite edgy

I DON’T EARN ANY MONEY MAKING AN IMAGE EACH DAY FOR COMMONDREAMS.ORG. I RELY ON OCCASIONAL SALES OF ARTWORK TO MY LOYAL FANS TO KEEP ME GOING.

When you buy 3 prints, I’ll send a fourth one to your Republican Uncle for free.

Original acrylic paintings and drawings ( where work has not been altered in photoshop) starting at $150+

Shipping in USA $5 ($2 for each additional one)
International shipping $15 ($5 for each additional)

mayersnatasha@gmail.com
538 Townhouse Rd.
Whitefield, Maine. 04353

This artist is an Education Artist.

Natasha is a painter who supervises group murals on or off walls, indoor or outdoor, working with any theme. Recent subjects have been the history of immigration, the world’s bio-regions,local heroes and heroines, and community history painted on utility poles. She teaches a variety of art activities appropriate for multi-cultural education, parades, or dealing with personal or global issues. Natasha is interested in collaborative residencies, combining painting with other art forms, leads teacher workshops in mural painting for the classroom, and has extensive experience with schoolchildren of all ages and adults with disabilities. She has supervised over 500 murals! Currently she is teaching drawing at the university level and is artist-in-residence with Peace Action Maine. She recently received the second annual Arthur Hall award for “an artist whose work, community service and commitment to their craft inspires others around them to reach to their highest potential”

Contact Information

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Contact Information

538 Townhouse Road
Whitefield, ME 04353
Phone: 207/549-7516
Email: mayersnatasha@gmail.com