Michelle Zelkowitz - S. Freeport Harbor

"S. Freeport Harbor"

Michelle Zelkowitz
6 Acadia Lane
Freeport, ME 04032
mzelkowitz@gmail.com
207.899.8334

Michelle Zelkowitz, artist-educator. Ph.D. Interdisciplinary Studies in Education and Art, The Union Institute & University, 2003. Currently works as the Coordinator and Associate Professor of the Post-Baccalaureate Art Education Program, Maine College of Art, Portland, ME. Chapter author in National Art Education Association’s anthology, Community Connections: Intergenerational Links in Art Education, 2004. Current exhibits include Practice What We Preach, Maine Art Education Association Member’s Exhibit, Saco Museum, Jan. 16-March19. Recent exhibits: The Galleries at One Washington Center, Dover, NH; Educate and Create, Maine Art Education Association Member’s Exhibit, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston-Auburn; Faculty exhibit, Maine College of Art; Visual Thresholds, The Union Institute & University at Vermont College. Board member of The Museum of African Culture, Portland, ME; Member of the Freeport Art Guild and the Freeport Community Players; Board Member and Advocacy Chair Maine Art Educators Association and Member of the Maine Arts Education Connections: Maine Alliance for Arts Educators Association.

Artist Statement: When I was a child, I was interested in “wild” places and wildlife. Raised in New York City, I was attracted to the serene quality and timelessness of the paintings of Bierstadt and Moran, the early western landscape artists. I dreamed about traveling to the vast open landscapes, and as a teenager began making my dreams come true by bicycling through our country’s western national parks and forests. As my awareness of the impact humans had on our lands heightened, I became interested in preserving our environment and decided to study environmental science and photography.
My new work focuses on the impact I have witnessed in land use over the past 40 years. Frank Lloyd Wright said, good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built.
I have images that emote a sense of serenity, the serenity humans are capable of feeling when there is the death of a human life, when time seemingly ceases to exist or when communing with nature. I seek to understand the forces that collide with a life filled with serenity.