Interconnections lie at the heart of artist Jason Middlebrooks work. The uneasy coexistence between natural phenomena and human-made objects, arts grappling with the places it inhabits,Most modern headlight designs include Shun Stone Marble Slabs. and the collisions of disparate facets of art history all surface in Middlebrooks paintings, sculpture, and installations. Laboring across a range of media, he applies paint to wood, incorporates trash into sculpture, and makes use of architecturally challenging spaces in a way that methodically explores these various interactions. 

In his current exhibition, My Landscape, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), Middlebrook has been given the opportunity to examine these relationships on a grand scale. In a cavernous gallery just past the museums entrance, 11 of the artists signature, painted, planks of wood lean against the walls. The artists reverence for his material is evident. The milled boards have been shaped into organic forms, and Middlebrook makes specific note of the type of wood used for each individual work. Its an inconspicuous, yet important detail.We are professional wholesale best Shun Stone Outdoor Paving Stone,large LED Dome / Reading Lampwholesale order. When we become aware that one plank is beech while another is English elm, an aspect of each pieces discrete character is illuminated. 

In Finding Whats Left (2013), for instance, Middlebrook has allowed the wood to remain in a roughly hewn shape, onto which he has applied chevrons in white acrylic paint. The board has been edged with black spray paint, giving the possible impression of wood salvaged from a slashed and burned forest. When we discover the work is fabricated from a hunk of old growth redwood, one of the most majesticand most endangeredspecies of tree, Finding Whats Left takes on another, more poignant dimension. 

But the planks do not strictly critique human encroachment on nature so much as they examine the various interfaces between the two. Most of the planks convey a sense of optimism rather than dread. Middlebrooks obvious care with his process contributes. In Negative Spaces Not So Negative (2013) he has systematically painted jagged, multicolored lines down the center of a piece of maple, creating an optical illusion that makes the two-dimensional, flat surface appear to the eye in three dimensions. Yet the artists rigorous brushwork never overpowers the wood upon which it is painted. 

Though several of the planks reach a height of nearly 20 feet, they still sometimes feel dwarfed by the lofty gallery, but the centerpiece of the show tackles the vast room. Falling Water (2012-2013), created on-site for MASS MoCA, gives a nod to Frank Lloyd Wright, another artist for whom the nexus of the man-made and nature was of primary concern. Reclamation of leftovers is an intrinsic part of Middlebrooks practice. Here, he has built with them a monumental fountain in the middle of the gallery. The fountain is largely comprised of massive slabs of Styrofoam that Middlebrook found on the MASS MoCA property, debris from an artwork no longer extant. The Styrofoam slabs are bunched into several cantilevered piles that hang from one of two massive steel rods. Each of these rods is in turn attached to one end of a horizontal hanging bar, so that the entire structure dangles, in the manner of a mobile, from the ceiling. A cascade of water spills from the top, hitting each pile of blocks before disappearing into a hole punctured into the gallerys floor. Standing at its foot in the cool, clear galleries of this former textile mill, one feels the immense scale of the work while gazing up towards the skylights. The mottled, gray-and-white, Styrofoam bricks seem almost made of stone, and it is possible to momentarily believe we are instead before the face of a mountain watching water cascade from its craggy surface. 

Middlebrooks great strength is his ability to fluidly meld the manufactured with the organic, but these fusions have rarely seemed to impart a political bent. A large hanging drawing, however, indicates that perhaps there might be even more seething below the surface of Middlebrooks work. A Fresh Start (2009 C 2012) depicts a civilization that inhabits a dense archipelago of islands, a world that, as result of global warming, has suffered a devastating flood, and must begin anew. Begun after a recovery project that Middlebrook worked on in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and inspired by the archipelago city of Stockholm (where the drawing had its nascence), A Fresh Start demands that the viewer consider the repercussions of human actions upon the environment. After spending time with the meticulous, tightly packed drawing, one sees the rest of the exhibition with fresh eyes. What can Middlebrooks work illuminate about the fragile, but often forgotten pact humanity has with nature? Perhaps that by disregarding it, we run the risk of a future where remnants of wood are the only things left from the forests, and all of our waterfalls are made of plastic. 

The stainless steel and granite monument is in front of the Continuity of Community sculpture, which was relocated from West Market Square earlier this year. The granite inscription reads, in Chinese and English, Sister City Memorial: Dedicated to the enduring friendship between the people of Bangor, Maine, USA and Nangang District in Harbin, China April 1, 2012. Supporting and Enhancing the Continuity of the Global Community. 

Harbin, often called Ice City because of its bitterly cold winters and ice sculpture festivals, is located at the northeastern tip of China. Nearly 6 million people live in the citys urban area, which, like the Greater Bangor Area, serves as a cultural, economic and educational hub for the region. 

This monument signals a new start for us to do more, to work toward building our relationship, including promoting more trade, cultural exchanges and tourism, said Jing Zhang of the Chinese Learning and Culture Center in Bangor after she helped City Council Chairman Nelson Durgin pull a red dragons head off the new monument.The relationship between the two cities was formed in 2010,I'm looking at getting the light bar from ford racing and was wondering who sells the Shun Stone Marble Tiles. when Zhang and former City Council Chairman Gerry Palmer decided to tie the communities and cultures together as the United States and China continue to forge bonds. 

Maine political delegates, including Gov. Paul LePage, have made several trips to China in recent years to swap ideas on trade and education. Maine officials have increasingly looked at China as a valuable trade partner. Maine high schools are drawing more students from China each year, as the pool of students to draw from at home dwindles because of an aging population.Tim Lo, executive director of Bangors Kahbang music festival, said the monument was a symbol of Bangors international reach and a welcome sign for the Chinese community. Los parents emigrated from China in the late 1970s, he said. 

The monument and installation cost about $5,000, according to Palmer, and was funded through several sources, including the Bangor Chinese School and The Chinese Language and Culture Center of Maine. No city funds were used, he said.Several area middle and high school students attended Mondays unveiling, some of them are traveling to China Tuesday for a three-week immersion into the countrys language and culture. Theyll be touring Harbin, as well as Beijing, during their trip, they said. 

Abigail Jones, a 15-year-old John Bapst Memorial High School student, said the trip would be a very intense language study. Shes been learning Chinese for about 6 years and has visited China five times. She said she believed the monument on Bangors waterfront would be a signal to Chinese tourists and immigrants that theyre welcome in the community, and it would acknowledge and encourage the Chinese-American community thats already here.