AMHERST, Mass. - The public is invited to join printmaker Peter Milton in a conversation about his work on Sunday, September 7, at 2:00 p.m., in Stirn Auditorium, adjacent to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College. Joining the artist is Pete Mackey, chief communications officer at Amherst and a scholar of 20th-century English literature who specializes in the works of James Joyce.
The two have intersecting areas of expertise. Milton's prints are visually allusive and layered in a way comparable to the complex literary style Joyce is famous for, and both Milton and Mackey are interested in and inspired by film. Their conversation will touch on the perplexities of graphic arts, the digital world, and the intertextuality of both Milton's visual language and Joyce's "Ulysses."
Mila Waldman, specialist in prints at the Mead and organizer of the event, says, "I am sure the audience will be intrigued by what promises to be a witty and thought-provoking conversation between Milton and Mackey, who come from different professional backgrounds yet share the same love of finding the universal in the details of a larger narrative that puzzles, inspires, and teases."
Milton has been making prints since 1960. He trained as a painter at Yale with Josef Albers and Gabor Peterdi, but turned to printmaking, when, as he put it, "the macho world of painting" and "the New York art scene" began to "frustrate and dismay" him. He established himself as a printmaker working in black-and-white intaglio method (recessed-line), and in recent years has been producing digital prints.
Milton's works are held in public collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tate Gallery in London. The Mead added Milton's "Sight Lines: Tracking Shot" (2008), a digital print, to its collection last spring. Since then, the Mead has also acquired Milton's intaglio print "Points of Departure I: Mary's Turn" (1994). Both works will be on view at the Mead on Sept. 7.
The scene depicted in "Mary's Turn" is mystifying, like a dream you wake up from and puzzle over, confused. It shows Mary Cassatt playing billiards while Degas looks on, holding a cue stick, and billiard balls float in the air. "Tracking Shot" portrays a crowded scene, one that combines and conflates buildings, eras, and arts in one dramatic space. Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Joyce, Lillian Gish, and the Beatles are all somehow represented or alluded to. It is Milton's first "born-digital print," made using Photoshop.
Milton brings to the medium the same passion for detail and layering that were the hallmarks of his earlier works. "Each detail has probably thirty image layers," he said of "Tracking Shot," "and the final print has thousands."
One such detail in "Tracking Shot" features the image of a young James Joyce in conversation with an older Joyce -- the younger one slouchy and bearded, holding a cigarette, while the older appears clean-shaven and wearing a suit, sharp creases in the trousers.
Milton is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and holds a BFA and MFA from Yale University. He has served as visiting artist at many colleges and universities including Dartmouth College, Yale University, and the Rhode Island School of Design. He's an intellectual artist, who writes extensive notes on many of his works, which he publishes on his website.
Pete Mackey has written a book on James Joyce titled "Chaos Theory and James Joyce's Everyman." He earned his PhD in 20th-century British literature from the University of South Carolina and has a master's degree in film studies from Case Western Reserve University. Previously vice president for communications and community relations at Bucknell University, he became CCO at Amherst College in March 2014.
The conversation between Milton and Mackey will be followed by a reception in the Mead. This event, including the reception, is free and open to the public.
