Six Michigan Artists Reflect on the Pandemic and Edenville Dam Flood in New Exhibit

The Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum invites you to reflect on the past year-and-a-half with the new exhibition “Notes from the Quarantimes” On view till January 15, 2022.

“Notes from the Quarantimes” is an exhibition of works by six Detroit-based artists Clinton Snider, Graem Whyte, Michael McGillis, Mitch Cope and Scott Hocking who left behind, if only temporarily, the tragedy of Covid in May 2020 to bail out, quite literally, their friend and fellow exhibiting artist Andrew Krieger in the midst of another tragedy. When twenty-two billion gallons of water breached the Edenville Dam, a home and piece of Krieger family heritage was badly damaged.

This 100-year pandemic, and this 500-year flood, while different in scope and scale, cast a heavy weight into each artist’s creative reservoir. While rebuilding Krieger’s historic family home, the friends found creative inspiration in the changed landscape from the flood, and the changed world from the pandemic.

Artist Scott Hocking – who’s exhibition artworks will include two video works and one sculptural installation – says, “In a grim twist, one calamity afforded us the time to clean up the wreckage of another. Throughout it all, kayaking became a way to navigate, observe, meditate, and find solace in nature, as well as spend physically distanced time with friends in-the-midst-of the most isolating years we can remember.”

The text group the artists formed during this time allowed them to communicate fluidly, giving them a vehicle for venting using a great deal of cathartic humor, sarcasm, ultimately filling the need for a basic human need to stay connected. This daily, nearly 24-7 open line of communication became a crucial, almost vital tool for keeping their sanity and in several cases, may have quite literally saved their lives. 

Their works exhibited in “Notes from the Quarantimes” run the gamut of art mediums, from paintings and mixed media sculptures, to photographs and films. Megan McAdow, Director of the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum notes that “these artworks tell the story of isolation, devastation, and loneliness — but they also relay resilience found in community and among friends.”

“Notes from the Quarantimes” will be on view at the Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum till January 15, 2022. Additional educational and public programming will be announced in the coming weeks and include an online version of the exhibition, Artist Talks and Instagram takeovers by the artists themselves.