Working at any kind of nonprofit means that sometimes you’ve just got to respond to conditions on the ground. Or, at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H., on the floor.
Exhibition manager Samantha Eckert did just that when she realized that much-needed refinishing of the ground-level floors at AVA’s 1884 building would disrupt the usual schedule of in-depth solo and two-person shows in its large, light-filled galleries. But the art center has other space — a lot of it. Scarred and storied floorboards meander through wonky hallways on the second and third floors, connecting classrooms and studios. (Across the parking lot, the perfectly level floors in AVA’s modern ceramics, metal and wood shops are doing just fine.) So Eckert put out a call to artists for “Scaffolding,” an expansive and quirky show featuring works by more than 30 artists on display pretty much everywhere — the small gallery next to AVA’s entrance, the second- and third-floor hallways, alcoves, and walls that also display works by studio tenants.
Interpretations of the theme can be, well, as tenuous as a window washer’s rig on a skyscraper. They range from straight-up pictures of construction-site scaffolding to ideas about the body, social connections, diversity, history, memory, abstraction and even cave painting. (In “Early to Rise,” painter William Banks of Hanover, N.H., depicts an early artist using a branch as a ladder and notes in his statement that “they had to stand on something.”)
The looseness of interpretation plays well with the placement of the works — the show is like a scavenger hunt. Cabot artist Rosalind Daniels’ photographs highlight the mathematical beauty of actual scaffolding, presenting its geometry abstractly, red platforms or yellow pipes creating visual patterns. The images pair well with her quilts, including “Intersection,” where she swaps her photos’ hard edges for sewn lines crisscrossing a softer space. As with many artists in the show, Daniels’ pieces are not displayed together, though the label offers a clue that there’s more than one — you have to search to see them all.
On the third floor, a “gallery” usually used to display work from AVA’s education programs features some of the most conceptual sculpture in the show. Brandon sculptor Dasha Kalisz’s “Transmutation” combines pitted ceramic lungs with rubber tubes, fans, toilet-bowl floats and other objects to make creepy but poignant sculptures that speak to the body’s fallibility. Confronted with the fragility of lungs mediated by machines, it’s hard not to think of them as a memorial to COVID-19.
On AVA’s second floor, cleverly placed clip lights lend drama to a hallway-turned-gallery. Peggy Smith from Stowe presents a pile of felt rocks, encouraging viewers to play with them. Nearby, Brunswick, Maine, artist Marcy Pope’s “Cotton/Sturdy” surrounds a visitor with a tall fence woven through with discarded textiles. A bright orange 3D-printed plastic maquette by noted Perkinsville sculptor James Payne, known for his large outdoor commissions, almost lifts off its pedestal in curving swirls.
There are even surprises in the stairwell. “A Bridge Between,” one of Eckert’s own works, is a long, knitted ribbon of a rainbow, looping on branches from one floor to another, accompanied by recorded birdsong. It doesn’t look like a scaffold, but it holds you up for a while — that might be all you need.
The original print version of this article was headlined “‘Scaffolding’ at AVA Gallery Is a Scavenger Hunt for Art”
This article appears in Love & Marriage Issue 2025.
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