Sturgeon Moon

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This was meant to find you at the summer solstice, and the season had other plans. So instead I’m writing from summer’s other threshold: overnight, the full Sturgeon Moon, the last full moon of the season, slid almost entirely into Earth’s shadow, a deep partial eclipse that left only a bright sliver at its edge. If the solstice is summer’s wide-open door, this eclipsed moon feels like its quiet closing: a dimming that makes you notice the light. It seemed like the right moment to pause and gather the season before it turns.

A week of pondering

Earlier this summer I traveled to Oregon for the Ponder Residency at The Verdancy Project, a few wooded acres east of Portland. Ponder is a residency with no expectations attached: no projects due, no outcomes required. That absence turned out to be the point. I rested. I thought. I walked slowly and looked closely. I found lichens entirely new to me, and fell properly in love with oakmoss (Evernia prunastri), which I have known for years but never seen in such abundance. I stood in the spray of waterfalls and let my attention off its leash for a while.

It is strange and wonderful what a week of deliberate unproductivity produces. I came home without finished work, and with something more useful: a quieter mind and a longer list of questions.

In the studio

Back home, the lichen project has shifted from research into making. What began in the spring as reading and mapping, that slowly growing family tree of artists whose work touches on symbiosis and interdependence, has become a large-scale collage mural inspired by lichen. It is growing the way lichen grows: slowly, patch by patch, outward from its edges. I won’t pretend to know its final form yet. For now I am letting it accumulate and teach me what it wants to be. If you’d like to watch it grow, I’ve been sharing glimpses along the way on Instagram.

In-progress lichen mural

Exhibitions & Events

Drift, August 7 – September 6, BAU Gallery, Beacon, NY

Curatorial Projects:

Assembled Ground, August 3 – October 30, The Idea Kitchen, Larchmont, NY

Artists’ Reception, September 23, 5:30–7:30 PM, The Idea Kitchen, Larchmont, NY

Looking toward fall

As the light shortens, my attention turns outward again. Assembled Ground, my latest exhibition at The Idea Kitchen, is on view through the end of October: four artists (including myself) who build images the slow way, mark by mark, layer by layer. We’ll gather for an artists’ reception on September 23rd, and I would love to see you there.

My studio door is open this fall as well. If you’d like to visit, just reach out.

Available work can be found on my website.

I’m reachable at allison@allisonbelolan.com for studio visits, curatorial inquiries, or just to say hello.