APPRENTICESHIP SUMMARY

This apprenticeship will focus on apprentice artist Ashley Page’s goals to deepen and expand her basket making skills and artistic voice, delve into the history, contexts and expansive styles and materials used in traditional and contemporary basket-making and create new work in response, and in collaboration with, mentor artist, Lissa Hunter.  She will accomplish this through 100 hours of guidance, reflection and training  spent together with Lissa in-studio, through remote meetings, visiting museums and exhibitions and attending relevant webinars.

MENTOR

Lissa Hunter (Portland, ME)

Lissa Hunter is a studio artist, teacher, writer and, most recently, curator fortunate enough to be living and working in Portland, Maine. She is a Life Trustee of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, a fellow of the Maine Arts Commission, an MCA Master Craft Artist and past board member of MCA. Her work is in the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Arts and Design (New York), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), Racine Art Museum (Wisconsin), as well as other museum and private collections.

“Do something adequately for long enough and people will notice”, she says.

“Ashley was working as a work-study student at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art in the summer of 2019. She helped install the exhibition that I had curated there and was often at the desk during gallery hours where we would chat. She then took a five-day workshop which I taught at Monson Art. I was impressed by her natural curiosity, facilitation with materials and techniques, and maturity. I feel confident in our ability to learn together and that she will keep growing.“ – Lissa Hunter

APPRENTICE

Ashley Page (Portland, ME)
Ashley is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Portland, ME. She presently holds a BFA in Sculpture and a Minor in Public Engagement from Maine College of Art (MECA). As a maker, a woman of color, a community organizer, a little sister, and a daughter, she creates space for dialogue, intergenerational exchange, and creative expression. She currently works at Indigo Arts Alliance, as their Studio and Programs Coordinator where she is able to learn within the intersection of art and activism. In spring 2020, she was awarded the Heart and Soul Student Award by Maine Campus Compact for her D.E.I work as a student at MECA. In 2018 – 2019, she was a Warren Public Engagement Fellow at MECA with Alejandra Cuadra where they collaboratively created an artistic philosophy of representation, diversity, equity, and justice. Her curatorial and studio practice has been seen in the Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Abyssinian Meeting House, The Portland Public Library, Congress Square Park, Able Baker Contemporary, New Systems Exhibitions, Engine, and more.

“I would like to work with Lissa for a variety of reasons. I enjoy the honestly of our conversations, and I appreciate that we both learn from one another by introducing new ideas and lines of inquiry to one another. I admire her knowledge and expertise in her craft and I am inspired by her willingness to experiment and innovate within the realm of basketry, fiber, and textiles. Her material sensibility and thoughtful consideration of technique, form, and narrative makes her a wonderful teacher.” – Ashley Page