The Space for Maybe curated by Virginia Mahoney runs through February 13, 2022. This show is Fountain Street Galleries annual showcase of its core artists membership.

As a way to find out more about the subtleties of artists’ studio practices, Mahoney interviewed three of the Fountain Street artists participating in The Space for Maybe. Mary Marley, Melissa Shaak, and Steve Sangapore generously agreed to talk about their practices. All interviews were conducted over Zoom.

Mary was in her studio when we started our Zoom chat. We both have basement studios, so we exchanged knowing glances as we mentioned the advantages of home studios and the quirks of the basement variety! We began with the way her work is changing and some of her influences, as well as how she is shifting her own expectations of the work. A collage artist whose mixed media work is paint and collage on paper, Mary works on 5 or 6 pieces at once! All on large Stonehenge 300 lb watercolor paper to which, as she said, she can do anything! She used the word “attack” in describing how she begins, with everything in her arsenal of mark-making, including a printmaking tool called a brayer, as she moves in a circle around the works and from piece to piece. She has fun rifling through her pile of scraps from works that didn’t “make the cut” (pun intended). Recently, Mary has been editing her images more vigorously, and she is pleased with the direction of her work as a result. She always photographs the work-in-progress at the end of a day in the studio, so she can look at it and think about next moves before she goes back in. One thing that really stuck with me was that Mary sees possibility everywhere! Her space for maybe is wide open. Here is the link to our Zoom chat.

Melissa Shaak was awakened to the possibilities of sculpture when curating the 2021 Fountain Street group show, “Upended,” at Piano Craft Gallery in Boston.

Her aptly named short film, Tangling With Sculpture, began with a found lampshade. As she played around with the torn brown globe with its spring steel circular frame, observing its physical qualities and possibilities, metaphoric parallels presented themselves. Brown is the color of her mother’s beautiful lace wedding dress, which Melissa owns. As she wound herself into the wire loops of the lampshade, she felt as if she was tangling with the structures and shape of the emotional inheritance of her relationship with her mom and the medical challenges she faced. It was an “out of the blue thing,” where she found an opening and explored. “Every piece of it was a big maybe” that enabled Melissa to tap into a personal, meaningful place and led her to push herself as far as her physical and emotional being could go. Leaning in to the loop of metal as it squeezed around her neck, she went literally as far as she could to enact a version of her mom’s experience and the strictures she dealt with.

For Melissa, “The Space for Maybe” is the place where we tangle with our ideas and whatever we are doing as artists. Her studio practice creates opportunity and real freedom to have a work unfold in whatever way it will. Her “safety net” is video editing, and of course, the option to show the resulting film or not. Here is a link to our conversation.

Image: Melissa Shaak, Video still from *Tangling With Sculpture* 1:50

Steve Sangapore, an accomplished oil painter, recently dove into mixed media sculpture, a space quite out of his comfort zone! In our interview, he enthusiastically related how he was inspired to create his sculpture, We Do Not Say Its Name (Inspired by The Ritual), part of his Modern Icon series.

The mythological character in the movie version of the book The Ritual, by Adam Nevill, prompted this piece. Having read the book, as he viewed the film, he knew he had to make his own version of this character from Norse mythology. He began with a list of all steps and materials, and a production schedule. The result seems a far cry from his exacting Classical or Byzantine style oil paintings, but it does include a mirror, a recurring element in his work. His inspiration forced him to think, “maybe I can do this.” This new space that he has created for himself is one that holds many possibilities, and he’s already planning another sculpture!

Steve is an avid reader and researcher, and his art is a vehicle for education, allowing him to delve into his wide variety of interests – science, religion, mythology and horror to name a few. He does a lot of writing to explore ideas in conjunction with his art work, creating an extensive well-researched thesis for each series.

This link to the interview has the final cut of our conversation and gives the details.

Installation View: Steve Sangapore, *We Do Not Say Its Name (Inspired by The Ritual),* mixed-media, 62 x 54 x 96 inches

Many thanks to Steve, Melissa, and Mary for generously sharing their own “Space for Maybe,” revealing the evolution of ideas, intentions and process behind their work!

Revealing Evolution of Ideas in "The Space For Maybe"