{"id":144272,"date":"2022-02-10T14:23:47","date_gmt":"2022-02-10T19:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=144272"},"modified":"2022-02-11T11:47:17","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T16:47:17","slug":"blown-ashore-bates-geology-students-had-a-magical-visit-with-maine-artist-ashley-bryan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2022\/02\/10\/blown-ashore-bates-geology-students-had-a-magical-visit-with-maine-artist-ashley-bryan\/","title":{"rendered":"Blown ashore on the Maine coast, Bates geology students were blown away by their magical visits with artist Ashley Bryan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was a little hairy on the water that day in May 2014. The group of Bates students led by Professor of Geology Dykstra \u201cDyk\u201d Eusden \u201880 had set out in their kayaks from Southwest Harbor, bound for Baker Island via the Gut between Little and Great Cranberry islands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal was to camp on at the Baker Island Lighthouse for five days, from May 7 through May 11, jaunting around to map the volcanics in and around the islands, a typical project for Eusden’s legendary Short Term course, “Geology of the Maine Coast by Sea Kayak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jackie
Jackie Ordemann ’15 paddles through choppy waters on May 7, 2014, shortly before the “crash landing” that led to a chance meeting with artist Ashley Bryan on Little Cranberry Island. (Sarah Crosby\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut we ran into really challenging southeast winds that forced us to bivvy on Islesford,” aka Little Cranberry, Eusden recalls. Grace Kenney \u201816 remembers it as the \u201ccrash landing.\u201d A few people sat on the beach to catch their breath after the hard work of getting there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were all relieved,\u201d remembers Graham Oxman ’15. Then came the adaptation to being blown off the path they\u2019d planned. Which, in a way, fit right in with the course goals, to teach them not just about geology, but about weather, tides, navigation, group dynamics, and living in situations they\u2019d likely never experienced before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this situation, they needed to figure out an alternative plan for the night. A group, including Eusden and Ian Hillenbrand \u201917, set out on a reconnaissance mission. Hillenbrand is from Ohio but had vacationed in Maine with his family, including trips to Little Cranberry because his father, Will Hillenbrand, a children\u2019s book author and illustrator, had an artist friend there. \u201cI said, \u2018Hey, I know this guy,\u2019\u201d Hillenbrand remembers. And that was artist, author, and children\u2019s book illustrator Ashley Bryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That spring Bryan was 90 years old and had already published many books, including the popular 2011 children\u2019s book Beautiful Blackbird.<\/em> The local elementary school on Little Cranberry had recently been named for him, but even in his adopted state of Maine he had not yet become quite so widely known as he would in the coming years. (In 2020, Maine Gov. Janet Mills proclaimed his birthday, July 13, “Ashley Frederick Bryan Day” in Maine). \u201cI knew Ashley would probably know everyone, or at least put us in touch with someone we could talk to,\u201d said Hillenbrand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenney had never heard of Ashley Bryan, but she was game, even if she was still in a full wetsuit, including the booties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t even think we took those off,\u201d Kenney says. But the artist welcomed the damp and disheveled Bates group into his cottage-studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ashley Bryan warmly welcomed the marooned Bates geology students to Islesford on May 7, 2014. (Photograph by Ian Hillenbrand ’17)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was like a layer of embarrassment that we were in our wetsuits,\u201d Kenney remembers. She may even still have been wearing the sea kayaking skirt that keeps the inside of the kayak dry in rough waters. \u201cAnd I remember being really nervous about not knocking things over. It was like being in a toy store, or a museum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bryan was unphased. After a quick visit, he recommended checking in with the proprietor of the general store. The Bates group made a plan to return later that day, then walked to the general store, where the woman who ran it extended hospitality as well, offering to let them camp on a point of land looking out to sea. Little Cranberry would be their home for the next four days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, various members of the group made four trips to Bryan\u2019s studio. In Hillenbrand\u2019s photos, Noel Potter \u201817 has a huge grin on his face. Like most of the students, Potter had never heard of Bryan, but he went along anyway. \u201cMostly my motivation was just that I didn\u2019t want to miss anything. I wanted to soak in the whole experience.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potter wasn\u2019t disappointed. And there was a lot to soak up in Bryan\u2019s home and studio. \u201cEvery horizontal surface and most vertical surfaces had something of interest that was probably made by Ashley Bryan, and if not by him, probably made by a friend of his, that were beautiful. And  pretty much every single one had a great story behind it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visits were deeply moving to the students, so much so that this week, as they were wishing a happy birthday via group text to one of the friends they\u2019d made during that Short Term, Jackie Ordemann ’15, it turned into an impromptu memorial for Ashley Bryan, who died Feb. 4. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Several of the Bates kayakers pose with Ashley Bryan on May 7, 2014. From left, Graham Oxman ’15, Ian Hillenbrand ’17, Grace Kenney ’16, Bryan, Reilly Bergin-Pugh \u201814, Jackie Ordemann ’15, and Noel Potter ’17. (Photograph courtesy of Ian Hillenbrand ’17)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For Oxman, who went on to get a master\u2019s in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Colorado School of Mines, Bryan\u2019s jam-packed studio, an explosion of color and natural materials and projects underway, had a familiar feeling. His grandmother was an artist, and her studio was similarly both overflowing and carefully curated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have tchotchkes everywhere,\u201d Oxman says, items that speak to the artist as both inspiration and maybe, he says, \u201ca reflection of \u2018I see myself in this in some way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was sort of like we stepped into his brain when we got there,\u201d he adds. \u201cAnd I got the strong impression that he had just the biggest heart and a childlike excitement to just share it with people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hillenbrand, who completed a master\u2019s degree in geology from the University of Massachusetts\u2013Amherst and is now working as a research scientist for the United States Geological Survey, had known Bryan so long he didn\u2019t remember the first time they\u2019d met. Bryan and his father met when Will Hillenbrand was volunteering at a school in Cincinnati and Bryan was a visiting speaker, and Ian remembers that Bryan visited his elementary school. In a sense, he\u2019d just always known Bryan. He was not surprised by the impression the artist left on his classmates during those visits in May 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan was also deeply curious about what the Bates students were doing, mapping the bedrock of the island (these students traveled with sketchbooks). The studio was filled with his stained glass made from sea glass he\u2019d collected from nearby shores. This was exactly the kind of immersion in Maine ocean communities Eusden always hoped for in these trips. \u201cI saw so much use of natural materials in Bryan\u2019s art that it really connected to our trip and experiences,\u201d  says Eusden, who is retiring this year as the Whitehouse Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While they visited, Bryan pulled out his marionettes, all handmade from found materials. \u201cHis ability to move them, making the characters come alive, was pretty incredible,\u201d Eusden remembers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was almost like conversational play,\u201d Kenney says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ashley Bryan (left) shows a piece of artwork to Dyk Eusden ’80, Noel Potter ’17, Graham Oxman ’15, and Grace Kenney ’16. (Photograph by Ian Hillenbrand ’17)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bryan told them about his own career arc, which had included teaching art at the Dalton School in New York (Oxman, a graduate, was excited by this connection), and about his experiences in World War II. It was eye opening for the group. \u201cNone of us have ever been drafted,\u201d Oxman says. \u201cI was sort of self-absorbed at that time in my life, but halfway through I remember thinking, \u2018This man was trying to get into art school at a time when segregation was not that far in the rear view.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those visits felt all the more precious this week. Potter reflected on how he fell hard for Maine island communities on that trip, with their sense of joyous eccentricity and welcome, as embodied by Bryan, and feels fortunate to regularly encounter it through his work with Portland-based Rippleffect. At the outdoors youth program he leads sea kayaking trips, among other skills building adventures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenney, who teaches at Slate School in North Haven, Conn., an environmentally-oriented elementary school, reflected on how it continued to resonate with her. For Christmas, she gave her mother a book of photographs of Bryan\u2019s marionettes. And last year, after Kenney told the school librarian at Slate about how incredible it was to meet him, they added some of Bryan\u2019s books to our school library. \u201cIt made me think about how that is one of the wonderful ways in which he can and will be remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jackie
Jackie Ordemann ’15 and Grace Kenney ’16 share warm drinks on Little Cranberry Island on May 7, 2014, during the unplanned stop to the island that led to visits with artist Ashley Bryan. (Sarah Crosby\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After learning about<\/a> the Bates College Museum of Art\u2019s exhibition, Let\u2019s Celebrate Ashley Bryan! <\/a><\/em>in late 2020, Kenney was inspired to write to Bryan to thank him for his hospitality. The whole experience had been so meaningful, she said, and she wanted him to know. She didn\u2019t know quite how to reach him (he was living with a niece in Texas during the pandemic) so she sent a letter to the Ashley Bryan Center. She was well aware that the man she\u2019d met when she was a sophomore at Bates was well into his 90s. \u201cI remember telling myself, \u2018You have to do this now, because who knows? You will be so angry with yourself if you miss this opportunity.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Museum of Art director Daniel Mills, the story of the Bates Short Term encounter with Bryan fits exactly with the man he knew. \u201cI’m not surprised to hear this. Ashley was such a wonderful man, a bright light and generous soul who had such an impact on the many people he met.\u201d The two spoke frequently during the development of the 2020\u20132021 Let’s Celebrate Ashley Bryan!<\/em> exhibition in the museum. \u201cEach call ended with an outpouring of Ashley’s love for me and the museum staff, and for the students at Bates.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whike kayaking the Maine coast in May 2014, geology professor Dyk Eusden ’80 and his students were blown off course \u2014 and into the welcoming an magical world of artist Ashley Bryan, who died last week at age 98.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1283,"featured_media":144356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,11010,11011,32],"tags":[12215,3081],"class_list":["post-144272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-arts","category-awards","category-maine-and-new-england","tag-ashley-bryan","tag-dyk-eusden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144272"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144401,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144272\/revisions\/144401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}