1 in 8700: Kate Gridley

The walls of Kate Gridley’s backyard studio are covered in tall canvases, each featuring a man or a woman between the ages of 17 and 24. These figures stand with hands clasped or resting on hips, heads tilted, smiles curled upwards. They are part of her current work “Passing Through: Portraits of Emerging Adults,” a show of portraits of 17 individuals who are somewhere on the bridge between adolescence and adulthood. These portraits, accompanied by oral stories, will be exhibited at Middlebury College beginning in August 2013.

Gridley did not formally study art during her time at Williams College, but when she graduated she was awarded the Hutchinson Memorial Fellowship, which allowed her to study painting and drawing in Europe. Her current technique is rooted in the traditional painting techniques she studied while abroad in Japan during college and in Europe post graduation. Those formative years allowed her to create a style that was much her own, but influenced by her experiences. Following the completion of her fellowship, Gridley settled in Middlebury, determined to remain a full-time painter and to create the work by which she was inspired.

Gridley sees her art not as subscribing to a certain path, but rather creating her own.

“For me it has always been a way of constructing a life where we can live decently and pursue those things which are important to us,” she said.

The individuals chosen for this project have each passed through Middlebury at some point in their lives: one boy is a ninth-generation Vermonter; another spent his summers in Middlebury as a Fresh-Air Fund participant. It is their similarities that ties them together, however. Each shares the connection of Middlebury, each is on the path towards adulthood, and each has a connection to Gridley.

This body of work is the first time Gridley has painted a piece with a unified mission. The inspiration for the work came from a visit to a favorite portrait in a favorite museum, The Frick, in New York City about four-and-a-half years ago. While looking at this portrait of a young man, Gridley realized that he appeared to be the same age as her eldest son. As she noted the differences between the two men, she considered how they, although the same age, were in different stages in life.

“I started to think about people in this age group in different cultures and of different socio-economic strata,” she said. “I considered how adults see them, how they see themselves, how they are valued in their cultures and I realized that this time between adolescence and adulthood has gotten longer. During this time these individuals are doing more and learning more, but I wonder if they have really assumed the mantle of owning themselves.”

Gridley has always enjoyed working with teenagers and emerging adults. She and her husband run a youth group at the Unitarian Church and through that, as well as by getting to know her sons’ friends and making connections with Middlebury College students, Gridley has come to form relationships with many young people. She believes that this time in individuals’ lives is vibrant and important and she enjoys witnessing them encounter chaos, question their identities and beliefs and make connections. Wishing to capture this time in a way that viewers could understand and connect to, Gridley conceived of this portrait work. For the first time Gridley’s artwork was paired with her community work, giving her art an active and personal connection.

Accompanying each portrait is an oral profile of each subject speaking about his or her life. By bringing a digital aspect to the work, Gridley hoped that a more complete story of each individual could be shared.

“I am using the media to get into a narrative about the subjects and when you layer the digital sound on top of it, it becomes something that is connected to the now,” said Gridley. “These pieces are very easily accessed to the viewer — they are not mysterious. What you see is what you get.”

“Passing Through: Portraits of Emerging Adults” will travel throughout Vermont and New England, connecting groups of other emerging adults. Gridley’s hope is that each exhibit will not only feature her 17 portraits, but also a sound booth and a photo booth where viewers can have their images projected on the wall and oral stories compiled.

“I wanted to create a piece that could reverberate with institutions or within communities,” said Gridley. “I want to provide the potential for interaction, for kids to come in and have a contemplative experience by looking at people who are like them — who they know, almost.”

Although Gridley has spent the last four-and-a-half years dedicated to this project, she has also completed some other notable pieces during her time in Middlebury. She was commissioned to paint the official portraits of former Governor Jim Douglas and the Honorable William K. Sessions III, which hang in the Vermont statehouse and the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington D.C., respectively.

While Gridley also does many still life paintings, she prefers the process of portraiture and the connection she makes with her subject.

“The painting of a portrait is always collaborative,” she said. “By the time I’m done with a painting, it is not about a likeness. Because of the collaborative nature of the work, for me the painting becomes a record of the hours I spent working with this person.”

Despite the collaborative aspects of painting portraits, ultimately Kate Gridley spends hours in her studio working alone, trying to create a visual representation of her subjects. Although an experienced painter, she still is challenged with each painting.

“There is something about painting that is still and contemplative,” she said. “For me it is about layers. I literally paint layers, but it’s about layers of personality, layers of time, layers of paint. And yet every time I start a painting, I feel like I’ve never painted before — like I’ve just started again, at the alter of possibility. ”