The Net Works Project
An Artistic Tribute to the Fishing Community
April 30, 2024
By Chris Munkholm
Driving into Gloucester one winter morning and looking across the St. Peter’s parking lot, my gaze landed on the startling sight of a long rectangular building with the uncommon color of light salmon. As if a large slag of iridescent coral had been dragged onto dry land and wedged into the typically muted Gloucester winter scenery. And it did not belong. I am still a new gal in town, and always will be, so accustomed to operating out of the loop. But this architectural oddity needed an explanation.
I was to learn that the building at 52 Commercial Street was once part of the Intershell International Corporation and an important destination for the cargo of returning fishing trawlers. The building, like others on the harbor, is in transition from the seafood processing era into a future yet to be determined.
A few weeks later, I received a press release for an upcoming art installation named The Net Works. It was to be constructed in the very same Intershell building in flux. Synchronicity. As I learned, a remarkable team of artists, visionaries, fishing stalwarts, and assorted techies would soon assemble a project originating four years ago. It would be a multi-sensory installation, occupying the length of the building.
And The Net Works project was to be a heartfelt homage to the fishing community,
An artistic tribute to Gloucester’s soul,
Within this building suspended between past and future.
First Threads of The Net
How did such a project come to be? Who are these wizards of artistic interpretation?
In another section of Gloucester exists a compound of buildings, land, arboreal beauty, celestial vistas, and a quarried lake, and once the summer home of legendary sculptor Paul Manship (1885-1966). It remained dormant until art scholar and local resident Rebecca Reynolds recognized that the property had all the elements and provenance needed for an active artists’ residency. Manship Artists Residency now produces some of the most original cultural events in this region.
Momentum for a new project began more than four years ago, when Rebecca and Manship Board Chair Jo-Ann Castano were wondering if something could be done to build a bridge between the fishing and art communities.
The two artistic advocates learned about the work of Erika Senft Miller, from a recommendation by Marc Zegans, poet, and creative development advisor. Erika’s trademark of large-scale collaborative, community-based and site-specific productions seemed like a potential approach. She once combined dancers on paddleboards with a community sailing center and a choir on a boat. Another project was a performance at a secret skatepark. She orchestrated an epic production in a giant shed for road salt and another in the largest public parking garage in Burlington, Vermont.
Erika’s work demonstrated that she could make the extraordinary happen. Rebecca and Jo-Ann invited her for a Manship Artist Residency.
Tying the Past Net to the Project’s Net
Some salty Old-timers might remember, or perhaps it was their earlier relatives who might have remembered when the Gloucester harbor was:
“… the center of the Gloucester fishing industry, with its forests of masts when the fleet was in, its nets drying on the wharves, its odors of fish gurry, tar, bilge water, and pogy oil, and its ships’ crews coming and going with their gear or indulging in the shore divertissements of a seaport town.”
Peter Waxdal, Paul Cary Goldberg, Menghan Wang, Rebecca Reynolds.
While this rich harbor scene is today an historic postcard, the Gloucester fishing lore still permeates the culture of the city. The landscape will always be shaped by the ocean, the coasts, the tides, the special luminescence of sunset, and a fishing culture intact and forever present. An adapted fishing industry still functions. Many local fishing families hold generations of deep knowledge.
The question now existed for the project’s artistic integrity: How can an art installation celebrate and honor this heritage in flux? And not be built as a memorial.
Erika Senft Miller, Net Worker & Net Maker
Erika’s Manship residency invitation was intercepted by the pandemic. But the project of bridging the fishing and art communities was not to be suspended. Erika moved directly into the research phase of her process. Critical to her community-based process was working with stakeholders. Rebecca and Jo-Ann introduced her to fishing professionals Ann Molloy and Jim Tarantino who both became collaborators. Michael DeKoster, Director of Maritime Gloucester connected Erika with Captain Joseph Sanfilippo, master net mender and fisherman, who became another critical collaborator.
During this early phase of research and discussion, the project’s conceptual architecture came into focus. Erika did not want to build yet another descriptive piece about the fishing community. Her plan was to create a multi-sensory installation which would interpret the experience of fishing. The simulated sensory inputs would lead to feelings. These would trigger the limbic memory of the mind and its primitive nature. And, perhaps, a momentary awareness of life existing in a complex system. As a Net of interconnecting threads.
Paul Cary Goldberg, Erika Senft Miller, James Tarrantino.
Thus, the project was underway with artistic inspiration initially guided by two conceptual themes: the liminal and the nets. And the spirit of “we are all in this net together.”
Liminal is a word Erika dances with. Liminal as a living and energizing state of mind – where nothing is defined but all is movement. She sees the liminal within the liminal. The Net Works project is creating a liminal art installation in the liminal core of the building. And it will exist in a liminal time between the past and the present, the present and the future.
Erika’s second theme is one of weaving many nets together. The first internet connection, the net of the team, the network with the community, the net mending on the wharf. But she takes the metaphor into an even larger integration, a net of nets:
“In Gloucester and fishing communities all over the world, a fishing net is a tool that both takes and gives life. A fishing net is a simple structure capable of complex action. For me, a fishing net is a metaphor for life both spiritually and biologically. Spiritually, the net reminds me that we are all connected. At the biological level it’s a visual representation of how nature works. Our body’s connective tissue is a net that holds us together. Our nervous system is a net that connects mind to body, thought to action, and sensory input to perception.”
In talking with Erika, I always found her thinking to be fluid and fearless. Like a ship captain sailing unchartered waters into unpredictable weather - she could adapt. After navigating the pandemic phase of the project, Erika’s rudder and sails were in full project mode. New crew members embarked with the entire team together sharing an onsite Manship Residency.
Manship support was continuous throughout these years, with Rebecca and Jo-Ann providing introductions, funding, and any behind the scenes aid they could offer for the intricacies of manifestation.
A Netted Crew of Talent
But now, after the unveiling within the former Intershell building, The Net Works crew owns the project.
Their team of wide-ranging talent has united for a modern, artistic, and techno interpretation of the historic experience of fishing. Each member contributed an original piece of the whole, with all components woven together into a net of narrative, theater, imagery, sound, and scents.
Rich Arentzen.
During the project building phase, when the team members were shaping and uniting their components, Erika continuously consulted with the “fishing overseers,” Ann Molloy and Jim Tarrantino. Integrity with the fishing heritage was not to be lost.
The Net Works team and their specialties, in addition to Erika Senft Miller, are the following dedicated collaborators:
The Net Works in Scent: Aaron Wisniewski is founder of Alice & the Magician Sensory Design, has dedicated his life to using the art, science, and technology of smell and taste to create products, stories, and experiences that transform human experience.
The Net Works in Sound: Miles Dean Ewell is a media technologist, composer, and lover of synthesis. Neha Ewell is a musician, music supervisor, and composer who creates and curates sound with a purpose.
The Net Works on Site: Monte Rome, owner and director of Intershell International Corporation, Gloucester, is an award-winning international seafood dealer and fearless advocate for both the fishing community and the arts in Gloucester. James Tarrantino, Gloucester native and former fisherman, is a proud husband, father and grandfather who takes immense pride in his Maritime Heritage.
The Net Works in Photography: Paul Cary Goldberg has been making pictures since the mid-1970s, compulsively documenting his world with black and white, color, analogue, digital, documentary, portrait, still life, collages, mixed media.
The Net Works Nets: Captain Joseph Sanfilippo is a Northeast Commercial Fisherman born and raised in Gloucester, and his knowledge, work ethic and passion for the industry led him to co-own three trawlers.
The Net Works in Glass: Rich Arentzen is an accomplished glass blower, including the fine techniques of Italian glassblowing style, art glass, and lighting components.
The Net Works Brought to Life in Light and Sound Technology: Peter Waxdal has been creating spaces for artists and art for the last three decades with specialty construction for lighting & rigging, and audio-video for Architainment, and involved in hundreds of venue builds.
The Net Works in Graphic Design and Print: George Mench is a multi-disciplinary, award-winning designer and artist based in South Burlington, Vermont and founded Brilliant Grey, an independent solo-designer studio.
The Net Works in Video: Menghan Wang, installation artist working with sound and video.
The Net Works Envisioned and Achieved: Erika Senft Miller. Erika Senft Miller. Multi-sensory conceptual artist.
Paul Cary Goldberg.
Preview of The Net Works
The Net Works experience for the public will include visual and sensory experiences while walking through the installation net. Passage provides a story in three acts, which begins at the building’s waterfront entrance, the same portal used by the fishermen when they brought seafood into the plant for processing. What ensues next will be a discovery. The walk terminates in a dark room with holograms and scents, and the question, How does it feel to come home?
The Net Works project opens on the wharf May 10, running through May 27. The public is invited to experience the net of Gloucester’s eternal fishing heritage.
Tickets for timed access: The Net Works (maritimegloucester.org)
