Overview
On Saturday, June 19, 2021 the Cape Ann Museum opened a special exhibition of works by Essex sculptor Brad Story and Ipswich photographer Dorothy Kerper Monnelly. The exhibition was held at the Janet & William Ellery James Center at the Cape Ann Green and remained on display through July 30. Each artist has been inspired by their surroundings here on the North Shore and in particular The Great Marsh which extends from Cape Ann up to the New Hampshire border.
Brad Story is a native of Essex and lives and works at the edge of The Great Marsh. After graduating from college in 1969, Story returned home to work with his father, Dana Story, in the family shipyard. The Storys had been building boats in Essex since the 1660s and the business was in young Story’s blood. After 27 years working in the yard, Brad gave it up, turning to designing and building three-dimensional works of art that combine his fascination with airplanes, birds and boat building. Using nature as his point of departure and materials such as wood and fiberglass, Story creates sculptures that capture our imaginations and lift our spirits. As one critic observed, his works “conjure scenes from the Daedalus’ feather-and-wax myth to Leonardo’s drawings for an ornithopter, to the one-man gliders constructed Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s.”
Dorothy Kerper Monnelly has been photographing in black and white for decades and is fascinated and inspired by the Great Marsh. It was the subject of her 2006 book Between Lane and Sea, The Great Marsh which was just republished in 2020. Over the course of her career, Monnelly’s photographs have been lauded by land conservation groups and her large-scale silver gelatin prints are in the collection of several museums including the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Monnelly’s and Story’s artwork intersect with the theme of the Great Marsh with Monnelly’s images capturing the ever-changing form and texture of the landscape and Story’s sculptures the beauty and variety of wildlife that inhabits it. Together the artists remind us not only of what an amazing and abundant resource the Great Marsh is but also of our responsibility to conserve it.
