Green Fields of the Mind
June 11 - July 23, 1993
To lead us into the ball playing months of summer, the Somerville Museum and The Sports Museum of New England proudly present a pair of exhibitions for the entire family: Green Fields of the Mind and Sandlot Success.
Green fields of the mind (Main Gallery)
Green Fields of the Mind takes its title from the words of former baseball commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti and presents the work of Boston artist Susan Miller-Havens, who creates heroic paintings of baseball players. In her work, Miller-Havens combines a classic connection of the athlete with th dreamlike environment of memory. In addition, the artist has selected poetry and prose from writers and ball players to meld wit the paintings. Ongoing play-by-play commentary by the late sports announcer and Baseball Hall of Fame Red Barber, will bring the game home to any visitor with an imagination, young or old. This audio production includes the Boston Braves vs. The Brooklyn Dodgers (1950) and the Brooklyn Dodgers vs. The New York Yankees (1949 World Series).
Sandlot Success (The Sloane Gallery)
Sandlot Success, a companion to Green Fields of the Mind, looks at the local color and history of the great American game of baseball. Somerville boasts 14 Major Leaguers and their stories are told here with photo-he and memorabilia. With images from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY and the Somerville Museum we will learn about ‘Pie’ Traynor, ‘Deacon’ Danny MacFayden, ‘Shanty’ Hogan, and their fellow ballplayers. Come share the memories and inspirations of these men who started in the Somerville sandlots and made their way to the big leagues.
Sanlot Dreams (Playing continuously in the Sloane Gallery)
Sandlot Dreams, was filmed and directed by video artist Sean Perry especially for this exhibition. It is a full length video presentation combining historical photographs with interviews of Somerville residents who since childhood were involved in the sport of baseball and went on to make important contributions to amateur baseball. The video includes champions at the NCAA and Olympic levels, as well as figures in women’s softball. Sandlot Dreams was produced by Susan Kaur Kelly.
Media Coverage
About the Curator: Susan Miller-Havens
Born and raised in New Jersey a bus ride away from the NYC art world, Susan Miller-Havens has been a resident of Cambridge, MA for over four decades. She has two 20 year careers: one in the field of mental health, the other in fine arts. Originally a reconstructive surgical nurse at the MGH, she was one of the founders of The Department of Psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital.
While working in a clinic she pursued a degree in studio art from Wellesley College where her honors advisers were the watercolorist Richard Yarde and landscape artist, James Wilson Rayen, both well represented artists. Drawn back to psychology she completed her Doctorate in Human Development from Harvard School of Education.After working in adoption reform as an educator she realized once again that she was drawn to expressing in paint what she had come to understand about human nature .
Not primarily a portrait artist, Miller-Havens paintings focus on the subtleties within relationships and the human condition in general.
She is known as an artist who invites the viewer into the painting through unexpected use of color, absence of background, and inventive cropping of the images.
Her work is part of private collections in San Diego, Denver, Miami, New York, and Boston. Her commissions include the official portrait of Mayor Alice Wolf Hall of Fame basketball coach Patrick J. Riley and Harvard Dean Jerome T. Murphy. Her life size portrait of Cooperstown Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk is in the Permanent Collection of the National Portrait Gallery Washington D. C. as is her Portrait of Pedro J. Martinez.
She is a member of The Harvard Arts in Education Advisory Council, The National Association of Women Artists, Who's Who in American Women, Who's Who In America, The Harvard Square Business Association The Harvard Square Neighborhood Association and Somerville Concord, Cambridge Artists Associations
Links to her website: https://www.millerhavens.com
