Midnight’s titular piece, composed of over 10,000 clay birds. Harper explained the idea behind the piece. “I draw viewers in and make them look very close, and then I push them away,” Harper said. “I use strategies in the work to do both those things with the scale and the mass. So if you look in the vitrine, there's very tiny elements and then those birds envelop the viewer.”

By Jack Brittle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Earlier in September, the Art Gallery of Burlington (AGB) hosted a send-off to Magdolene Dykstra and her “Exchanging Presence” exhibition, which closes at the AGB on October 6, and offered a preview of David R. Harper’s new exhibition “Midnight.”

The titular piece in Harper’s exhibition comprises more than 10,000 clay birds affixed to the walls, in a large curved room.

Harper talked about the inspiration behind the piece.

“​​That piece is about taking on a big subject matter,” Harper said. “It could be anything. It could be grief. It could be love, that feeling of falling in love for the first time. And to understand it, to truly understand something that big, you have to break it into fragments and hold each fragment in your hand and work it and model it over and over again.”

“And eventually you do it so many times, these little objects amass a huge thing,” he continued. “So it’s about dismantling big thoughts to understand them more easily.”

Harper said that it’s important to him that he makes everything in his pieces himself.

“I have what I like to refer to as an autodidactic practice,” Harper said. “If there’s something that I want to build that needs to be made out of a certain material, I’ll try to teach myself that skill. Sometimes I go take classes, sometimes I go on YouTube, or I read books, but when I wanted to start making my own fabric to make the cots or the chairs, I learned how to weave fabric.”

“I do all the embroidery and blow my own glass,” Harper continued. “I do all the ceramic work, all the woodworking. Everything you see in that exhibition was made in my studio. It’s a personal choice that I make because I have this intimate relationship with making things.”

“I find that a handmade object carries so much weight to it because it transfers the residue of the maker into the world,” Harper said.

Harper said that Suzanne Carte, the artistic director and curator at the AGB, reached out to him after visiting his studio in the U.S.

He said that they had known each other for years, but that she was particularly interested in the pieces and concepts that would end up in Midnight.

The exhibition is laid out over several rooms and features several different art forms. Pieces range from small to large, fitting with Harper’s overall theme for the exhibit.

Harper asked the gallery if they could build two walls to create the surrounding amphitheatre, where the bird piece is located.

“I had to modify the space a little bit,” Harper said. “I’m very grateful they were able to do that. But that’s part of the collaborative process between an artist and a museum, if the work is going to work in a particular way, you try to get it as close as possible. So they’re very generous.”

At around 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the reception, the attendees moved from the exhibition to the banquet hall, where Mayor Marianne Meed Meed Ward and Harper addressed the crowd.

MP Karina Gould also sent a video message to welcome Harper to the gallery and congratulate Dykstra on her successful exhibition.

“Art is so important for our community and for our culture, and for bringing people together,” Gould said.

Meed Ward spoke about the need to keep investing in the arts at a municipal level.

“This (the AGB) is owned by you, the taxpayers,” Meed Ward said. “And we, through our budget discussions, invest every year in the Art Gallery of Burlington and our investments have increased year over year.”

Harper was the last to speak at the reception, thanking several friends and colleagues and expressing his gratitude to the gallery.

“I can tell you one of the things that I hear a lot more than I’d like to from the community, when they’re wanting us to pinch pennies, or they’re concerned, rightly, about affordability and inflation, is ‘Can we cut the arts?’” Meed Ward continued. “​’Can we cut the art budget? Can we reduce what we give to the art gallery?’”

“We’re not going to do that, I can tell you that,” Meed Ward said.

Carte then took the stage to introduce Harper and “Midnight.”

“You’re seeing weaving and glassblowing, stained glass, carpentry, and a monumental installation of ceramic birds,” Carte said. “As you can see, David’s elaborate installations are truly awesome, in their detail, their scope and their scale.”

“His caring and attentive approach to art-making yields elegantly, beautifully unfolding narratives of grief, belonging, beauty, angst and longing,” she continued.

Midnight will be on display at the AGB until January 5, 2025.