Women Walking to Water @ MCLA Gallery 51

MCLA’s Gallery 51 and Mosaic present artwork created in response to regular walks to a mountain cold swimming and dipping hole in the Greylock range foothills. 

Suzi Banks Baum, Brece Honeycutt, Melanie Mowinski, Sarah Pike, Lori Spencer and Jessica Yurkofsky will open the exhibition with an artist reception on North Adams’ First Fridays.

To practice Wilderness Mindset, you begin with self as subject and researcher. Then, you deliberately place yourself into spaces that challenge and force acceptance of the unpredictability of the present moment. This practice of presence, when paired with walking can assuage longing, loss, a whole host of things through connection to the earth.

Within this mindset Melanie Mowinski convened a group of women once a month, from May through October in a private performance: a walk to a mountain swimming hole where each participant dipped, played, and sometimes even soaked in water that ranged in temperature from 45 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. A cold-water immersion challenges and forces acceptance. It’s impossible to think of anything else. After the dip, the women walked back to share a meal and conversation.

The reception is open to the public free of charge and refreshments will be served.