Marshall Carbee

For the past couple of months or so I have been in touch with Marshall Carbee after meeting him via the lovely Albina Colden at her opening this past spring at artstream. He invited me over to his studio (as seen in the photos) in the Button Factory in Portsmouth on Saturday for lunch and a chat about his upcoming exhibition with us next year at the gallery. I took a ton of photos and well, this is all I could come up with for you! (sorry Marshall, our hammy ones by the window just didn't make the cut!)

He has lived the life of an artist sincerely since he was a small child. At age 10 he began working half of his school days at the Derryfield School and the other half at the Currier art school. I saw a woodcut which he did at age 10. It was beautiful. There is little he has not tried in media from working on films - (one of my favorites Basquiat, he painted all of the paintings in that film!) to pen and ink,marble sculpture, constructions to welded sculpture and jewelry to paintings with pastel, oil or acrylic. Mixed media, large scale photo montage, you name it he
has tried it. And has done it very well. My kind of artist. We had a nice lunch together chatting about and viewing a ton of his work, it just went on forever. I heard a lot of interesting stories too of his life in Paris and New York, as well as the work he did for PeeWee's Playhouse and the mutant toy animals... (think Toy Story and Sid) Just so wonderful Creepy! There is just too much to go into here so ...
You have to read his bio. You must visit his website to view more of his work. Here's the bio:
American artist Marshall Carbee has exhibited his painting, sculpture, and works on paper in one-man shows in cities around the world, including New York, Paris, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Caracas and Tokyo. In May of 2004 over 100 of Carbee's works were displayed in a one -man show at Tuft's University. A prolific and gifted artist, Carbee's work hangs in galleries and private collections in Europe and North and South America. He was twice nominated to Esquire's prestigious annual register of Americans Under Forty, a list of young people who have made significant contributions in their fields.

Born in Manchester, New Hampshire, Carbee graduated from University of New Hampshire, where he participated in the school's first fine arts program. His studies there resulted in the formulation of his own curricular innovation, a degree awarded in the discipline of drawing. Shortly after graduating, he illustrated a children's book, The Magic Board, which was a gift from his alma mater to the regional public school system. In conjunction with the Portsmouth Community Action Program, he also founded an art school for underprivileged children.

In the 1980's, Carbee founded the Pine Family, Inc., a production company that worked extensively with NHK, the Japanese public broadcasting network to produce twenty-two documentaries focusing on international economic and environmental concerns and ongoing status of U.S.-Japan relations.

A succession of multimedia projects led Carbee to participate in music videos and movies, and his work can be seen in films by Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Al Pacino, Julian Schnabel, Richard Donner, and Ang Lee, among others. His film credits include Men in Black, Eraser, Donnie Brasco, Conspiracy Theory, The Ice Storm, and Basquiat.

Carbee worked on several television projects in New York including Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America, Sesame Street, Regis and Kathy Lee, All My Children, and One Life to Live. Among his television credits, Carbee's work provided the prototype for the original Mutant Toyland of Pee Wee's Playhouse. His production design for the music video of Michael Jackson's Grammy Award-winning single "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" features Carbee's miniature set design and original animation. He has created artwork for special events and industrial shows for such recording artists as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Joe Cocker, Cheap Trick, Meatloaf, Earth Wind and Fire, Michael Jackson, Barbara Streisand, and the Rolling Stones.

In 1996, Carbee turned his hand to filmmaking. He wrote, produced, and directed the short film I'll Be Yours Forever, for which he was honored with a nomination for the Discovery Award, presented by the New Hampshire Humanities Council to an artist working in a new medium.

In 2004, Carbee's bio-crystalline conceptual art project, "Minor to Major, DC", created on September 7, 2001 for the White House in Washington, DC, became part of the private art collection of Mrs.Laura Bush. On September 7, 2001, four days before the attacks, Carbee photographed major league baseball bases filled with Herkimer diamonds placed around the White House. Included in the piece is a sculpture of a white marble "First Base", images of the four bases surrounding the White House, and a nameless street map of the neighborhood.

Resident in Paris and New York, Carbee also maintains a studio near his home on the New England coast. Carbee's visual column 1502GDD is published weekly in The Wire, an arts and public affairs newspaper. On his beach property stand four cement blocks, the last remains of Marconi's antenna tower for the first wireless transmission across the Atlantic. Carbee hosts a community radio program called Culture Waves on WSCA-LP 106.1 FM, Portsmouth Community Radio. The program can be heard Thursdays 6:00 to 7:00 PM streaming over the web at www.wirenh.com.

What more can I say? His work just speaks to me. Keep watching this space. More of Marshall to come.
The word for the day is ... prolific ... as in more and more and more, someone who can produce the goods and the steady stream of rain we keep seeming to attract in New England this June.