Eric Stark

BIo

Originally from California and now living in Portland, Maine, Eric Stark is a teacher, architect, and maker who has served as the Program Chair for the University of Maine at Augusta’s Bachelor of Architecture degree for the past 12 years. There, his primary teaching responsibilities are in the design studio, where he is focused on design process and community partnering. Eric holds a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (’98), and a Bachelor’s degree in Theater Design and Construction with a minor in Shakespearean Literature from Cornell College, Mt. Vernon, Iowa (’89). An avid maker, it was a year-long academic sabbatical designed to explore analog and digital ways of making that ignited his love for basketry and fiber art. Since then he has traveled both domestically and internationally to study various weaving methods and materials. His work has been included in a number of exhibitions including at Zero Station (ME), the Floyd Center for the Arts (VA), the Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta (ME), Blue Line Arts (CA), Lights Out Gallery (ME), and the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts (TN) where his work is in their permanent collection.

Artist Statement

I am Eric Stark. I am a basket maker and fiber ar3st, an architect, and a professor of architecture. I have been a working with fiber since 2016 and have explored a variety of materials including white oak, black ash, reed, wicker, willow, paper, chenille stem, pine needles, and sweetgrass, as well as rib basket construction. My current work involves coiling and a Eaching sweetgrass in response to found natural objects – objects gathered from the Maine Coast, as well as various travels.

I am interested in process and material, so my current work is both planned and spontaneous beginning with stone foraged from the Maine coast, and then working with the sweetgrass to discover form through coiling. In this way, the recent work explores connection, pattern, form, and space. The pieces attempt to be simultaneously novel and nostalgic: sometimes old and deeply felt, sometimes something new and fabulous not considered before.

I begin by weaving directly to the stone, fixing the sweetgrass firmly much like seaweed held fast to ocean rocks. I then begin coiling, an image in mind but aware that the relationship between stone and sweetgrass is organic and to be discovered through the act of weaving.

I love all aspects of basket making including the community of basket makers and fiber artists, the patterns, the rhythm, the structure, the form/space, the utility, and the artistry. Of greatest importance to me is the “parts to whole” relationship where utility, use, and beauty are found when elements are woven together making them stronger and more useful together. In the work, I have a vision or a path that I want to explore; some nagging idea that, for little more than the need to satisfy my own curiosity, wants to be realized through the making process.