in preparation for The Button Factory Open Studios on Dec. 1 and 2, The Wire profiles three of its resident artists

When Jim Buttrick and Peter Bowers bought the historic brick building at 855 Islington St. in Portsmouth in 1986, they founded a thriving community for artists and craftspeople. Originally a manufacturing building for shoe buttons, the structure experienced a variety of uses before establishing itself as the heart of Portsmouth’s working arts scene. The Button Factory will celebrate its 21st anniversary as art space with its annual open studios event on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 1 and 2, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

When James Morley bought the three-story building—across from the current location of Plaza 800 and Hannaford Supermarket—in 1895, he quickly became the top manufacturer of shoe buttons in the world. Morley sold the building in 1947, occupying a smaller section to manufacture mattress buttons. Subsequent uses for the building included the canning of fish, the printing of Christmas cards and vocational training. George and Isabelle Irwin took over in 1968 to manufacture paper potato sacks, but railroad siding behind the building was later condemned and the Irwins shut down their business. Artists and craftspeople began renting space shortly thereafter, creating fertile ground for Portsmouth’s artistic renaissance of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Entering the building today, creative energy is almost palpable in its musty air. The stairwell inside the main entrance is adorned with a gigantic chandelier sculpture that hangs from the ceiling like an elaborate, overgrown grapevine. The spacious studios have high ceilings and large windows, bathing artwork with sunlight.

Close to 70 artists and craftspeople are expected to show and sell their work at The Button Factory open studios, including painters, furniture makers, boat builders, toy makers, jewelers, photographers, sculptors, bookbinders, framers, fabric artists and metalsmiths. The event is open to the public, giving area residents a chance to stroll across the wooden floors of its historic hallways and visit the rooms where artists bring their ideas to life.

In anticipation of this year’s open studios, The Wire profiled three painters who have worked there for varying lengths of time. The three have very different styles and backgrounds, but they are all prolific and passionate artists who have come to cherish the unique space at The Button Factory.

For more information about The Button Factory Open Studios, visit www.buttonfactorystudios.com.

Roger Goldenberg
the bebop jazzman of Seacoast arts

Jazz plays in Roger Goldenberg’s sunny studio on the third floor of The Button Factory. It’s Horace Silver, the so-called founding father of funk, and his quartet, including trumpeter Blue Mitchell. The first real snowfall of the season is falling outside the large windows that nearly fill two walls of the studio. Colorful paintings on wildly shaped canvases adorn the white space between windows, and others hang like vibrant prayer flags from the high ceiling and its wooden rafters.

Goldenberg, bespectacled and wearing a fleece cap that makes him look like a modern beatnik, is at work in the studio, as usual. Himself a trumpet player, he almost always listens to jazz while he’s painting, and his artwork educes a number of striking parallels with the quintessentially American music. A virtual Dizzy Gillespie of painting, Goldenberg begins with a shape on a canvas, like the root melody of a bebop tune. Having established that root, he improvises, stretching to the outer limits of his imagination.

“Generally, jazz is a very upbeat genre. It’s also rhythmically moving, impelled forward, and I think that also is the case with my work. And, often, you’ll hear musicians talk about the color or the tone of their instrument, or the brightness. They use very similar adjectives to describe what they’re doing,” Goldenberg said. “I see what I do and they do as very parallel art forms.”

Having grown up in northern New Hampshire, Goldenberg also infuses phenomena of nature into his paintings. The play of shadows or melting snow form odd shapes that engrave themselves in his mind and come out as subtle brush strokes in his work.

“I am quite a naturalist. I mean, I grew up in the woods, hiking. I’ve been all over the world in different parts of nature and different types of nature, and I look more closely, probably, than a lot of people,” he said. “So, I see things in nature that most people might just breeze over. Even (in) melt-out patterns of snow on the edge of a stream, sometimes I’ll see the same shapes that I’ve been creating here in the studio. And, the plants that I’m around. I’m always drawing, even on an unconscious level, from nature.”

Goldenberg has occupied studio 325 at The Button Factory since September 1995 and has participated in 11 open studio events there. Discovering the studio after returning from art school at the University of North Carolina was a dream come true for the aspiring painter. The building has a congenial atmosphere that provides a pleasant community of artists, while also offering private and comfortable workspace.

To Goldenberg, The Button Factory is one of the last true bastions of the arts in a city that is becoming increasingly consumed by the booming tourist trade. As developers erect massive hotels, small galleries come and go and rent prices steadily rise. There is a perpetual waiting list at The Button Factory, a highly coveted haven for artists who still want to live and work in the Port City. But over the last 12 years, Goldenberg has seen many artists relocate to places like Salmon Falls Mills in Rollinsford and the Wentworth-Dennett School in Kittery, both of which recently held open studio events of their own. Other artists have adapted their styles to conform to touristy appetites.

“A lot of artists have kind of tied into the tourist trade to be able to make ends meet. I know a lot of artists who have moved away because of that,” Goldenberg said. “I think it’s time for us to reinvent ourselves here, and we haven’t quite figured out how.”

Those artists lucky enough to have working quarters at The Button Factory continue to uphold Portsmouth’s artistic traditions, and Goldenberg is a prime example of the building’s diverse offerings. He has honed his technique into a methodical and mechanical system that still allows him to improvise liberally, ultimately resulting in eye-grabbing designs that are as loud as trumpet blasts.

Goldenberg begins by rolling out canvas across the floor of his studio and sketching a gestural drawing, which he then cuts out with scissors. He uses a variety of collaged fabrics to build the canvas into a shape, which he then affixes to thin plywood with epoxy. He continues to build up the canvas by drawing and applying additional gesso, fabric and thread. After a day or so, he is ready to begin painting.

While Goldenberg’s work tends to attract attention and has been shown at numerous gallery openings in and around Portsmouth, he is aware of the fact that some people are put off by his paintings. But he defends his work as an authentic glimpse into the human experience.

“I think some people are repulsed by, say, the bright color. Some people might feel kind of antagonized by the fact that there are shapes,” he said. “A long time ago, I just decided that life is really not described very well by a rectangle. And so, I started jimmying around canvases, and then it evolved into a much more organic kind of form, which I think reflects our world better than geometric forms.”

Ultimately, Goldenberg believes that his work—like any legitimate artwork—connects to a deep place within its viewers. As someone observes the painting and projects his own point of view on the work, unconsciously or otherwise, he will recognize elements of shared human perception.

“I believe that we all hold within us a collective unconscious—a collective knowledge in our unconscious—and there are archetypes that I think we hold within us,” he said. “As these images of mine emerge, I think they come from a common place that is part of all of humanity, and it’s really as simple as that.”

Lately, Goldenberg finds himself implementing more sculptural qualities into his painting. As opposed to flat, oil-on-canvas works, his paintings adopt real physical shapes that jump out at the viewer in a three-dimensional way. There is motion in his paintings, and as he goes forward, he may build on the concept of movement, making artwork that is actually kinetic.

As Goldenberg prepares for another busy open studio event, he remains concerned about Portsmouth’s art scene. A former vice chair of the Portsmouth Cultural Commission, he has long pushed for more affordable housing in the city. He has watched with interest as neighborhood residents have met to discuss the city’s Action Plan for Islington Street Corridor Improvements and Arts District, but he is not as engaged as he used to be.

“Personally, I think the city is headed in the wrong direction,” Goldenberg said. “I would like to see arts infrastructure built, museums, things that draw a lot of people and would resonate for perpetuity. But, I think we’re becoming more of a tourist town … People neglect the fact that the arts are the foundation of civilization.”

To learn more about Roger Goldenberg, visit www.rgpaints.com.


Aysen A. Orhon
examining identity with art

Aysen Aycan Orhon did not speak a word of English when she came to the United States from Turkey in February 2000. For the first 18 months of her life in the States, she relied entirely on her husband to translate. Since then, she has learned to speak the language competently and is still pushing herself to become more fluent. But, whether she is speaking in English or in her native tongue, Orhon finds that she can communicate her thoughts and feelings most accurately through art.

Take a couple of her latest series of oil paintings. With her “Tent” series, Orhon presents a number of images of tents staked into colorful canvases on square blocks. The seed of inspiration for the series developed from a large earthquake that devastated Turkey not long before Orhon came to the United States. A number of shoddily constructed concrete buildings collapsed, killing and injuring civilians. Many of the survivors erected tents to serve as temporary shelters for those who were displaced, returning to the practices of the nomadic peoples who originally inhabited the country.

Orhon saw deep symbolism in these tents. In Turkey, nomadic people used tents as portable homes for centuries. In the 1920s, however, the Ottoman Empire fell and the Republic of Turkey was established. The new regime wanted to give the country a more modern, European appearance. Abandoning centuries of heritage, the new rulers attempted to tuck away all relics of the past and quickly erected concrete buildings with more Western facades.

But, as the earthquake of the late 1990s proved, the buildings were poorly constructed. And, when they collapsed, the Turks were forced to return to their nomadic origins, living, once again, in tents.

“After 600 years, the Ottomans were gone and they started this new country called Turkey Republic,” Orhon explained. “They were trying to learn how to maybe be civilized, but they couldn’t, so they used that perfect material (concrete) incorrectly. The tent is a kind of symbol there. They put all their culture or whatever they had away. They were just trying to be or look like western countries. It creates a big problem.”

Her work on the “Tent” series got her thinking more about the material of concrete and its link to history. She soon began working on another series, “Wall,” with paintings that depict concrete surfaces worn by years of graffiti and paint. Both series reflect Orhon’s ongoing exploration into her own identity as a Turkish artist living in the United States.

The “Tent” and “Wall” series will be on display for the first time during the Button Factory’s open studios event this weekend. Orhon has worked out of the spacious confines of studio #208 for about a year now, and she is still adjusting to the idea of being a full-time professional artist.

Also on display this weekend will be a slightly older series, called “Kaftan.” The worn images of garments, specifically those of Ottoman sultans, again examine the abandonment of historical Turkish culture. The regime that overthrew the Ottomans stopped wearing kaftans in favor of more European styles, Orhon explained.

“All of a sudden, they put whatever they were wearing away, and then they tried to wear something like Europeans. It creates a big identity crisis for a whole culture,” she said. “When you’re growing up in that thing, you don’t actually see it. After I moved here, I had a chance to look at the whole thing from a different perspective.”

Today, Orhon finds herself questioning who she really is. Her accent suggests her Turkish origins, but she has lived in Portsmouth for more than seven years. She wears American clothing and listens to American music, but she still cherishes her Turkish heritage. Removed from that heritage and able to observe her home country from afar, she negotiates her mounting identity questions with art.

“You get confused and you feel so lost sometimes,” she said, explaining that she painted the kaftans partly to show how people can create false identities with their clothing. “One day you can be a businessman, another day you can be a Rasta. You can be anything by just changing (your clothes), and people can believe without knowing you or looking at the real you.”
Originally from Adapazari, Orhon studied fine arts and majored in painting at Marmara University in Istanbul, graduating in 1994. She and her husband met while both working as graphic designers in Istanbul. The couple’s first visit to the United States came when their employer sent them to a conference in Orlando, Fla. The trip convinced them that it was time to relocate.

“We went back home and we said, ‘What are we doing? We’re just going to die and we don’t know anything,’” Orhon recalled. “We just didn’t want to die in the same place that we were born. So, that changed our lives.”

Her husband got a job with a graphic design company in Portsmouth, and the two decided that New England would be an ideal place to settle down. They made the move on Feb. 17, 2000, in the dead of winter.

“It was really cold. Really, really, really cold for me,” she laughed.

The couple moved into a tiny apartment, and Orhon began painting with whatever tools and surfaces she could find. She still has a couple of framed early paintings, done on torn pieces of corrugated cardboard. Her husband encouraged her to continue painting, volunteering to support them both while she worked on her art.

“My husband said, ‘You know what? We kind of survived with one salary for years. Why don’t you give it a shot? It’s your dream, why don’t you paint? Just try. If it doesn’t work, you can always find a job.’ I said … ‘Okay.’”

She turned her little dining room into a makeshift studio, using a small wooden easel that she still has today. She later met poet Mimi White (Portsmouth’s poet laureate from 2005 to 2007), who asked her to participate in a group show called “What Is Home?” at the Coldwell Banker Gallery in Portsmouth. Through that show, she met other poets and painters, including Roger Goldenberg.

Orhon has now had exhibitions at a number of galleries in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, including two at Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth. The open studio this weekend will be her second at The Button Factory, where she spends around 40 hours per week in her second floor studio. The room has large, sunny windows and white brick walls, and Orhon listens to music while she paints, shuffling between jazz greats like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane and storytellers like Tom Waits.
Now 38, Orhon is taking a break from marketing her work to galleries to focus on her artistic development. She has noticed a tendency among some Seacoast artists to turn to more decorative styles in order to sell their work, and she has resisted the temptation to do the same. Although she understands the need to pay the bills, she feels that catering to potential buyers cheapens artwork.

“I think it’s not right. By doing it you’re, I think, killing something. It doesn’t go anywhere,” she said. “I think if you really want to be an artist or want to make art, you have to sacrifice stuff.”

After a year at The Button Factory, Orhon is still learning about the business aspect of being an artist. She is also still coming to grips with the realization of her dream—to devote her daily life to art.

“You forget easily that this is not a job,” she said. “I think I’m in the process of learning how to be an artist. It takes time.”

To learn more about Aysen A. Orhon, visit www.a2o2.com.


Marshall Carbee
portrait of a lifelong artist

Marshall Carbee reclines on a couch in The Wire office and begins improvising a little song about his visit. With his artistic career blossoming and new opportunities emerging, he is in an exceptionally jovial mood.

“You have to sing, because people don’t understand art just making you happy, singing and dancing and painting and cooking,” he said. “But, I was lucky because I was raised in the art school.”

A native of Manchester, Carbee began studying at Currier Art Center at the age of six. Drawing, painting and taking photographs, he never strayed from his artistic passion.

“I think it happened immediately, where a piece of clay is so much more interesting than a block or a doll,” he said. “Maybe if I’d been a writer, I’d be playing with dolls, talking to each other. If I was an architect, I would have played with blocks. But, somehow, the finger paints and the clay were just freedom to push it around. There are no limits, right? You can draw anything. You can make clay into any shape. I think that was the appeal.”

As he gears up for this year’s open studio event at The Button Factory, where he has rented a studio since January 2000, Carbee is beginning to see his dedication to the arts pay off in new ways. He will celebrate his recent success with an after-party following the opening reception on Friday night. The party, in studio 320, is open to the public.

“The party is really about all the exciting things that are going on right now,” Carbee said. “Just a timing thing, where, for the first time, I have a whole team of people—volunteers and an agent and a manager-agent-publicist kind of guy.”

Carbee’s team is currently engaged in the tedious task of cataloging every last piece of artwork remaining in his studio, sorting them digitally by number, series, title, size, color, subject matter, date, etc. The organizational effort will provide him not only with a comprehensive documentation of his work, but with a package of high resolution images that he can market to galleries.

Carbee’s artwork includes a seemingly infinite variety of illustrations, from simple black and white drawings of animals to elaborately jumbled collages of topical images. The task of cataloging this work has kept him in the studio—away from his house on Rye Beach—for 12 to 14 hours at a time. The studio, like the vast expanses of his imagination, is large and spacious, with a staircase leading to a roomy loft. Over the years, Carbee has lived in Manchester, New York, Los Angeles and Paris, but he considers The Button Factory a true jewel.

“It’s the most beautiful studio I’ve ever had,” he said.

Carbee’s resume is impressive. The UNH grad has worked as a scenic artist on a slew of Hollywood films, including “Men in Black,” “Eraser,” “Donnie Brasco,” “Conspiracy Theory,” “The Ice Storm” and “Basquiat.” He has also worked on a number of New York television projects, including “Saturday Night Live,” “Good Morning America,” “Prime Time Live,” “20/20,” “ABC News,” “Sesame Street,” “Regis and Kathy Lee” and “All My Children.” He has created artwork for an extensive list of major recording artists, and did animation and set design for the music video of Michael Jackson’s Grammy Award-winning single, “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough.”

Carbee has also shown his work in several large exhibitions, including a one-man 2004 show at Tufts University that featured more than 100 of his pieces. Another project was shown at an exhibition in Paris in 2002, and his work hangs in private galleries in at least three continents.

The Button Factory has been Carbee’s laboratory for a prolific array of artwork, on and off, for nearly eight years. Also host of the radio program “Culture Waves” on 106.1, WSCA, which airs every Thursday at 6 p.m., he is an active contributor in the Seacoast art scene. Readers of The Wire will also recognize Carbee’s weekly art column, 15-02-GDD. The column began not long after The Wire’s inception, after Carbee returned from a stint in France. After over three years, he has compiled more than 150 drawings for The Wire. The question of what his column is really all about is not an uncommon one.

“Everybody’s always wondering what The Wire drawings are, and The Wire drawings started out, specifically, as a remedy—a hopefully therapeutic act—because of the war. I had just come back from living in France, the war had just broken out, we had just attacked Iraq, and The Wire (was just emerging),” he explained. “So, I thought I’d do my bit against the war, for that, through the drawings. But, I didn’t want to make the drawings blatantly partisan or leftwing … So, I tried to make it as confusing as possible.”

The rules for the column were simple. There were to be no words or familiar symbols. Any symbols he used would have to be created on the spot. If you look closely, Carbee’s drawings have addressed topics ranging from the Iraq War to Hurricane Katrina to Ronald Reagan’s funeral and other current events. But, lately, he has focused on simpler, more celebratory images, mainly of various animals.

The shift in The Wire drawings reflects a broader transition in Carbee’s work. Whereas he once approached his paintings and drawings with a blank slate, allowing ideas to spill spontaneously onto the canvas, he now spends time in preparation, carefully planning, researching and sketching each piece.

“The subject matter has always been wide. The biggest change is that I’m a lot less impulsive, and I’ve been exploring a lot of traditional techniques that I hadn’t really bothered to use,” he said.

Among the recent developments in Carbee’s career is his agreement to do artwork for Flatbread Company on Congress Street. He will attempt to design a new pizza box for the restaurant’s deliveries, and he will provide generic art for the building’s interior.

After years of dwelling on the war and other global issues, Carbee looks forward to making upbeat and vibrant art for Flatbread, which he calls “the church of pizza.”

“It’s field of dreams. It’s total field of dreams,” he said, crediting his agent and friends with helping to rejuvenate his career.

“We’re preparing to be an artist in the fullest, greatest possible sense in every way … We’re doing everything that we can to enhance and make sure that the work is superior and that everything that we do is the best we can do. And, all of a sudden, all this stuff is happening.”

Carbee does not pretend to know what goes into creating a vibrant art scene in a community. He laments the recent closure of Tech Products in Portsmouth and would like to see a new art supply store open in the city. But, he is currently focused on improving his own art.

“I haven’t learned that much. I still don’t really get it. I’m really close, but … I need to put more of an idea into my work. That’s my problem,” he said.

For Carbee, learning more about how to be an artist will be a lifelong adventure. He has always been driven purely by his love for making art, and that love is not about to dwindle.

“It’s always been fun, it’s like I never really worked,” he said.

To learn more about Marshall Carbee, visit www.myspace.com/loukaniko.