The photographs of Alex MacLean are currently the subject of a solo exhibition at Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA through October 2. For information please visit www.clarkgallery.com
Photographer and aviator Alex MacLean has spent twenty years traveling the length and breadth of America by air. With one hand navigating his plane and the other steadying his camera, he has skillfully captured in intensely colorful, unique photographs what can only be seen from above: the interconnectedness and extraordinary patterns of our natural and created environments.
MacLean’s aerial photography gives heart and light to the land and all that is upon it. The dignity of Iowa farms, the quilted surface of agriculture in North Dakota, and the amazing markings in the Mojave somehow merge to give a sense of a sculpted nation.
MacLean’s passionate interest in the effects of time, geological movements, shifting landscapes, redeployment, pollution, urban sprawl, and the overlapping of surfaces and activities reveal the physical splendor of America in both the beauty of the ongoing inhabiting of the land and the potential for modern planning to create spectacular environments.
MacLean’s photographs have been exhibited widely in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia and are found in private, public, university and museum collections. He has won numerous awards, including the American Academy of Rome’s Prix de Rome in Landscape Architecture and grants from foundations such as the National Endowment for the Arts and Graham Foundation.
MacLean is the author of ten books including, Las Vegas | Venice (2010), Chroniques Aeriennes: L’art d’Alex MacLean (2010), Alex MacLean: Given a Free Hand (2010), OVER: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point (2008), Visualizing Density (2007), The Playbook (2006), Designs on the Land: Exploring America from the Air (2003), Taking Measures Across the American Landscape (1996), Look at the Land; Aerial Reflections of America (1993) and Above and Beyond; Visualizing Change in Small Towns and Rural Areas (2002).
- Dana Salvo
Dana Salvo
Clark Gallery
145 Lincoln Road
Lincoln, MA 01773
Tel: 781-259-8303Email: dana@clarkgallery.com
Website: www.clarkgallery.com
This cake was a favorite choice of Edgar J. Kaufman, owner and resident of Fallingwater, the iconic home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. To me, the images above feel deeply rooted in American landscape and industry; I think Wright would have liked them.
Clove Cake
Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar
5 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground cloves
pinch salt
1 cup whole milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking soda
Confectionary sugar to sprinkle
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch tube or Bundt pan. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until smooth and fluffy. In a small bowl, beat the eggs until they are lemon-colored. Beat them into the butter-sugar mixture.
Into another large bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, cloves and salt.
In a second small bowl, combine the milk and lemon juice; let the mixture stand undisturbed for 5 minutes, or until it is thickened.
Add to the butter-sugar-egg mixture in the electric mixer bowl one-third of the flour mixture and one-half of the milk mixture, combining well.
Add another one third of the flour mixture. Add the baking soda to the remaining milk mixture. Combine that with the batter in the electric mixer bowl, and stir in the remaining flour mixture. Beat well.
Pour the batter into the pan and bake the cake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.
Let the cake cook in its pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn the cake out onto the rack to cool completely.
Lay the cake on a pretty plane and sprinkle with sifted confectionary sugar.
