Tour and reception for ‘Water and Mountains’ exhibition at Wastewater Treatment Plant

Nate Luce is thrilled to present “Water and Mountains,” an exhibition of new paintings, at the Rockland Water Pollution Control Department (40 Tilson Ave.). Water and Mountains is a satellite show to “Fruition,” his current two-person exhibition (with Allison Cekala) at The Center for Maine Contemporary Art (CMCA).

While Luce’s work in “Fruition” includes paintings, mixed media pieces and sculpture, “Water and Mountains” focuses on one particular body of work: his neo-Fauvist toilet paintings.

Join him for a staff-led tour and complimentary public reception at the water treatment facility on March 7. The water treatment facility tour will commence at 3 p.m., followed by a reception at the facility from 4 to 6 p.m. The show remains on view through May 4.

CMCA’s regular participation in First Friday Art Walk will resume in May, and due to the special occasion of Luce’s collaboration with the water treatment facility, will be open to First Friday visitors until 7 p.m. during the evening of March 7, so visitors can visit both exhibits in the same evening. 

Like much of his art, Luce’s series “Water and Mountains” is about the relationship between the sacred and the profane. According to Luce, the passageway between the themes is narrow, and the distinction itself is as frail as the plumbing on a 100-year-old Midcoast farmhouse, which many of us are so familiar with.

Luce conceived of these pieces as practical tools for spiritual growth. He asks that we meditate on his toilet paintings and go so far as to mentally project our own loved ones onto the boldly, colorfully rendered fixtures. The idea to do so was initially inspired by his examination of instruction in a Tibetan Buddhist text, urging practitioners to perform similar visualization exercises in an effort to push back against the human tendency toward idealization.

The show’s title refers to the Zen concept of “nothing special”; a traveler returns from a famous landscape and reports that he has simply seen “water and mountains.” We would be remiss, however, to interpret this description of the experience as insufficient or underwhelming. Instead, a better understanding might be that by describing a stunning view in such humble terms, the traveler is leveling the playing field, reminding us that every mundane experience (even sitting on a toilet) can be equally suffused with wonder and awe.

Luce’s exhibit at the water treatment facility, a satellite to his at CMCA, intentionally adds another dimension to his work. A wastewater treatment plant is a vital site of contemporary alchemy, and the municipal employees at the Rockland Water Pollution Control Department purify our excreta into its constituent parts. Sitting only a few hundred feet away from CMCA, and squeezed between Main Street and Rockland Harbor, the facility is ordinarily not open to the public: a beguiling private domain. To celebrate the exhibition’s opening at the water treatment facility (which will have no regular viewing hours for the general public beyond the reception), an employee will lead a special tour of the grounds, briefly opening up these incredible edifices to public appreciation.

Whether it is admiring the majesty of our natural surroundings, embracing a loved one, or sitting on the commode, “Water and Mountains” aims to help us realize that every aspect of our lives is, as Pema Chödrön says, an opportunity “to be fully awake, fully alive, fully human.”

For more information, please email luce.nate@gmail.com.

The Rockland Water Pollution Control Department is at 40 Tilson Ave., Rockland. CMCA is located at 21 Winter St., Rockland. For more information, go to cmcanow.org.