Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a handful of older works on display on the second floor of the Luckenbach Mill in Bethlehem. This isn’t a formal exhibition in the traditional sense. The gallery is in between major shows that the Lehigh Art Alliance typically organizes, and this temporary installation offered a chance to put work on the walls, slow things down a bit, and let the space do some of the talking.
I’ve always loved this building. The mill has a physical presence that’s impossible to ignore. Exposed beams, uneven surfaces, natural light shifting throughout the day. It carries its history openly. That history matters to me, especially when showing work that’s rooted in material, wear, and time.
The Luckenbach Mill dates back to 1869 and sits on the foundations of an earlier grist mill built in 1751. Long before it became a gallery space, it was part of Bethlehem’s colonial industrial center, powered by Monocacy Creek and central to the Moravians’ goal of building a self-sufficient community. Grain was ground here for decades. Later, the building became an automobile parts store surrounded by a junkyard. Restoration in the early 1980s preserved much of its structure, and today it serves as a multi-purpose space housing galleries, archives, and community programming. It is also part of the Moravian Church Settlements – Bethlehem World Heritage Inscription, recognized as the 26th World Heritage Site in the United States.
Showing work in a space like this changes how I see it.
Most of the pieces I have on view were made between 2012 and 2020. Works like Wall Segments No. 17 (With a Cog), Three Tin Ceiling Tiles, Two Sets of Crossed Tie Straps, and Railroad Spike Sunburst come from a period where I was deeply focused on industrial materials, physical construction, and surfaces that felt weathered and handled. These are object-based pieces. They were never meant to feel pristine or precious.
Hanging them in the mill makes that intention feel more complete. The scratches, rust, embedded hardware, and layered surfaces don’t compete with the space. They echo it. In some ways, the building finishes the work.
Sharing the space with me is Kat Collins, whose paintings provide a very different, but complementary, presence. Kat has work on view from both her Submerged series and her Mixed Media Landscapes. Where my work tends to lean into weight, structure, and containment, hers opens outward.
She describes Submerged as a meditation on water’s power and femininity, on birth, death, and the vast unknown in between. Standing in front of those paintings, you feel that sense of immersion immediately. The surfaces move. Color drifts and collides. There’s a physicality to the paint, but it’s fluid rather than fixed.
Another piece on display is A Sense Sublime. It captures a more expansive landscape. Deep blues and turquoises give way to bursts of yellow, pink, and purple. Expressive marks suggest waves, grasses, and shifting skies without ever settling into a literal place. Her work brings light and motion into the room in a way that balances the heavier, more grounded nature of mine.
What I like most about this pairing is that neither body of work tries to dominate the space. They coexist. The mill becomes a kind of mediator between them. History, material, and atmosphere sit quietly underneath everything.
Temporary installations like this don’t come with the pressure of a formal opening or a fixed narrative. They’re closer to a conversation. Between artists. Between past and present. Between objects and the spaces that hold them.
If you find yourself at the Luckenbach Mill while this work is up, I’d encourage you to spend some time on the second floor. Let the building slow you down. Let the work meet you where you are. Sometimes the in-between moments are where things feel most honest.