'Note to Self'

Every year, the proprietor of Burlington’s S.P.A.CE. Gallery mounts an installation reflecting on the year she’s just experienced. As with anyone’s life, hers has had ups and downs, with corollary emotional responses. Mitchell’s “Note to Self” exhibition conveys that she is in a happy place, with lessons learned. And entering the installation should gladden anyone’s heart. The floor is covered with Astroturf. A pair of raspberry-colored plastic lawn chairs and bright-blue urns — filled with real but fading roses — contribute jolts of summery color. In the gallery’s main room, Mitchell has set up a yellow chaise lounge holding a blue-and-white striped beach towel, a vintage ladies magazine and gardening gloves. Nearby is a lemonade stand, with real lemonade for guests. Another small table holds a comment book. On the walls are framed vintage magazine photos with phrases written on the glass; other frames hold cliché phrases, such as “blessing in disguise” and “fake it till you make it,” etched on glass. The installation has an early ’60s sensibility even though the artist was born after that era. “The whole exhibition is a paradox, a manicured optical illusion, fresh, beautiful,” Mitchell writes in gallery notes, “yet fake grass states, ‘I’m happier now.’ Which is in fact true, though it’s all art after all.”