Artist puts twists on work

GREENFIELD PLANTATION — Mark Gagnon’s mind goes faster than his hands. But the Greenfield Plantation resident doesn’t have problems focusing on creating artistic mazes.

Gagnon works at a framing shop by day. But he’s also a poet/author, singer/songwriter and an artist. As an artist he creates maze wall art, however, he most often uses his designs for greeting cards, which he calls aMAZEin’ Greetings.

He made the first maze — a Christmas card — for his father in 2000. Each maze contains hidden icons or drawings — faces, aliens, places and other things that pop into Gagnon’s mind as he draws. One such drawing hangs in St. Armands Art Gallery above the Columbia Restaurant, alongside Gagnon’s acrylic pieces and an abstract of Nik Wallenda walking the tightrope.

Each piece is different, and each one is solvable. Gagnon delights in the drawings hidden within each, pointing out various faces, instruments and other relics. Each also includes Gagnon’s initials — MSG.

“It’s therapeutic for me to do them; it shows the clutter in everyone’s mind,” Gagnon says. “It’s like the ultra-focused continual doodle. There’s so many great things hidden in there.”

He starts each piece with the word, “start,” which tends to be elaborate — perhaps formed to look like the silhouette of Batman, the head of Superman or a group of alien faces.

Then Gagnon works systematically, breaking the puzzle into quadrants. Once he’s completed the maze and hidden icons within it, he blocks off paths so there’s only one way to start and finish the puzzle. Gagnon’s longest piece, which he stores at home, is a 25-foot-long maze.

“It can be very complicated,” Gagnon says. “In longer ones, I’ll leave markers so I can keep my place.

“They’re really done like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in the 1950s,” he says. “Their concept for writing was you just write and you don’t edit yourself.”

Because of his varied interests, he sometimes has trouble picking which art form to work on that day.

“I have a terrible ability to pick one; I just cycle through,” Gagnon said.