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MEET Art 21

October 28, 2009, 7 PM
Latour Conference Room, Nazareth Hall
Marywood University
Public welcome, Admission free of charge

Susan Dowling, co-creator of Art 21, a national prime-time PBS series that features contemporary visual artists now in its fifth season, will host a talk and video presentation on Wednesday, October 28th, beginning at 7 PM, in the Latour Conference Room, on the Main Floor of Nazareth Hall at Marywood University. During the presentation, Meet Art 21, Dowling will talk about the finest and most inventive visual artists of our time and develop the idea of the artist as a model for creative thinking.

Before her association with Art 21, Susan Dowling had been a television producer in the field of visual arts for 25 years. She was originally with the WGBH New Television Workshop in Boston, which produced historically important work in the early years of video art.  Subsequently, she was the Co-Director of the Contemporary Art Television Fund.  She then served as Executive Producer of New Television that presented a wide range of experimental work by independent artists and filmmakers from around the world.  Susan Dowling now serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Art 21.  She also serves as a consultant to not-for-profit arts organizations. 

An “Empty Bowls Project” fundraiser to benefit Meals on Wheels of Northeastern Pennsylvania will be held on Sunday, May 4, 2008 from 1 to 3 p.m. The event will be held in the Multipurpose Room, Nazareth Student Center, Marywood University. Meals on Wheels of NEPA prepares and delivers food to homebound senior citizens throughout Lackawanna County, who are unable to prepare meals for themselves. For a donation of $10 participants will be served a simple meal of soup and bread in a handmade, hand painted ceramic bowl. Local artist Jordan Taylor handcrafted 1000 bowls for the event. The bowls were hand painted by local students, senior citizens and inmates from the Lackawanna County Prison. For additional information contact Meals on Wheels of NEPA at 570-346-2421.

The Empty Bowls Project is an international effort to fight hunger. To help increase social awareness of hunger, food security, and related issues, Meals on Wheels (MOW) of Northeastern PA, supported by local potter, Jordan Taylor (Stony Meadow Pottery in Union Dale), and community members including Catherine Richmond-Cullen of NEIU, Sandra Povse/Marywood University Art Galleries, and Matt Povse/Marywood University ceramics students, have teamed up to bring the Empty Bowls project to our region. Participants from area schools were supplied with Jordan’s donated bowls and instructions for decorating them, along with pigment for painting. The decorated bowls were then glazed and fired in Jordan’s wood-kiln and and will be used to serve a simple meal of soup and bread on May 4, 2008 at Marywood University. Community arts and youth advocates Judith Youshock and Donna Doherty are honorary co-chairs of the event. For a donation of $10, guests will be invited to keep their bowl as a reminder of hunger in the world. Proceeds from the event will benefit MOW, a local organization that feeds the hidden hungry in our community by providing the homebound and/or disabled person with a nutritious meal delivered by volunteers. With a large percentage of Lackawanna County's population over 65 years of age, living alone, too poor to buy food, or too frail to shop and cook for themselves, the services provided by MOW are vital to our community.

Participating Schools/Venues:

Abington Heights High School, Eileen Lang, Ceramics, grades 10 to 12
Abington Heights High School, Elke Myers, Crafts II, grades 10 to 12
Dunmore Senior Center
Honesdale High School, Colette Ballew, International Club, 15 to 18 yrs old
Honesdale High School, Ellen Silberlicht, pottery students
Kennedy Elementary School, Kristin Miluski, 3rd grade
Lackawanna County Prison, Elizabeth Faist, inmates
Marywood University, Matt Povse, Ceramics classes, undergraduate and graduate students
Mid Valley School District, Bill Buza, Environmental Science
Mountain View JR/SR High School, Diana Lombardi, Art classes
Mountain View JR/SR High School, JoAnn Voda, Gifted Students, grades 3 to 12
Rice Elementary, Mountain Top
Saint Clare/Saint Paul School
Scranton High School, Elizabeth Faist & Nancy Yamin, art classes
South Scranton Intermediate School, Dorothea Quatro, Art Club, grades 6 to 8
South Scranton Intermediate, School, Robert Boyland, gifted students, grades 2 to 7
Tunkhannock Area Middle School, Judy Szychowski, art classes grades 5 to 8
University of Scranton, Darlene Miller-Lanning, University School & Stanislas School
Valley View High School, Daryl McAndrew, art students
Valley View Middle School, Mary Hubbard, New Art Concepts/art elective class, 8th grades
West Scranton High School, Megan Duffy, Life Skills Art class & Art 2 class
Whittier Elementary School, Kristin Miluski, 4th grade

EMPTY BOWLS began as a humble event in 1990; a high school art teacher was asked by his students to help them raise money for their local hunger charity. The class decided on making bowls to serve a simple soup meal as a fundraiser dinner. Their model of making art with express intent of serving a charity has spread through schools, art centers,  potter’s guilds, churches and civic associations around the world, raising millions of dollars for hunger related charities in the process. The project maintains a website that has been the primary resource for the Scranton fundraiser. Upon request Empty Bowls provides a stamp insignia which is pressed into the wet clay of all bowls to be donated, promotional materials, and a little bit of dry clay to be used “like a sourdough starter” and mixed in with the clay used to make the bowls. The dry clay is symbolic of the clay used to make the first empty bowl and the idea is to keep the movement going by mixing a little bit of that first batch of clay in with every batch of clay made for charity

Jordan Taylor’s interest in the project began not long after the first event. Taylor had done volunteer work with Oxfam America in high school, about the same time that Empty Bowls was just getting started. Taylor attended several events as a guest and has been donating bowls on request to anyone organizing such an event. In 2006 Taylor was invited to be a guest artist at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina for their “Craft and Social Conscience” session, led by one of the Empty Bowls founders. “I returned from that session feeling not only that I should do more but also incredibly energized to do as much as I could manage.” After realizing that there had been no Empty Bowls activity in Scranton (Wilkes-Barre and Tunkhannock have both hosted Empty Bowls) Taylor was further energized. After some discussion with Linda Steier, MOW Scranton Director, they agreed that Taylor would donate 1000 bowls made in his studio and hand decorated by Scranton art students of all ages.

“The bowls can serve as a powerful community catalyst,” says Taylor. “A thousand art students in Scranton are going to spend 20-30 minutes of decorating time thinking about people that are going hungry and will be allowed to do something about it. 30,000 total minutes of positive thinking about hunger issues alone is a positive impact.  Then an entire community will get behind those students, and their efforts, at this charitable event.” The project in Scranton has pilot groups working in a senior center and with a group of prison inmates and hopes to expand this model of community based hunger education and charity in subsequent years.

 

EXPRESSIVE POTS

A Workshop with JACK TROY

The workshop is offered in conjunction with the exhibit, CERAMICS of JACK TROY, October 20-December 14, 2007. See Current Exhibitions for information on the exhibit.

November 17 & 18, 2007
Comerford Theatre, Center for Natural and Health Science

"The aim of the workshop is to encounter ideas that will help extend your present knowledge of potting so that you can make informed choices about your work, and put life into the clay you use." Jack Troy

A demonstration session will emphasize the evolution of personal forms — pots with a unique identity. Using the cup as a take-off point, Jack will demonstrate several phases of his own development as a potter, showing how the cup reflects his concern for functional and aesthetic values. Some of the points he will illustrate include surface decoration, tactile qualities, inside-outside considerations, spontaneity and control, as well as focusing attention on the cup as a whole: lip, foot, body, handle. Thrown cups will be altered by faceting, carving, paddling, and stamping. A slide talk on contemporary Japanese teabowls will follow. Jack will also demonstrate a simple means of extending the scale of work, and will apply a variety of altering techniques to thrown forms so as to keep them from becoming generic pots — the white bread of the ceramics world, as well as making one of his original designs — a squirrel-proof bird-feeder. Pitchers, jars, bowls of various scales will be thrown and altered. Slides will trace the influence of traditional pottery and the natural world as a source of inspiration in his work. Jack Troy's anecdotal style of information-sharing covers a wide range of topics including technical and aesthetic issues in ceramics, personal goals, sources of inspiration, and the dilemma of being a literate potter while knowing that most of the world's best pots were made by people who couldn't read, write, or do glaze calculation. He welcomes questions and dialogue.
A major figure and force in the contemporary ceramics field, ceramic artist Jack Troy is known for his wood-fired vessel and container forms, which are found in many private and public collections, including the Smithsonian Institution. Teacher, writer, potter, and Pennsylvanian, Troy recently retired from Juniata College, where he taught for 39 years. He has led numerous workshops for potters at colleges, universities, and art centers in the U.S. and abroad. His seminal book, Salt Glazed Ceramics, was published in 1977 and Wood-fired Stoneware and Porcelain in 1995. The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts awarded Troy two Craft Fellowships for his work in ceramics, and a Fellowship in Literature for his poetry. Of his work, he says, “Having made pottery for 45 years, I’m pleased to know that my cups, bowls, and vessels can be found among those of other potters whose work is owned and enjoyed by people who use it every day.”

CERAMICS of JACK TROY: Illustrated Lecture
Saturday, November 17, 2007 at 6 PM
Comerford Theatre, Center for Natural and Health Science

"I have picked up, moved, shaped, and lightened myself of many tons of clay, and those tons lifted, moved, and shaped me..." Excerpt from Jack Troy's collection of poems, Calling the Planet Home.

In this community talk, Jack will use slides to trace the phases of his work over the years, showing its relationship to nature as a source of inspiration. A reception at the Suraci Gallery, where an exhibit of Jack's work is featured, follows the lecture.

JOYCE J. SCOTT
Illustrated Talk by JOYCE J. SCOTT
Wednesday November 7th, 2007 at 2 PM
Comerford Theatre, Center for Natural and Health Science

In conjunction with the Color exhibit, Joyce J. Scott will present an illustrated talk on her multi-meaningful work and exuberant beaded sculptural forms and neckpieces. Joyce Scott draws from wide-ranging influences: from African and Native American experiences to comic books, television, popular American culture sources and the contemporary culture as it exists on the streets of her urban Balitimore neighborhood. A major retrospective exhibit of her work, Kickin’ It with Joyce J. Scott, is currently being toured to ten museums through 2007.
Joyce J. Scott Illustrated Talk: November 7th, 2 PM, Comerford Theatre

See Future Exhibitions for information on Color: Ten African American Artists, October 19-November 18, 2007.

Ceramic Vessels by LISA POPP

January - March, 2007

As a child in Southern California Lisa was fortunate to have grown up with art all around her, specifically, three–dimensional art objects that, to her, “were just really neat to stare at -- a lot!”

Lisa received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics from Marywood University. She is currently working towards her Master of Fine Arts degree in Ceramics. Her work is a response to Nature. Vignettes, reminiscent of her outdoor environment, are created with inscribed line against geometric backgrounds. Vessels, giving life with liquid through their rooted spouts, are symbolic of growth, vitality, and continuity within individualism.

Lisa's ceramic vessels are on display in the front lobby of the Shields Center for Visual Arts through March 23, 2007.

Artist Lecture by sculptor FRANCIS CAPE
Thursday, December 1, 2005 at 4:40 PM
Crystal Room, Nazareth Hall

Marywood University Art Department and Galleries will present a slide lecture given by sculptor FRANCIS CAPE. This special presentation will be held at 4:30 PM in the Crystal Room located on the main floor of Nazareth Hall. With an international reputation for his sculpture, Cape handcrafts faux woodwork and cabinets that are non-utilitarian. Meant to be seen rather than used, his quasi-architectural pieces echo monochromatic paintings. Early on in his career, he apprenticed to a master wood carver in York, England, and later turned to sculpture in order to “join the twentieth century.”

Critic Ken Johnson from The New York Times wrote, “An expert woodworker, Francis Cape builds mock cabinets and architectural structures that operate in the overlap between Pop and Minimalism.” He praised Cape’s “constructions, with their Shaker-style elegance and tastefully muted colors,” and noted that “if you saw this in a home design store, you wouldn’t think twice about it; in the gallery it is perplexing-- a philosophical riddle. For all its well-built concreteness, it isn’t what it appears to be.”

Francis Cape is a graduate of Goldsmiths College, University of London, where he received his MFA. He attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, and graduated from City and Guilds of London Art School with his BFA. His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including Elizabeth Harris Gallery in New York City; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH; Sculpture Center, NYC; Mary Boone Gallery, NYC; P.S.1, NYC; and Andrea Rosen Gallery, NYC. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at St. Louis Art Museum; Murray Guy, NYC and Basel, Switzerland; Steffany Martz, NYC; Galerie Andreas Grimm, Munich, Germany; College of Saint Rose Art Gallery, Albany, NY; and the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, NY, among many other galleries and venues.

This lecture is made possible from Hunger for the Arts Auctions held for the last two years at Marywood University. Hunger for the Arts is a collaboration between Meals on Wheels of NEPA, and Marywood University Art Department and Galleries. Last year over 40 artists -- local and regional, Marywood art faculty, graduate art students, and art alum -- donated their work to the auction. Proceeds from the auctions benefit Meals on Wheels and sponsor a series of lectures by visiting artists that are free and open to the community. As a resource for the region with a long tradition of service to the community, Marywood Art Department and Galleries continue to reach out to share its cultural resources and art educational programming with a broader community audience. The next Hunger for the Arts Auction will be held April 2nd at the Mahady Gallery, Marywood University.

For further information on the artist lecture by sculptor, Francis Cape, or Hunger for the Arts Auction, contact 570-348-6278.

 

PHOTOGRAPHS by SAM OLFANO

October - December 2005

"In my role as a teacher it has become apparent to me that there is a tendency for people to respond primarily to that which they perceive as the “subject” of a photograph. Photographs are traditionally thought to somehow represent the real and we often feel we are somehow experiencing, or are connected to, the actual when we view a picture of something. In the process the composition, which gives the clues to recognize what the real subject may be, is often overlooked. These photographs are, in part, an attempt to remove the subject from prominence, and to make the composition, the photograph itself, the primary subject.

They also express my fascination with the patina that develops over time, sometimes centuries, on very old buildings and roads. There is a beauty in it that can only develop over time and reveals something of the culture of the place." –– Sam Olfano

Sam Olfano has been making photographs, and working in the darkroom, since the age of six. He is currently an Assistant Professor and the Area Coordinator in the Photography program at Marywood. He has also worked as a designer, and as a potter.

Sam's gelatin silver prints are on display in the front lobby of the Shields Center for Visual Arts through December 31, 2005.

 

ROOTED AND AT THE SAME TIME FREE: Living Evolution in the Craft Arts
Special Lecture by PAULUS BERENSOHN
Thursday November 17th, 2005 at 7 PM
Comerford Theatre, Center for Natural and Health Science

Marywood University Art Galleries, in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, will present a lecture ROOTED AND AT THE SAME TIME FREE: Living Evolution in the Craft Arts given by Paulus Berensohn. For more than forty years, Paulus has offered hands-on workshops in the craft arts including clay, fiber, and book arts at the interface of deep ecology. He has given talks all over this country as well as in Canada, England, Germany, and Australia. He taught at Swarthmore College and has been associated for decades with the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina and its sister school, the Haystack School in Maine. He formerly lived on a farm in northeastern Pennsylvania, which he shared with M.C. Richards and friends. He resides in Penland, North Carolina.

A self-described “amateur visual and craft artist, a passionate deep ecologist, and a professional godfather,” Paulus is the author of the ground-breaking book, Finding One’s Way with Clay, first published by Simon and Schuster in 1972 and still in print by Bisquet Books. His book is considered a classic not only for potters but also for anyone interested in seeking inspiration for their creative process. Paulus was installed as an honorary fellow of the American Craft Council in 1998.

Described as retired, attendees will be riveted by Paulus' "rare" lecture on the importance of, and ongoing personal relationship to materials and craft arts. This special lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibit, POTTER’S APPRENTICE: Continuity and Mentorship in a Modern Tradition. Paulus' lecture will place the exhibit and its accompanying programming in a broader context.

The exhibit, special lecture, and associated programming are presented with the support of a Pennsylvania Humanities Council grant. PHC inspires individuals to enjoy and share a life of learning and allow local organizations to offer public exhibits and programs that have a positive influence on the community. To support projects that combine the arts and discussion, a partnership has been created with the PHC and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

ROOTED AND AT THE SAME TIME FREE: Living Evolution in the Craft Arts will be held at 7 PM at the Comerford Theatre, located in the Center for Natural and Health Science on the Marywood campus, a very short walk from the Mahady Gallery. Parking is available in the lower lot to the left of the Art Galleries/Shields Center for Visual Arts. Gallery hours will also be extended on November 17th, before and after the lecture. Directions to Comerford Theatre will be given/ available at the gallery.

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