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| From January 2010 photos |
Last week, Tanya (whose back you see in the photo above) and I experienced the very powerful Art As Action exhibit at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey. Displayed in the photo above is a portion of Karen Guancione's Found Journal work. Throughout the Library Gallery are hung pages of handmade rice paper printed with selections from a diary, as well as items of clothing captured within pages of Ms. Guancione's paper. The diary is one the artist found while walking through Branchburg Park in Newark, N.J. in 1997. She tried to find the owner of the diary to return it (along with a pile of other belongings found at the park).
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| From January 2010 photos |
The artist was unable to locate the diary's owner, but was so struck by the story contained within the notebook that she was determined to share this woman's tragic story with a larger audience through a large installation. Essentially, it is the stark telling of love and loss, colored by addiction and homelessness. The journal's writer acknowledges that she has made a series of bad choices, but will wait forever for her love.
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| From January 2010 photos |
Walking through the Library Gallery, reading the pages that surrounded us -- some excerpts of the more complete pages, some single lines of text -- both Tanya and I were silenced by the words of one woman whose descent was chronicled from jail worker in love with an addict inmate to junkie and homeless prostitute.
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| From January 2010 photos |
In addition to Ms. Guancione's moving piece, the Art As Action exhibit also included works by J. Catherine Bebout, Curlee Raven Holton, Doris Nogueira-Rogers, and Erik Ruin. I emailed all the artists to request permission to post photos of their work online here, but only Ms. Guancione and Ms. Nogueira-Rogers responded.
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| From January 2010 photos |
Above is one of the beautiful pieces displayed in Ms. Nogueira-Rogers' section. It is Lace and Layer VII, one in a series of mixed media pieces that combine block printing and other techniques to achieve the layered affect. My photo does not do it justice.
I highly recommend going to visit the Art As Action exhibit at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey. You can find directions at the council's web site. Just so you can recognize the building, here's a photo of the exterior.
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| From January 2010 photos |
2 comments:
Here's a link to the printmaking festival in Philly that I heard about: http://www.philagrafika2010.org/
It seems to spread out all over the city at various locations (public library, museums, etc.) and is going on from Jan 29 to April 11th, I believe.
How cool is that! If I have time this semester, I definitely have to go see it. Thanks a bunch, Jen!
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