New exhibition at the Great Hall

Entitled: Earth As Muse: Beauty, Degradation, Hope, Regeneration, Awakening. The exhibition opens on Friday, September 6 with a reception for the public from 5:30–7:30 p.m.
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August 23, 2013 Earth as Muse, New Exhibition at the Great Hall Opens Friday, September 6 Filed under: SRDC — admin @ 1:04 pm The Great Hall, Vermont’s newest showcase for the arts in Springfield, VT, announces its third exhibition since it opened to rave reviews and fanfare on July 20, 2012. This new exhibition is entitled: Earth As Muse: Beauty, Degradation, Hope, Regeneration, Awakening. The exhibition opens on Friday, September 6 with a reception for the public from 5:30–7:30 p.m. at One Hundred River Street in Springfield, Vermont. Wine and light refreshments will be served. The exhibit goes through April 4, 2014. The Great Hall is underwritten by Springfield Regional Development Corporation and One Hundred River Street LLC. Nina Jamison, project coordinator of the Great Hall, says that the artists ask us to celebrate the beauty of the earth yet at the same time reflect on the tensions that exist between mankind and the natural environment. This is an exhibition that is celebratory yet suggestive of a warning to the preciousness of the earth and caring for our source of life. Fran Bull, from Brandon, Vermont, award-winning sculptor, painter and printmaker, offers “The Magdalene Cycle” (acrylic on canvas, 90”x65”(exhibiting 5 of the 13 panels) which is a plea for awakening. She says that the Thirteen Moons of The Magdalene Cycle is a meditation on the mysterious and controversial Mary Magdalene of Biblical lore. “I do not imagine her as a personage or a figure. She is one with the elements; she epitomizes the spirit of renewal. She comes with a mission: to awaken us to our crisis. Will we work to heal the plight of our beautiful earth before it is too late? Jenny Swanson, Cornish Flat, New Hampshire, is currently the Director of the Davidson Ceramics Studio at Dartmouth College. She will be exhibiting stoneware – “Upward Mobility” which poses the question, are we “climbing a ladder”? Is that ladder an evolutionary ladder, a corporate ladder or a ladder of success? Will genetic engineering of plants or mapping the human genome affect how we “climb the ladder”? She asks are we distancing ourselves from the Earth? Her other piece is called “Line Plates” (porcelaneous stoneware, glaze, five wall plates at 19”each). It consists of five wall plates that are connected together visually, as if a river was flowing through them. All of the plates have exactly the same glaze but each one looks different, reflecting the many possibilities of the ceramic process. Harry A. Rich, Sandgate, Vermont, nonrepresentational and abstract painter, brings us the Mountain Monument Series (acrylic on canvas: Monument to Mountain Song (48”x56”); Monument to Unknown Mountain Poets (48”x48”); Monument to Mountain Moonlight (48”x48”). He says that our mountains, the Taconics—Greens and Whites—not so long ago were the height of the ancient Central Asian Himalayan range. Ice ages above and substrata activity below reduced and re-crafted our mountains to our present day size. Nevertheless, their original soaring spiritual essence is alive today. His paintings express the original full radiance, the natural mountain sounds, the writings of unknown mountain scribes and the purity of the moonlight. Rich’s other work is Ottoman Wall (acrylic on canvas, 48”x48”). He says the wall image began as part of the monument series, but lost its way in the studio. The window invites viewers to look back at the Ottoman Empire’s legacy and outward to the future of this tribal, sectarian, ethnic, secular, religious, and politically writhing part of our earth. Pat Musick, Manchester, Vermont, the 2013 recipient of the Governor’s Gallery award, is exhibiting Epilogue. Pat explains the Epilogue series: “It was born from two natural disasters that hit our forest homeland in the 1980s—a forest fire and a flooding river. As I walked the land following these occurrences, I was assaulted by feelings of despair. Ruin was everywhere. But a year later the forest floor gave birth to new life. It was young, green, resilient, shining . . . more beautiful than before. I was overcome with feelings of hope, regeneration, new opportunity and this became embedded in my artistic vision. All of my work from that time forth carries this message. I’ve learned that from adversity comes the chance for new beginnings.” Epilogue series is made up of: Ra (wood, shaped canvas, acrylic, 9’ diameter x 15” off wall); Epilogue 12 (hydrocal, acrylic, canvas, 28” x 38” x 9”); Epilogue 18 (steel, hydrocal, acrylic, canvas, 64”x63” x 10”) and Epilogue 23 (steel, stone, acrylic, canvas, 52” x 50” x 12”). Richard Weis, Castleton, Vermont, has been exhibiting his work across the U.S. and abroad for over 40 years. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Art at Green Mountain College and continues to maintain a studio in Poultney, Vermont. He has selected three works for the Great Hall Earth As Muse exhibition. The Gathering (acrylic on canvas, five panels, 78’x156”) features a series of human figures that have been woven into an environmental context, a human family. He says the idea is to eliminate the separation between individual figures and merge them with the environment, focusing on them as a group so they become a stronger presence. DMZ (acrylic on canvas w barrier gate, 48”x60”x48”) was painted in response to the border between North and South Korea in 2003. The piece illustrates how artificial borders tend to divide us into us and them. For years his work has been about finding painterly solutions to bridge these divisions. The Land Stripped Bare (acrylic on canvas four panels 90”x76”) evolved from Weis’ personal observations of human interactions with the landscape. He has found visual beauty in environmental degradation such as one might find in the open pit iron mines of Minnesota or the coalmines of West Virginia. He says, “these places often reflect human interaction with the earth in very graphic terms.” Earth As Muse runs from September 6 to April 4, 2014. The Great Hall is open M-F from 9-5 p.m. at One Hundred River Street, Springfield, Vermont. www.facebook.com/GreatHallSpringfield