100 @100: 100 Works of Art by Alumni Artists to Celebrate BGSU's Centennial
October 2 through November 17, 2010
Where: Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery
Each of the four studio areas in the School of Art, Graphic Design, 2-D, 3-D, and Digital Art, will select 25 works by outstanding alumni to represent the School’s proudest accomplishments over the past century. October 1 all day: Demos/Studio visits/Discussions/Lectures TBA 8 p.m. Opening Reception CLOSED: October 9-12: Fall Break
Contact: Jacqueline Nathan
E-mail: galleries@bgsu.edu
Phone Number: 419-937-2852
Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit
August 31 through September 26, 2010
Where: Willard Wankelman Gallery
Each work of art in Reimagining the Distaff Toolkit has, at it’s visible core, a tool that was important for women’s domestic labor in the past. The old tool becomes the fulcrum for a contemporary work of art.
Betye Saar’s work- one of her iconic washboard pieces- perfectly conveys a trajectory of this exhibition: the impulse to transform an implement of domestic drudgery and degradation into a thing of beauty and a vehicle for representing and honoring the past, in this case, African American history. Flo Oy Wong has made a piece constructed in part out of kitchen implements and images from her immigrant family’s 1940’s Chinese restaurant in Oakland, CA. Lisa Alvarado in Chicago has made a small installation illuminating the cultural like of Mexican immigrant domestics in the World War II era. Alvarado expects the audience to rifle through the maid’s tote bag, demonstrating the thin claim such a person had to privacy as she toiled for wages in someone else’s household.
Oregon artist Marie Watt has contributed one of her acclaimed, “Blanket Columns” to the exhibition, along with two smaller wall pieces. Watt describes her project this way: “My work is about social and cultural histories embedded in commonplace objects. I consciously draw from indigenous design principles, oral traditions and personal experience to shape the inner logic of the work I make. Watt adds, I like how Indigenous Creation Stories connect us to soil and sky. Like the blankets, this vertical orientation (up and down) is easy to take for granted. But it is also the space where smoke rises, winged creatures fly, prayers are offered and water collects and releases.”
Distaff artists have placed these objects and others at the center of their work: a washboard, a dressmaker’s figure, graters, doilies, and advice book, cooking pans, a basket, a garden hoe, dress patterns, a rolling pin, buckets, darning eggs, a work glove, a needle threader, rug-beaters, ironing boards, mason jars, a telephone.
Part of the point of Distaff is to explore the idea of seeing-as-context. Many of these old tools facilitated very and repetitive labor and evoke the various histories (European American African American, Asian American, Native American, Mexican American) of women’s unpaid, often diminished and disrespected status within the household and society. But in the 21st century, at a moment when “old tools” have become aestheticized and expensive, we can look again, and see costly beauty.
The artists have put utility in conversation with the past. Reimagining the distaff toolkit for the purposes of this exhibition can include (overlapping) encounters in any of the following directions-or others: history / memory / gender / labor / material culture / household objects / family relations / power and powerlessness / drudgery / craft and beauty.
The distaff is a tool attached to a spinning wheel, designed to hold unspun fibers. Over time, “distaff” came to refer to matters and objects in the domestic or women’s sphere, and then, to women, generally.
Rickie Solinger, Curator
Friday, September 24, 7 pm: Lecture, Debra Priestly: Current Work 204 FAC
Contact: Jacqueline Nathan
E-mail: galleries@bgsu.edu
Phone Number: 4199372852
The Aaron Macy Legacy Exhibition: Scholarship Recipients 2002-2010
August 24 through September 17, 2010
Where: Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery
Talented BGSU graduate student Aaron Macy died of a sudden illness as he was preparing to begin his professional artistic career. His family established an annual ceramics scholarship in his name. This exhibition highlights the recipients since 2002, both from BGSU and Northern Arizona University, where Macy received his undergraduate degree.
Friday, September 17: Artist panel & Reception, 7 pm, 204 FAC
Contact: Jacqueline Nathan
E-mail: galleries@bgsu.edu
Phone Number: 419-937-2852
NOWOH Community Art Show
July 16 through July 25, 2010
Where: Dorothy Uber Bryan Gallery
The 3rd Annual NoWOH Community Art Exhibition will feature work from artists in 11 Northwest Ohio counties. All artists 16 years of age and up are invited to show their original art in a variety of media.
This is known as the "no woe" show, since all work submitted will be shown! Professional judges will give awards in several categories, and the public will select a Popular Choice award by vote at the opening.
Contact: Jacqueline Nathan
E-mail: galleries@bgsu.edu
Phone Number: 4193728525
5th District Congressional Art Competition
May 8, 2010
Where: Willard Wankelman Galleries
Time: 9 AM to 10 AM
Reception and Awards Ceremony: Saturday, 9:30 - 10:30 AM. Open to the public.
Contact: Jacqui Nathan
E-mail: jnathan@bgsu.edu
Phone Number: 419-372-8525