Six Women Six Perspectives

Six Women: Six Perspectives Opens at Holy Family University
Running Dates:  10/6/08-10/29/08 Opening:
 Monday October 13, 2008 at 6 p.m.-  Location:
Holy Family University Gallery
Lower Level John M. Perzel Education Technology Center
9801 Frankford Avenue Philadelphia, PA 215-637-7700
Six Women:  Six Perspectives features work by six women:  
Jane Craven, Kathy Dobash, Bonnie MacAllister, Meredith McDonald, 
Sonia Sherrod, and Michelle Wilson. 

Jane Craven is a graduate of the sculpture MFA program at the University of the Arts. 
She holds a BFA and teacher certification from Moore College of Art.   Her two and three-dimensional
 work is compelling.  She most recently installed  “Sculptoure”: a site-specific installation in Long
Branch, New Jersey.   Craven will show mixed media, clay, and plaster work at Holy Family. 

Kathy Dobash is a Luzerne County artist and an art educator.  She has been an artist her whole life.
 Kathy is known as the artist-in-residence  in the historic Markle Building. Renovating a century
old ceiling in this building  has inspired Kathy to create a new series of work.  Dobash brings
 mixed media  and oil pastel work to this exhibition. 

Bonnie MacAllister is an artist, author, and educator.  She has most recently  exhibited
at the Utopian Library in Viareggio, Italy and in la Galería del MEC,  Montevideo, Uruguay
 (along with Michelle Wilson).  She is currently exhibiting  with the Women’s Caucus for Art
DC Chapter in Tacoma Park, MD. Her work for this  exhibition explores Catholicism and
identity through a feminist lens. 

Meredith McDonald holds a Master in Teaching Visual Arts from the University of the Arts
and has studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts. She is a 2008 
recipient of the Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant which funds women in the 
arts in Philadelphia.  An accomplished artist, Meredith brings intriguing new oil 
work to Holy Family University.

Sonia Sherrod  describes her craft, “As an assemblage artist, I try to re-create
 beauty or relativity out of the discarded, broken, and abandoned found objects 
juxtaposed with my own original 2-d art, old photographs, and words. 
These constructions explore the relativeness of color, shadows, and shape as 
well as compartmentalizing thematic associations of still-life, portrait, 
and landscape....empty, full, crowded and sparse, revealing and withholding 
within a narrative context.”  She has exhibited widely including Festival of the Masters
 in Orlando, Florida and the Manchester National Juried Fine 
 Art Exhibition in Richmond VA.  Sherrod will exhibit new assemblages in 
“Six Women:  Six Perspectives.. 

Michelle Wilson is the creator of Rocinante Press and the Migratory Books Project.  
Michelle describes her art forms, “In my work, I seek to reveal the stories of  unseen
connections and unconsidered issues that are connected to the experience  
of the human condition.  Through the use of intersecting narratives that become
 reflective metaphors for each other, I examine political, historical and  ecological links.” 
Her work is widely collected and exhibited in the  United States and abroad.
In this exhibition, Wilson will show lithograph  inclusion in handmade cotton/abaca paper.

Money it's a gas................

Here is a new one I'm finishing off this week....not a small feat in my studio that has no ac in 90 degree weather. Sweat, adhesives and many kinds, saw dust, recycled paper, tacky bling, a silver spoon, purse strings and dirty money........oh and of course gas. Sure is taking a hunk of my stash to fill up the subuey. This image is a little blurry but it is my grandfather standing beside a gas pump....it says pure pep on the pump. Not sure when it was taken. But for my sentiments about money let's turn to FDR's 1st inaugural speech:

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.