A Public Forum - The Homeless and Indigent: Causes, Effects and Solutions

The Homeless and Indigent: Causes, Effects and Solutions will be the subject of a Panel Discussion and Public Forum being held from 5:00 to 8:00 PM on Thursday, April 5, 2012. The panel represents sectors of government, service organizations, veterans and community members and invites direct public comment and dialogue.

The program will start with tours of the exhibit - "Perspectives on Homelessness and the Indigent" - led by curator Benn Nadelman. The Panel discussion will be opened at 6:00 PM with a reading by Tompkins County Poet Laureate Gail Holst-Warhaft.

The panel will be moderated by Anne Rhodes and will include:

Svante Myrick - City of Ithaca Mayor
John Ward - Red Cross, Director of Homeless Services
Joe Lotito - Resident of The Jungle
Jennifer (Jenny) Pacanowski - Veterans’ Sanctuary Coordinator
Gail Holst-Warhaft - Tompkins County Poet Laureate

Jackie Sayegh-Birch, who is from Liberia, will read from her work at the end of the panel.Her poems are featured in the anthology “Far from Home".

HOMELESS BY CHOICE, HER DAUGHTER LEAVES HER

By Katharyn Howd Machan

stark awake at 4 a.m.:

she sees the ice on her windowpanes

make silver of the night’s fake light

and hears her husband sleeping deep

in dreams of their dying daughter.

How to count a thousand sheep?

How to hum long breathless tunes

muffled in a flannel pillow

on a bed a century old?

Instead she sits up on the edge

and fumbles for her dark brown scuffs

and creaks her way out through the door

to new December silence. A poem

hangs taut and stiff out there

but she does not try to touch it.

Time now only for hot tea

in a cup of china roses.

Motherhood is an open hand

with thin fingers flat and useless.

Perspectives on Homelessness and the Indigent - An Exhibit of Visual Art and Poetry



"COWBOY 2" / Living on the Edge
Luther E. Vann

 Tompkins County Public Library presents Perspectives on Homlessness and the Indigent, a Visual Art and Poetry Exhibit curated by Benn Tedrus Feshbach Nadelman on display March 10 through May 24, 2012.

An opening reception, panel presentation and public forum, The Homeless and Indigent; Causes, Effects and Solutions will take place on Thursday, April 5 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the BorgWarner Community room.

 

"How did you get here?"
Daphne Sola

 This timely, important exhibit addresses an important subject through the eyes of 41 visual artists and poets including creative professionals, those administering to the indigent, students and those who are members of the indigent community.

The works featured represent a vast range of sociopolitical, demographic and aesthetic perspectives and include art work in all media as well as poetry.

"Mario"
Amelia Burns

When inviting people to participate in this exhibit, curator Benn Nadelman’s primary criteria was that artwork and poems should address the subject/theme and be appropriate for viewing by the general public. There has been no content editing either by the curator nor the Library.

Some exhibits in the show are for sale.  The Library takes no commission but asks patrons to deal directly with the artists, some of whom will be donating the proceeds of their sales to charitable organizations serving the indigent.

This exhibit is made possible in part by grant support from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.

Three small but distinctive exhibits, open in the Avenue of the Friends and Youth Services

A book and photographic exhibit of the Life and Work of Nobel Prize winning poet Czeslaw Milosz presented by Ithaca City of Asylum opened on March 2 and will be on display in the Avenue of the Friends through April 15 2012.

The exhibit features photographs recording Milosz’ 1981 return visit to Poland, after 30 years of exile to the United States and books printed by underground publishers. Pieces included in the exhibit are on loan from Pawel Bakowski, former owner of the Literary Salon, an underground publishing house based in Warsaw and current visiting scholar at Cornell University.

Milosz’ work was banned in Poland until 1980 when he was awarded the Noble Prize.  At that time, Bakowski and his friends in the underground publishing business, known as NOWa, began printing and distributing his work.  NOWa members faced political persecution for their actions, but kept Milosz' work available throughout the country.

On April 1 at 2:00 PM in the BorgWarner Community Room, the poetry of Milosz will be celebrated with a reading by members of the local Polish and poetry communities. Bakowski will also give a short account of the story behind this collection of photos and books. 

An exhibit Celebrating 40 years of Charlotte’s Web will be on display March 10 through April 15, 2012.  Presented by the Family Reading Partnership, this exhibit features E.B. White’s personal papers and photos on-loan from Cornell University’s Kroch Library Rare Book and Manuscript Collection.The papers include a facisimile of the first 8 pages from the author’s original mauscript together with letters from school children.  Artwork and writing from area elementary students will also be on display.

Roma Pals – Paintings by Roma children

To celebrate International Roma Day, April 8, and as part of their project Getting to Know the New Europe, the Cornell Institute for European Studies (CIES) is hosting a Roma Awareness month.   During March and April CIES is sponsoring an exhibit of paintings entitled Roma Pals which will be displayed in the Youth Services Department through the end of  April 2012.

This collection of vividly colored paintings, Roma Pals, was created twenty years ago by Roma children under the tutelage of Slovakian art teacher Jan Sajko.  Jan Sajko became widely known because of his ability to awaken the artistic talent of his primary school students in a very poor Romany settlement, Jarovnice, in eastern Slovakia. Having seen traditional teaching methods fail the Roma students, Sajko encouraged them to explore their own culture and history in their paintings and to create on their own terms. He also strove to teach students that through hard work they could change their lives; they were not condemned to the life of poverty and idleness that has been the fate of so many Roma in Europe. The works by Sajko’s students have been shown around the world, and have won many awards.  We are pleased to present them here at TCPL.

A Year of Art at TCPL - 2012

The Art and Science of Quilting an exhibit of quilts curated by Marcy Rosenkrantz and featuring the work of twenty local fiber artists will be on display throughout the library during January and February.

The quilts demonstrate the intersection between art and science with artists interpreting different themes including geology, astronomy, botany, archeology and astronomy.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, January 19 from 5 to 7 PM with a talk on Fabric Dyes and Dyeing by Tracy McLellan at 6 PM.

A Small Quilt Silent Auction to support the Library will be held in conjunction with the exhibit leading to a live auction at 6 PM on Tuesday, February 28. Bids may be entered at any time during the exhibit.

 

Perspectives on Homelessness and the Indigent: Visual Art and Poetry curated by Benn Tedrus Feshback Nadelman will be on display March 9 through May 24.  An opening reception will be held on Thursday, April 5 from 5 to 8 PM and include a tour of the exhibit, poetry readings and a panel discussion.  The exhibit will also be featured at Gallery Night on April 6.

The exhibit is intended to address the timely, important subject of homelessness through the eyes of visual artists and poets.  The participants will include a broad range of creative professionals, those administering to the indigent, the general “non-professional” public and those who are part of the indigent community.

Benn Tedrus Feshbach Nadelman has taught studio arts, art marketing and arts-in-education courses since 1988 in venues including Ithaca’s Community School of Music and Art, the Southern Tier Institute for Arts in Education and Santa Fe, New Mexico’s public school system. His visual art is represented in public and private collections throughout the Americas, Europe and Japan.

Visual Culture at Ithaca High School an exhibit of art in all media created by High School students during the 2011-2012 academic year curated by Carol Spence and other art faculty will be on display during June. The exhibit will be on display June 11 through July 6.

Drawing on Democracy curated by Terry Plater will be on display July, August and September with an opening reception at Gallery Night on Friday, August 3.

An elaboration of the curator’s ongoing preoccupation with questions of aesthetics and equity, and fortuitously timed to coincide with the run up to the nation’s 2012 presidential election, this exhibit ask one simple question of the audience:  What does democracy look like?  Guest artists – including some the curator has known as friends or teachers for many years – are asked to respond to that question in drawings or other media.  The result promises to be an informative and thought provoking visual answer to this important question, and the beginning of an extended conversation.

IthaCasts:  Greece and Rome in Cornell’s Plaster Cast Collection an exhibit curated by Verity Platt and Annetta Alexandridis will be on display throughout out the library including three-dimensional sculpture in the exhibit cases and the Ezra Cornell Reading Room during October, November and December.  An opening reception will be held during Gallery Night on Friday, October 5.

Cornell University owns a plaster cast collection of statues, reliefs and inscriptions from the ancient Near East, ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome, the European Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the 19^th century.  Originally envisioned by the university’s co-founder Andrew Dickson White, the collection was assembled in the early 1890’s and paid for by trustee Henry Sage.  It comprised about 500 pieces.  At the time considered as an excellent resource for teaching and research, casts subsequently fell out o favor.  Similar to their counterparts in Europe, they were discarded if not actively destroyed.  A recent project at Cornell attempts to rescue, study and re-evaluate these precious objects.

The exhibition aims to present some of the casts and the rescue project to a broader public.  The curators’ goal is to display and rehabilitate an important part of Cornell history and that means also history of Ithaca.  In addition, the exhibition will offer a representative selection of fundamental aspects of Greco-Roman antiquity via the medium of plaster casts such as Greek and Roman celebrities (portraits of politicians, philosophers, emperors) or religion and myth (gods and heroes on gemstones).  In relation to the Olympic Games 2012, one section will be devoted to the ancient site of Olympia and ancient sports.

All opening receptions will take place in the BorgWarner Community Room. Entry to Gallery Opening Night is through the BorgWarner door which is adjacent to Gimme! Coffee and behind the bus shelter on Green Street

These exhibits are made possible in part by grant support from the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.

Elfriede Abbe - Illustrator, Printer, Sculptor

An Exhibit of Prints, Private Press Books, Botanical Illustrations, Wood Engravings, Carvings and Photographs

Curated by Nancy E. Green, 
The Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University 

A reception and curator's talk, with workshop on wood block printing by Jenny Pope of the Ink Shop, and exhibit tour by James Tyler, PhD, will be held on December 1, 2011, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM in the Thaler/Howell Program Room. The exhibit will be on display until December 31, 2011.

Born in 1919 in Washington, DC, Elfriede Abbe graduated from Cornell in 1940 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and worked as an illustrator for Cornell from 1942 until her retirement in 1974. Since then, she has continued her artistic output from her studio in Manchester Center, Vermont, printing her own private press books, botanical illustrations, and wood engravings, and creating sculptures.  Even today Abbe sets all her type by hand, one letter at a time, and prints on a Chandler & Price platen press which is entirely hand-operated.

Abbe’s remarkable career began with the exhibition of her sculpture The Hunter at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Other awards include the Tiffany Foundation Fellowship (1948), gold medals from Pen and Brush, New York (1964), the National Arts Club (1970), the Academy of Artists Association in Springfield, Massachusetts (1976), and the E. Liskin Cash Award at  the Salmagundi Club (1979), among others.

Even while pursuing her career at Cornell, Abbe continued to maintain an active exhibition schedule with works shown at a variety of venues, including the Hunt Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University (1968, 1972, 1977); the London Chappel Exhibition (1963); the Middle East tour of the Kerlan Collection, sponsored by the State Department (1952); the National Academy of Design (1978); the National Society of Mural Painters, Nashua Art Center, New Hampshire (1981); and at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York (1990). Her sculpture has been placed at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Germany; the Hunt Library in Pittsburgh; at McGill University; and at the Woodrow Wilson School in Binghamton. Her wood engravings and books are in many collections both here and abroad, including the Beineke Library at Yale University, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Grolier Club in New York, the Houghton Library at Harvard, the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum, the New York Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the Kroch Library at Cornell, and Tompkins County Public Library.

The works in this exhibition are from the collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum at Cornell, which were given by James Tyler PhD 1969 and the Tyler Family in memory of George Tyler M.D. 1939-2005; from the private collection of James Tyler; from The Bookery, Antiquarian and Used Book Store, Ithaca; and from Auraca Herbarists.

Abbe’s preferred choice of medium has always been wood—both as a basis for her sculpture and as a surface for her engravings, the blocks themselves transforming into works of art. Equally important for her print and book projects is the choice of papers. These are carefully selected to create a harmonious marriage between the image and the surface on which it’s printed, each complimenting the other.

The subjects of Abbe’s work range from the botanical to the Biblical, all carefully thought out and rendered with simple precision. This seeming simplicity is deceptive though; after a longer acquaintance with her work, details are revealed, and it is easy to appreciate the delicate and deft hand that creates these artistic jewel.

Seriously, Series

Curated by Rebecca Godin

On display at the Library October through December 2011

The opening reception will take place on Friday, October 7, 5:00 to 8:00 PM, in conjunction with Gallery Opening night.  Please enter the Library through the BorgWarner Community Room Door, behind the bus shelter on Green Street.

Almost all artists explore a series sometime during their careers. From Monet to O’Keefe, Kahlo to Ringgold, ancient times to the present, the attractions of creating a series are powerful and varied.

An artist can view an image, a motif, or concept from multiple perspectives. Repetition and variation of a theme can be seductive and rewarding.

Sometimes an artist can create vastly different images within a series which still expand one idea, one portrait, place, activity, color or quest.

Seriously, Series offers abstraction, design, photography, sculpture, portraiture, place, time, obsessions and joys which we hope you enjoy.


Visit this exhibit in the Library and on Flickr at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7631711@N08/sets/72157627665059535/

The artists and series titles are:

Mary Ann Bowman
Frogs

maryannb@lightlink.com

maryannbowman.com

Rebecca Godin
Corners

rebeccagodin@mac.com
rebeccagodin.com

Kurt Lichtmann
Dance: Time and Magnetism

ithacadance@verizon.net

ithacadance.com

Daniel McPheeters
Mandalas

digitalcollageartist@sculptedimage.com

sculptedimage.com/

John Lyon Paul
Pilgrimage
johnlyonpaul@gmail.com
johnlyonpaul.com  

Terry Plater
Encounters

tdp3@cornell.edu
terryplater.com

Romance, Exploits & Peril: When Movies Were Made in Ithaca



Exhibition Opening Sept, 29, 2011

Depicting the history of the Wharton brothers’ silent film studio in Ithaca this installation is presented by IMPP, the Ithaca Motion Picture Project and will be on display at TCPL through November 8, 2011. 

Created by award-winning architect Todd Zwigard in collaboration with Art & Anthropology principals Jason Otero and Joe Lamarre, the timeline allows viewers to walk through the exhibit as if on a film set. The exhibit puts the Wharton movie studio and the movies made in our community in context of the history of the motion picture industry.  The Wharton brothers established their studio in present day Stewart Park and transformed Ithaca, with its dramatic natural landscapes built around a bustling town with a thriving academic community, into a center for early movie-making.