Art Exhibit at Marran

Lesley College Alumnae: Decades of Art Making
Sponsored by the Women’s Center
In Celebration of Women’s History Month
And Lesley University’s Centennial
Marran Gallery
March 3 – March 31

The Women’s Center at Lesley University is pleased to celebrate both Women’s History month and the University’s centennial with the exhibit Lesley College Alumnae: Decades of Art Making. March is Women’s History month and every year the Women’s Center has an exhibit in Marran Gallery showcasing women and art. As we planned for the 2010 show and sorted through the various ideas presented, we began to think about connecting this year’s exhibit to Lesley’s Centennial celebration. The arts have always been an integral part of the Lesley University community and we have heard anecdotally about Lesley College alumnae who included art in their lives in many ways. So we decided to invite a few of these women to exhibit their art at Lesley University so they could share their work with a wider audience.

Lesley College Alumnae: Decades of Art Making exhibits a wonderful variety of visual art forms – sculpture, quilts, prints, fabric art, photographs, and paintings. Each of our artists has chosen to spend some part of her busy life making art. And our artists have been engaged in creating this art through the decades, with some of our artists on the Lesley campus fifty years ago, in the 1950’s. Some of the works, such as the quilts by Mary Ann Boddum and Sandy Keller, represent art forms traditionally created by women but thought about in a contemporary way. Quita Schillhammer has used traditional hooking techniques to create a contemporary purse. Chun Mei Du captures her heritage in her paintings on rice paper and shows us women in timeless, familiar poses. Our earliest graduate, Ann Lange, represents nature in her metal sculptures and Amy Robinson lovingly captures the barns that are disappearing across New England. Jean Winslow’s monoprints reflect some of the pensiveness and mystery in a woman’s life and Jennifer O’Neil’s abstract watercolors encourage us all to pause and reflect on life’s more contemplative aspects. And “Athena”, which Michelle Gardella describes as her self portrait which “depicts my struggle to balance life as a mother, artist, wife, woman, human in American society” might reflect the challenges all of these artists found as they chose to include art-making in their lives.

We look forward to seeing more of their work in the decades to come and we celebrate this glimpse into the talents of a few Lesley College alumnae.

By: Beth Chiquoine