The Cazenovia College Art Gallery in Reisman Hall located at 6 Sullivan Street in Cazenovia is hosting an exhibition of work by faculty members from the division of Art and Design and other divisions. An opening reception on Thursday, February 2 from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. debuts the showcase, which is free and open to the public.
The Art Gallery in Reisman Hall is free and open to the public Monday through Thursday from 1 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.; Friday from 1 to 4 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday from 2 to 6 p.m.
Full-time and part-time faculty members will display their two and three-dimensional creative works.
Steve Brandt
M. Photog., F-PPC, CPP
Brandt started his photography business as a 19-year-old college student, doing overnight black & white film processing and printing for industrial photographers in San Francisco. Two years later he started a film/media production company and produced 16mm ski films, TV commercials, training films, and marketing brochures. Within three years Brandt then opened a full-service, carriage trade, photography studio that specialized in environmental designer portraiture, customized wedding coverage and commercial photography. After four years he closed the production company and concentrated all his energy on photography. His studio created portrait and wedding memories for more than 3,200 families over a span of 25 years. Brandt earned a Master of Photography Degree from the Professional Photographers of America. He also is a Certified Professional Photographer and a Fellow of the Professional Photographers of California. His work has been selected numerous times for exhibition at national and regional professional photography conventions. Some of his awards include: Portrait of the Year in Northern California, Wedding Album of the Year in the Western United States & Canada, and 4th place International Brides’ Choice Award.
While Brandt still accepts some photography assignments, over the past eight years he has embraced the opportunity to teach photography at the college level; the last three at Cazenovia College.
Sharon Bottle Souva
I am an artist who works with fabric. The pure nature of fabric with all its complexities and possibilities offers a connection to the creative process. I am continually learning the language of fabric to bring it to its full potential.
Growing up on a farm in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains brought about an intimate relationship with the natural world. As a child, I was drawn into the beauty of trees, flowers and rolling farm hills. Inspirations come from the views in gardens, woods, streams and mountains. I am able to incorporate a sense of realism edged with minimalism to translate the simplicity of nature into my designs.
Process has taken a forefront in creative exploration. There is an overall idea that emerges from inspirations that appear moment by moment while navigating the work. Each step informs the next, bringing new possibilities. There is a measure of immediacy as I work intuitively and spontaneously with the cloth. Exploration of the materials and techniques brings fluency of the language of fabric allowing for more calculated choices, along with a freedom to continue the creative process. It is here with fabric that I have found my voice as an artist.
My work can be seen at: CazMade in Cazenovia, NY; Painted Fish Gallery, Dunedin, FL; Salt City Artisans, Syracuse, NY; and private and public collections around the country.
Currently, I am an associate professor at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY and Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, NY. In addition, I hold workshop and classes specializing in fabric art, printmaking and collage throughout the region. I received a MA in Studio Art and a BFA / studio art - printmaking concentration from the State University of NY at Oswego.
Jo Buffalo
All artists decide what their job is within the greater Art world. Some choose to be provocateurs; some choose work with the formal elements within a medium. I have chosen to be a storyteller. My interest in stories and science has fueled my artwork for the past 56 years. The pieces explore a narrative related to an event, or myth, or phenomena. Sometimes the work is about the forms of nature. The structure of the work is somewhere between two dimensions and three dimensions. I love in-between the two. The form and the surface make the story. By approaching the subject in an unconventional way, my hope is to interest the viewers into undertaking their own exploration. The work is consistent with life: imperfect, unexpected, sometimes funny, sometimes puzzling. I always hope for beautiful.
Originally from Western New York, Sarah Cross is an Associate Professor and Program Director of Photography at Cazenovia College. She previously taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Photography & New Media at Beloit College, Wisconsin from 2008 to 2013. She received a BFA from the University of Buffalo and an MFA from Illinois State University. Her fine art photography has been shown nationally in both group and show solos at galleries including the Catherine Edelman Gallery, Wakeley Galleries, Silver Eye Center for Photography, the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, the Center for Fine Art Photography and the Black Box Gallery.
Digby’s Hardware Comic Strip
Digby’s Hardware appears in The Hardware Connection, a trade magazine for hardware retailers. The November 2022 strip was created as part of a national tribute to the 100th anniversary of Charles Schulz’s birth; over 100 cartoonists honored Schulz in some way in their own strips on November 26. All the tributes can be viewed online at the Schulz Museum’s tribute page. The strip is drawn in pencil, then inked on bristol, with color added digitally before publication.
Megan Lawson Clark is an Associate Professor in the Fashion Studies Programs, which includes both Fashion Design and Fashion Merchandising. She is the program director for Fashion Merchandising and the acting program director for Fashion Design. She is the annual Fashion Show Director; this is a juried student show which involves many of the fashion studies students.
Courses that Megan teaches include business and design internships, fashion promotion, fashion show production and management, advanced design and pattern making, senior collection, & computer aided design.
She holds a Master of Business Administration in management from the State University of New York at Oswego. She completed her Master of Arts at Syracuse University in Fashion and Textile Design. In her final thesis work she researched the history of the wedding trousseau and completed six wedding ensembles with accessories. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Merchandising and Design from Dominican University in Illinois. Prior to her career in academia, Megan worked in many facets of retail management including visual merchandising management, showroom sales, and store management. She began a small business in 2003, specializing in the design and creation of hand painted silk scarves and floor cloths. She has always been intrigued by fabrics and current fashions. Currently, she is interested in computer aided textile design as a medium for creating pieces.
As a designer she appreciates the process of couture sewing techniques and a well-fitted garment. When working on special pieces she finds utilizing well made, quality fabrics and handmade trims the best materials to use. She takes the time to utilize hand sewing techniques over machine finishes where possible, to achieve the best appearance in the final product. Garments that are beautiful inside and out make the wearer more pleased and the time it takes to create, worth the effort.
BIO
Jen Pepper is a Canadian born visual artist who works in a variety of two- and three-dimensional media. She has been the recipient of national awards including NYFA, NYSCA, NEA, among others and has been an artist in resident in national and international programs. Her work is included in the Pierogi Gallery Flatfiles in Brooklyn, NY and belongs in many public and private collections. She holds a BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art & Design, and a MFA from The University of Connecticut at Storrs. Pepper currently is the Program Director of the Studio Art program and is the Gallery Director at Cazenovia College. Her work may be seen at www.jenpepper.com.
STATEMENT
Initiated by a history grounded in fibers, my drawn, painted and constructed three-dimensional works explore intersections between the body, the world, and the making of language. My works depict temporal processes that cannot be fixed and are virtually impossible to harness; weather patterns, water currents, land shifts, steam, lines that author textual language, each in suspended activity. Objects and ideas extend endlessly outward. Permanency remains on the move, static colors shift and remain buoyant on their painted fields. Nothing is ever permanent in these parts. Disparate ideas come together in attempts to witness potentiality; stasis and buoyancy; mimesis, semiotics and cerebral abstraction. Tactile surfaces and forms and ideas are caught between states of having been, to just this side of becoming. The flatness of a picture plane gives way to spatial illusion once a mark is drawn upon it. The distance between the surface tension of water and a marble is simply time. My work’s interconnectedness speaks to evolutionary processes as much as to revolutionary ones.
David Rufo is an Assistant Professor of Education in the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Cazenovia College. Previously, Dr. Rufo was a Clinical Assistant Professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School of Education at Lincoln Center in New York City. Additionally, Dr. Rufo has two decades of experience as a general elementary classroom teacher and an instructor in the Department of Art Education at Syracuse University. Dr. Rufo’s research interests include: Teacher Education, Curriculum Studies, Interdisciplinary Learning, STEAM Education, Qualitative Research, Classroom Action Research, Narrative Inquiry, Elementary Education, Critical Pedagogy, Child-Centered Education, Hands-On Mathematical Investigations, Democratic Classrooms, Visual Culture, The Self-Initiated Creativity of Children, Contemporary Art, Art History, and Art Education. David has published articles in a variety of national and international peer-reviewed journals. In addition to being an educator, David is also a visual artist. His writings may be found at cazenovia.academia.edu/DavidRufo and his artwork at davidjohnrufo.com.
Allyn Stewart grew up as part of an extended army family and spent her childhood traveling around the world. She taught at several colleges and universities in Upstate New York before teaching in the in the Visual Communications Program at Cazenovia College, Cazenovia, NY. She has recently retired and moved to Sebring Florida.
Prior to teaching full time, Allyn co-produced, directed, and edited video documentaries: her video A Desperate Woman was seen on national television through the program Through Her Eyes which was produced by the Learning Channel. Produced by Mon Valley Media, she was the project director and a co-producer for Women of Steel, a documentary about women steel workers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Woman of Steel won numerous awards and is distributed by Women Make Movies.
Allyn’s recent creative work is a combination of a digital process composed on the computer combined with paper collage. Her digital works on paper, small artist books, and postcards have been exhibited in numerous national and international venues, her most recent one-woman exhibition (Garden Transformations) was shown at the Cazenovia Public Library, Cazenovia, New York.
Artist Statement: Happy Place
In the face of persistent breaking news, after years of making art with the intent to raise questions and focus attention on threatening problems such as climate change, I am turning to art to find respite and to indulge in beauty and play.
Anita Welych received her BFA in painting at Cornell University. After pursuing graduate coursework at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá on a Fulbright Grant, Welych completed an MFA at Syracuse University and began teaching at Cazenovia College. She later returned to Colombia on a teaching Fulbright, teaching a course at the Universidad de los Andes in addition to one at the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá. She additionally traveled to several other universities around the country to conduct seminars and serve on panels. Welych currently serves on the Syracuse Public Art Commission. She has exhibited internationally, working in book arts, printmaking, painting and installation. She has completed a number of residencies, both nationally and abroad. Her lifelong interest in social and environmental issues drives the content of her art. Welych teaches the professional sequence of Studio Art courses, including professional practices; two-dimensional art, including printmaking and painting, and various art history courses, including one with a travel component in Barcelona.