Watt & Shand #4 Acceptance in Images 2011

 I'm very excited to announce that Watt & Shand #4 has been accepted into Images 2011, the juried  fine art/fine craft exhibit of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, held at the Robeson Gallery at Penn State University.  The dates are June 8 - July 17.  This years's juror is Ron Rumford.

This is one of my very favorite exhibit venues, in part because I have had the incredible good fortune of a run of acceptances there, including last year's Best in Show award and a Viewer's Choice award,  but primarily because of the high quality of the exhibited work and the excellence of the exhibit space.  The staff takes great care to properly hang and light and showcase the works in all mediums, and it shows.

 Watt & Shand #4 is a unique work in the series in that it features images from inside the preserved facade of the former department store building that was repurposed into a hotel/convention center. (If you are new here, you can track back the series in progress by clicking on Watt & Shand under "Labels" in the right sidebar, or see the entire series on my website.)  I went to the top of a nearby parking garage to get the photos I used.  Above you can see the foundation piers being poured, the giant crane that was a fixture of the skyline for many months, and the previous "skyscraper" pride of Lancaster, the Greist Building, in the background (designed by C. Emlen Urban, its height was eclipsed by the new construction).  I love how you can still see some of the interior paint colors along with a lot of architectural and construction detail here. It was such an interesting and transitory scene.

 The building to the left is the historic Montgomery House, which was incorporated into the new construction as well--if you have been to the convention center for the AQS quilt show or another venue, you've seen it in the lobby.

 I used a combination of digital prints and cyanotype images for this work, and included cyanotypes in the pieced work as well, along with handpainted fabrics, lustrous silks, and wools.  I think the work as a whole walks a fine line between chaos and control, which is sort of where the construction project was at the time.