Branching Out, is an exhibition of recent pastels, watercolors, & collages by Marsha Connell with poems by Maureen Hurley. Connell and Hurley have collaborated in their working processes both as artists and teachers. For example, Hurley wrote a series of poems to Connell’s collage prints, Dream Vessels. Some of them appear in the catalogue/book, Dream Vessels. Working as artists in residence since 1979, through Artists in the Schools of Sonoma County (ASC) and California Poets in the Schools (CPITS), they have led students in exploring the links between the visual arts and poetry. This Body is Ask: Art and Poetry by Sonoma County Students, co-edited by Connell and Hurley is a documentation of these experiences.
Connell, who is noted for her bold watercolors and pastels of Sonoma County and California, works on location, or from drawings done on location. Connell states her aesthetic concerns, “I begin with direct personal experience and observation to create lyrical abstractions with attention to color, shape, rhythm, and mood. In my recent pastels of barns and cabins, I’ve shifted focus from the organic aspects of landscape to the human-made elements that interrupt and define the landscape’s space and scale.”
Connell has shown in over 25 solo exhibitions, and nearly 100 group exhibitions on both coasts; her most recent solo exhibits were at the Badè Museum, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley and the Buena Vista Winery Artist in Residence Project. She holds a Master of Arts Degree in Sculpture from San Francisco State University, and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Fine Arts from Skidmore College. Connell is an instructor of art at Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University and has been artist in residence for several Northern California schools. She also conducts workshops privately and for organizations including the Mendocino Art Center, Gualala Art Center and Elder Hostel.
Both Connell and Hurley are recipients of seven California Arts Council grants. Maureen Hurley is a visual artist and photojournalist as well as a poet. Her poems and photographs have appeared in over 100 magazines and journals. Her poetry has been translated and published in Dutch, Spanish, Russian, Romanian, and Ukrainian. She has won numerous state and national awards for her poems, including two Sonoma County Community Foundation/NEA writer’s fellowships in 1990 and 1992; the 1992 award was for the Dream Vessels series. A poem was nominated for the 1993 Pushcart Poetry Prize. Other awards include an honorable mention in the National Poetry Series competition and two awards for Dream Vessels Poems #1 and 2 . She was a semi-finalist in the 1993 Kalliope/Papiér Maché poetry contest, and a finalist in the 1994 Negative Capability poetry competition.
Hurley holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art Studio from Sonoma State University. She is California Poets in the Schools Area Coordinator for Sonoma County, and has led workshops in public schools, mental institutions, universities and Elderhostels in California, the Netherlands, the Bahamas, and the former USSR. Hurley initiated and developed programs in which she and Connell exchanged student poetry and art with sister city, Cherkassy, in the Ukraine.
The California Museum of Art exhibition opens April 22 and continues through May 31, 1994. Hours: Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM.
No comments:
Post a Comment