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An exhibition of works by four generations of printmakers, Faith in My Possibilities; Mentors and Apprentices in Printmaking, will open tomorrow at the Williams Center for the Arts gallery.
The traveling collection features the work of Curlee Raven Holton, associate professor of art, two of his teachers, H.C. Cassill and Noel Reifel, and one of his students, Christopher Tague ’00.
An opening reception will be held 4-5:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Williams Center lobby. A brown bag panel discussion with the artists will take place noon Friday, May 25, in room 108 of the Williams Center. Both events and gallery admission are free and open to the public.
Curated by William Busta, the exhibit will run through June 8, then will be displayed at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia July 11–Aug. 29 and the Contemporary Community Gallery of Heights Arts Collaborative in Cleveland Sept. 5–Oct. 5.
The show highlights the role of mentors and apprentices in the development of printmakers.
“In this exhibition, we present works of art to suggest complex ties of kinship and knowledge among four artists who work in print media,” says Busta, gallery director of Heights Arts Collaborative. “Practical concerns encourage printmakers to share the expense, equipment, and space, which creates an environment where collaboration flourishes. Learning expands from the intimate focus of teacher-student into the energetic beam of the workshop.”
The exhibition fits well with Lafayette’s commitment and long tradition of student-focused teaching and development, notes Holton, director and founder of the College’s Experimental Printmaking Institute.
“EPI has embraced this tradition by providing our students with both a creative laboratory and opportunities for mentorship and achievement,” he explains. “This exhibition represents all these traditions and more. Our future is in the possibilities and potential of our students, and I am proud that I have been a part of the continuation of these values and traditions.”
The latest of Holton’s many collaborations with Lafayette students is the Master Artist/Master Printmaker program, in which three senior art majors are working with renowned artists to create limited-edition prints that will be shown this year in Tokyo and New York. Designed to promote graphic and fine arts, the program links artists with printmakers who are creating a limited edition of prints using traditional and digital media. It also fosters special mentoring opportunities, encourages creative experimentation, and enables artists and students to work side-by-side.
Holton is guiding seniors Giselle Edwards (Brooklyn, N.Y.) and Sarah Deitsch (Norwood, N.J.) in an intensive research project involving creation of a retrospective on the work and career of noted African American artist Paul Keene, which will be exhibited at James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa. Holton is helping Edwards and Deitsch complete interviews with the artist and a major collector; prepare an exhibit proposal, budget, and schedule; create a promotional packet; and compile a catalog for the exhibition.
He served as mentor to senior art major Krista Catalano (Greenwich, Conn.) during a recent independent study that introduced her to art management. As part of her work, Catalano helped mount one of Holton’s exhibits at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J, and assisted with an exhibit at Dizyners Gallery in Philadelphia. She also had an opportunity to develop her portfolio and work closely with visiting artists, as well as curate a major exhibition of student art work on display at Lafayette’s David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center.
The Experimental Printmaking Institute provides an open and creative environment for professional artists and students to create new bodies of work while investigating and experimenting with a wide variety of approaches to the print medium. Its artist-in-residence and visiting artist programs have featured more than 50 residencies, many involving artists with international reputations. EPI’s exhibitions and international exchanges have introduced a broad range of artists and contemporary printmaking trends to members of the Lafayette community and beyond. It also has encouraged artists such as Faith Ringgold, Al Loving, and Sam Gilliam to explore printmaking, a genre outside their typical media.
Holton has mounted more than 30 one-person shows and participated in more than 75 group exhibitions, including the Seventh International Biennale at the National Center of Fine Arts, Cairo, and shows at Centro de Cultura Casa Lamm Gallery, Mexico City. In 2001, he received a commission to create the awards for the Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for the Arts. His works are in the collections of universities, foundations, and corporations, including Cleveland Museum of Art, the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Villanova University, and Morehouse College. He was the1999 recipient of Lafayette’s Carl R. and Ingeborg Beidleman Research Award, recognizing excellence in applied research or scholarship.
Allentown Art Museum recently acquired “Dream of the Slave,” a large-scale mixed media work created by Holton. It was inspired by a trip to West Africa in 1992 as part of a Fulbright-funded study of traditional cultural and spiritual practices of the people of Ghana.
Born in Iowa in 1928, H.C. Cassill received bachelor’s and master’s in fine arts from University of Iowa, where he studied with Mauricio Lasansky. In 1953, he received the Tiffany Fellowship in Prints and taught printmaking at University of Iowa until 1957, when he began serving as head of printmaking at Cleveland Institute of Art. Cassill received the Cleveland Arts Prize in the Visual Arts in 1971. Upon retirement from teaching in 1991, he became professor emeritus, one of only nine individuals so honored by the institute. In 2000, Cleveland Institute of Art founded the H. Carroll Cassill Scholarship in Drawing/Printmaking.
Cassill has had 13 one-person exhibitions, including solo shows at Oakland Art Museum, Cleveland Institute of Art, Ohio University, and William Busta Gallery. He has exhibited in more than 60 group exhibitions at locations such as Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Walker Art Center, Seattle Art Museum, and in traveling exhibitions to Barcelona, London, Salzburg, Vienna, Athens, and elsewhere. He has exhibited jointly with his wife, printmaker Jean Kubota Cassill, at University of Wisconsin, Cleveland Playhouse Gallery, and FAVA. His works are in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Library of Congress, San Francisco Art Museum, Cleveland Art Association, and BP America.
Born in New York City in 1948, Noel Reifel studied art at Pratt Institute in New York. He worked after graduation as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator while teaching part-time at Pratt and The Print-making Workshop (Blackburn’s). He came to Kent State University to teach printmaking and drawing in 1976.
Reifel’s work concentrates primarily in the area of the intaglio print, with an approach ranging from traditional to experimental. Since 1980, he has largely focused on combined media prints. His art has been exhibited in about 165 shows and 40 traveling venues, including 59 national or international juried print competitions and 10 one-person shows. His work is included in the collections of Cleveland Museum of Art, Butler Institute of American Art, Cleveland Institute of Art, and B.F. Goodrich Collection.
“Reifel’s recent prints are a giant leap forward for an artist whose work has always been admirable,” stated a recent review in Angle: A Journal of Arts and Culture.
Tague graduated from Lafayette in 2000 cum laude with a double major and honors in art and English. He was the recipient of the College’s Vivian B. Noblett Prize in Studio Art and Gilbert Prize for superiority in English, as well as earning honorable mention in its MacKnight Black Poetry Competition. His honors thesis in art coupled painting with poetry text, using digital imagery, traditional painting methods, and printing techniques.
Tague’s work has been featured at Morris Museum in Morristown, N.J., Lafayette’s Williams Visual Arts Building and David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center, and Connexions Gallery in Easton, Pa. His art was included in a portfolio of works by 13 noted Lehigh Valley Artists that was purchased by the City of Easton for its permanent collection.
As director of his own gallery from 1989-1998, William Busta showcased works by contemporary artists living in northeast Ohio. He organized 81 one-person shows by artists, four one-person shows by poets, 10 group shows; nine Northeast Ohio Print Annuals, six artists’ book shows; and 12 installation projects.
His other positions have included director, Dacotah Prairie Museum, Aberdeen, S.D.; assistant director, Plains Art Museum, Moorhead, Minn.; director, New Organization for the Visual Arts, Cleveland; and consultant, Northeast Ohio Art Museum, Cleveland.
Busta has been an independent curator since 1998, curating a survey exhibition and preparing a book in 1998 for the 20th anniversary of SPACES, an artist-programmed
gallery in Cleveland. He also curated an exhibition, Great Lake Erie: Imagining an
Inland Sea, for SPACES, versions of which traveled to Buffalo and Detroit, and organized a symposium on “Cleveland Art since 1950” for Cleveland Artists Foundation. He continues to curate one major exhibition annually under his name at independent sites such as warehouses and lofts.
Busta received the Jim Mersfelder Memorial Artists Advocacy Award and the Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement /Visual Arts in 1998, and an honorable mention for the latter honor in 1999. He has served as vice president and trustee of Cleveland Artists Foundation and was a founding member of Poets League of Greater Cleveland. He also has served as trustee of Intermuseum Conservation Association, Zygote Press, Sculpture Center, and SPACES.
Heights Arts Collaborative is a nonprofit community arts organization in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. It was founded in 2000 “to pool the arts resources of the Heights in order to express the creative spirit of the community.” The organization brings art opportunities to people of all ages; provides venues to create, exhibit, and perform all art forms; and supports the arts in education.
Williams Center gallery hours are noon-5 p.m. Monday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday; 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesday; and 2-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and before public performances in the Williams Center, which is located at the intersection of Hamilton and High Streets on Lafayette’s main campus. For more information, call the gallery at 610-330-5361 or Experimental Printmaking Institute at 610-330-5592, or email artgallery.
The Williams Center gallery is funded in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.