[125] WORDS ARE WORTH A THOUSAND PICTURES IN MTSU LIBRARY ART

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 29, 2008EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

WORDS ARE WORTH A THOUSAND PICTURES IN MTSU LIBRARY ART
Print, Mixed-Media Visual Expressions of Text Displayed in Special Collections Area
(MURFREESBORO) – “4 Women 4 Views with Text,” a new art exhibition in the James E. Walker Library, features the creativity of three MTSU professors and an MTSU graduate in combining visual and verbal elements, treating visitors to a experience that is at once visceral and intellectual. The works of Assistant Professors Noel Lorson and Kim Dummons, Professor Janet Higgins, and alumna Nance Cooley will remain on display through Thursday, Nov. 13, in the Special Collections area on the fourth floor of the library on the MTSU campus. Viewing is free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. Susan Hanson, a specialist with the library, says the artists got together from time to time from the summer of 2007 through this past summer to play with ideas and the materials they brought to the table. The works on display are individual entities that emerged from the creative spark of the collaborative experience. “It starts with a word, and it begins to take on a life of its own,” Hanson says. Old calendars form the bases of “Seasons,” “In December,” and “Dancing among the Fireflies”--three of Higgins’ accordion-fold books. For “Fireflies,” she used a calendar depicting Japanese gardens. The accompanying text refers to being in nature and remembering the “path to the garden.” “The calendar image is folded in half and in half again so the viewer doesn’t see the entire photo image, but has the impression of the lushness of a garden environment,” Higgins says. “The paper carrier of the text is vellum, a translucent paper that blends with the garden images while still allowing the text to be read.” A standout in Cooley’s work, which she describes as a “hodgepodge,” is “The Storytellers’ Tale,” a group book passed around to the seven women in her family. In turn, Cooley, her sister, their daughters and a daughter-in-law added their unique touches to the piece, which traveled some 70,000 miles in the creative process. The book is hand-bound in Venetian marble paper. Cooley used the library’s showpiece, the Stones River Press, a replica of an 18th-century Franklin-era press, in “Florida’s Creatures,” the book display in the entryway to the Special Collections area. It includes individual block prints of a manatee, a green turtle and a sand hill crane, the blocks themselves, loose hand-made papers and a completed mockup of a book.
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“What she’s trying to do in this case is to give you a sense of how the book goes together, to give you some idea of the process of art rather than just the finished product,” Hanson says. “I printed in June and July of this summer for eight days,” Cooley says. “The book was produced for a show in Tallahassee, Fla.” Lorson’s creations include ”Octopus Bonnet,” an off-white ball with tentacles swirling out from it, and “Panel Discussion,” which positions words one might hear in a television commercial with several TV screens and a female image. Harmon says her works are made with abaca. The Web site amazingpaper.com describes this type of paper as “made from the stems of the stalk of the abaca plant, which is similar to a banana plant.” Dummons’ multicolored print collages, “House Home 1” and “House Home 2,” create an optical illusion akin to being invited into an alcove. Her “Block Box” and “Pandora’s Box” bring children’s lettered building blocks to life. In “Pandora’s Box,” the blocks actually form a box with a drawer that opens and closes. Dummons also fashioned the signature piece “4Women 4 Views with Text,” a three-dimensional mixed media work that includes spools, a key and a playing card.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For photos of the “4 Women 4 Views with Text” art display at the James E. Walker Library, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.