Tag Archives: Lauren Nye

Thrill of the Show: Harrisburg Sketchers make their debut as exhibiting artists.

July 31, 2019 | by Barbara Trainin Blank

Creating art is fulfilling. Showing one’s art is more fulfilling still.

The Harrisburg Sketchers are about to discover the thrill of the show as they prepare for their first exhibit, which starts this month in the DeSoto Vault of the Susquehanna Art Museum.

Not that they haven’t been busy with their art before.

“Harrisburg Sketchers is a group of local artists drawing the city environment we live in, on location, in any medium, one sketch at a time,” said Brian Zeiders, co-founder of the group, along with Ben Cohen. “We meet monthly to sketch and socialize, to learn from one another, and to bolster the local artist community.”

People around Harrisburg already may have seen the Sketchers at public events, at the Broad Street Market, at ArtsFest or just sketching on a street corner. In fact, they’ve become known for taking their creating on the road.

Appropriately, then, the exhibit title is “On Location Harrisburg Sketchers.”

“Now, [visitors] will get a chance to share in the perspectives of the artists,” said Lauren Nye, SAM’s director of exhibitions. “Each artist works in a different style, but often the sketches depict the same location or event. Visitors will be able to compare and contrast them, seeing the city from new vantage points.”

Inspiration for the Harrisburg group came from the Urban Sketchers, founded in Seattle 10 years ago. Since then, similar groups have mushroomed in many major cities, but not in Pennsylvania’s capital until 2012, Zeiders said.

Since the group’s inception, interest in the Sketchers has grown quickly.

“We’ve gained momentum in terms of the number of people who are part of us,” Cohen said.

Harrisburg Sketchers meets every third weekend, usually on a Saturday morning, with the simple mission of sketching what they see. They have sketched on the Capitol steps and in the Capitol itself, the Broad Street Market, the Market Street Bridge, Midtown Scholar Bookstore, Wildwood, Italian Lake and Negley Park, among other venues.

Taking a cue from the plein air movement in art, the Sketchers often work outdoors—weather permitting. During winter months, they can be found in restaurants or coffee shops.

The Harrisburg Sketchers have diverse backgrounds, but they converge in their love of drawing and their pursuit of it in a social context.

Julie Dlugolecki, who uses her design skills in the auditor general’s office, has a bachelor’s degree in drawing and painting and has taught figure drawing at the Art Association of Harrisburg.

“I love the city, the people and sketching as a group again,” she said. “I hadn’t drawn in a very long time.”

She also enjoys the social aspect, chatting with her fellow Sketchers as they make art.

For John Davis, teacher and coordinator of art at the Milton Hershey School, joining the Sketchers had several motivations.

“I wanted to stretch myself with my own sketching abilities and be accountable to myself,” he said. “And I definitely enjoy networking with other artists, whether amateurs or professional—with like-minded, creative people.”

There are no rules about media to use or styles, which gives the Sketchers a sense of freedom. And traveling doesn’t mean missing out, since a Google search helps members locate similar groups in many locations.

Because a museum is hosting the Harrisburg Sketchers’ first exhibit, there will be no selling of members’ works.

“But that’s something to think about in the future,” said Cohen. “Meanwhile, our artists can benefit from contacts they make with visitors to the exhibit. Since this is our first exhibit anywhere, I’m really glad to see it in the heart of Harrisburg.”

Harrisburg Sketchers’ exhibit runs Aug. 23 to Oct. 27 in the DeSoto Family Vault of Susquehanna Art Museum, 1401 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. Special events connected with the exhibit are 3rd in the Burg (free admission) on Fridays, Aug. 16, Sept. 20, and Oct. 18. For more information, call 717-233-8668 or visit www.sqart.com.

Art in The Burg: “Picasso: A Life in Print” at Susquehanna Art Museum

July 22, 2019 | by Bob MacGinnes

Summer steams ahead.

One month into the season and July is almost over. The bulls have run in Pamplona and the Bastille has been stormed…and this past Friday night, 3rd in the Burg took place. Hope you were there. After all, Picasso is in town.

There is plenty of great art in the world. Major cities that house grand museums vie for blockbuster exhibitions all the time. So, not only is it noteworthy but truly impressive when a museum in a city the size of Harrisburg shows an A-list artist—and has an entire summer for the public to view it.

“Picasso: A Life in Print” (45 years of collecting from the John Szoke Gallery) runs through Sept. 22 at the Susquehanna Art Museum.

There is a bit of kismet as to how it came to be.

The John Szoke Gallery in New York City has made its reputation since 1974 as being a collector/purveyor of works on paper featuring prominent artists like Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch. The SAM director of exhibitions, Lauren Nye, happened to return materials to the gallery on an unrelated matter when she struck up a conversation with the gallery owner. When Nye inquired about featuring Picasso prints at SAM, her request was met by his emphatic response that the only museum/gallery in Pennsylvania that could show the exhibit would be that of his “artistic adviser,” Alice Anne Schwab, executive director of SAM. And that is the genesis of the exhibit coming to Harrisburg.

In a time when the world shrinks more by the day, it is refreshing to learn that personal ties trump technology.

Ross Tyger, SAM’s special events manager, was the gatekeeper on Friday night, greeting us in the grand lobby. Moments later, Schwab graciously gave her time to share the wonderful backstory to the exhibit. Pianist Ralph Diekemper accompanied the exhibit in the upstairs, main gallery, adding to its dazzling brilliance.

This exhibit eschews excess by focusing on a specific portfolio of Picasso prints. With no formal training in the medium, Picasso became proficient in printmaking through years of practice and perseverance. While working in only black and white through etchings and drawings, he later incorporated color and expanded to lithography, using his paintings to reach a greater audience. His thirst for knowledge placed him at the press learning from master printmakers, Eugene Delatre and Louis Fort.

Highlights in the collection of etchings and drypoints, all vital works indeed, feature 15 from “Suite des Saltimbanques,” which capture a certain earthiness put forth by the young Picasso, who was 24 at the time. He depicted the group of friends that he knew as circus performers for this study. Understated in a spare yet true to Picasso style, the etchings are remarkable for their realism. They capture a certain freedom of spirit in spite of the subject’s poverty.

The other two groupings are from “Suite Vollard,” which encapsulates 100 prints commissioned by renowned art dealer, Ambroise Vollard. These represent Picasso’s first major venture in printmaking. The “Caisse a’ Remards” prints demonstrate Picasso pushing at the parameters of art and exploding them as he saw fit, creating his own personal vision. Picasso produced more than 2,000 prints in his lifetime, and this capsule collection centers on his initial pursuit of printmaking, revealing an artist finding his calling and embracing art for the entire span of his life.

Creativity lies at the very heart of genius. Genius is a label attributed to many but deserved by few. Pablo Picasso qualifies as an artist of true genius who created his own sphere of influence across many art forms.

The artist said it best.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it,” he said.

Picasso today is as legendary for his ever-changing mistresses, muses and marriages as being the father of modern art. In helping to advance cubism, Picasso changed the canvas of art forever. Drawing from real-life relationships, both collegial and romantic, he made the most of all human involvement, seizing the essence of others, pouring them onto his palette, mixing personality with potency in producing a provenance precisely his own.

Picasso revolutionized art, and the way the world views it, thinks about it and appreciates it. His fundamental understanding of art provides a universal commentary in that, “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” So, take a moment and escape from the summer heat for a cool dip into the pool of “Picasso: A Life in Print” before it evaporates right before your eyes.

“Picasso: A Life in Print” runs through Sept. 22 at the Susquehanna Art Museum, 1401 N. 3^rd St., Harrisburg. Visit https://www.susquehannaartmuseum.org/.

Art & Activism: Artist Romare Bearden could do it all, as a new exhibit shows.

May 31, 2018 | by Barbara Trainin Blank

Romare Bearden, “Homage to Mary Lou (The Piano Lesson),” 1983, lithograph, Courtesy of the Romare Bearden Estate Art© Romare Bearden FoundationLicensed by VAGA, NY, NY.

Romare Bearden used to say that an artist is like a whale—swimming with his mouth open and taking in everything.

And he did. The North Carolina-born artist was amazingly versatile, creating, at different periods, oil paintings, cubism, abstract expressionist work, figurative art, cartoons, watercolors, works on paper, large-scale murals and quilts. Interested in the jazz idiom, he took the structure of music and put it into 2-D form.

But the most distinctive aspect of his creative life were his collages, made of printed paper, newspaper and magazines, and fabric, said Diedra Harris-Kelley, co-director of the New York-based Romare Bearden Foundation, which was established by the artist’s wife. “He created them at a time when collages were not taken seriously as fine art.”

Bearden, who died 30 years ago, was a Renaissance man—a lifelong art history expert, a writer and activist, taking part in the 1963 March on Washington and on picket lines. He was also one of the founders of the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual, social and artistic explosion that took place in the Harlem neighborhood of New York during the 1920s.

Recognition for his art came slowly, though. Bearden created at a time when the works of African-American artists were relegated to the basements of museums rather than to their galleries, Harris-Kelley said. In fact, he worked tirelessly to have works by these artists properly recognized.

Much of the glory he received was posthumous. After Bearden’s death, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York held a retrospective of his work, and his collage, “Family,” became the national poster for the federal government’s 2000 census, among other honors. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Studio Museum in Harlem.

In 2004, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., featured a Bearden retrospective.

Now, beginning this month, Harrisburg’s Susquehanna Art Museum is hosting an exhibit of Bearden’s work.

Entitled “Romare Bearden: Vision & Activism,” the exhibit, drawn from the Romare Bearden Foundation Collection, examines how the artist agitated for change through both his images and writing. Included is a diverse collection of original collage, watercolor, limited-edition prints, reproductions and rare archival material, including Bearden’s magazine covers and editorial cartoons.

“The exhibit also explores how Bearden, one of the most-important visual artists of the 20th century, countered racial stereotypes with images drawn from history, literature and the free world of his imagination,” said Lauren Nye, director of exhibitions at SAM.

The exhibit traces Bearden’s evolution into a true master artist, Nye said. It begins with his editorial cartoons for university magazines and, later, national publications and newspapers. The section called “Rewriting History” offers examples of when he took on the past to engender pride, as in “Black History,” a maquette (small preliminary model) for a public mural.

Much of Bearden’s art illustrated the domestic and home life of African Americans, not generally represented in the art world. He also did religious scenes of biblical drawings as well as charcoal drawings with universal messages, said Nye.

Some of his subjects were not African-American themed, as in the “Mayor [John] Lindsay” piece for Time magazine, in tribute to the mayor of New York.

“The Susquehanna Art Museum is really glad to be doing this exhibition,” said museum Executive Director Alice Anne Schwab, who personally met the artist. “We selected Bearden, in part, because he’s recognized by some, but not all, and should be recognized by all.”

There are other reasons that the museum selected Bearden. One is the “resurgence of interest” in the Harlem Renaissance, and another is the artist’s tie-in with political activism and the civil rights movement, which resonates with young people, Nye said.

Scheduling an exhibition of a major figure in African-American art during the summer months isn’t arbitrary either.

“That’s when many traveling visitors, as well as summer camps and programs, come to the museum in groups,” Schwab said. “I would contend that there has never been a better time in our nation’s history to familiarize people with an artist so noticed for social activism.”

“Romare Bearden: Vision & Activism” runs June 9 to Sept. 23 in the Main Gallery of the Susquehanna Art Museum at The Marty and Tom Philips Family Art Center. Museum members are invited to a special opening preview on June 8, 5 to 7 p.m.

The Susquehanna Art Museum is located at 1401 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.susquehannaartmuseum.org or call 717-233-8668.

Bee Creative: At SAM, it’s an artist/hive collaboration

March 30, 2018 | by Barbara Trainin Blank

Artists sometimes collaborate with each other, but it’s rare the “other” is an insect.

But human-bee “cooperation” has become a growing part of the work of Ladislav Hanka, a Michigan-based artist. The result is mixed media with bees heavily in the mix.

Hanka inserts etchings into a living beehive, where the bees “continue the creative process” by adding layers of wax, he said.

“Initially, I paint my artwork with a thin, translucent layer of hot beeswax, which soaks in and makes the strange object at least familiar to the bees,” Hanka said. “They tend to accept it more readily, and, if I attach some honeycomb, they’ll generally initiate work right there, adding to it or moving it around.”

One of two outcomes is likely, he said. Either the bees cover the art completely and obscure everything with a deep layer of capped honey, or they may push the “offending materials out of their environment.”

Either way, Hanka explained, he relinquishes control of the final product “to the bees in an act of creative collaboration.”

An exhibit devoted to this collaboration is now on view in the Lobby Gallery of the Susquehanna Art Museum. Entitled “Embraced by Honey Bees,” the show includes such works as “Brook Trout Enfolder in Beeswax by Honey Bees” and “Dragonfly Embraced and Enveloped by Honey Bees.” Both are etchings with drypoint and beeswax applied by living bees in a hive.

Another work, “Myself Emerging from the Mire and Embalmed by Honeybees,” is a photo-etching, using the same method.

The exhibit’s concept “is hard to understand without seeing the work, plus we have extensive labeling,” said Lauren Nye, SAM’s director of exhibitions. “What comes out is purely a matter of chance. These are three-dimensional pieces, as delicate and beautiful as honeycombs.”

Hanka is also a printmaker and does works on paper. And, naturally, he’s a beekeeper.

“He’s a unique kind of guy,” Nye said.

Bringing together etchings and bees, which Hanka began in 2010, is “neither brilliant nor untoward,” he said. “Instead, it’s the self-evident and child-like impetus with one in the left hand and the other in the right, to bring them together.”

It seems intuitive that anyone working with bees and beehives will expect injuries, but Hanka sees it differently.

“I don’t get injured,” he said. “Stings are not only harmless in general but often healing, and hardly constitute an injury. You do have to be ready to be stung, of course. It goes with the territory.”

The impulse toward art in general started early for Hanka and only intensified from there.

“From around the age of 6, I had the habit of sketching from life,” he said. “At 73, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and the way plants grow.”

His work is based on equal parts of observation and studio work and is exhibited in many public collections. He has mounted more than 120 one-man shows.

The SAM exhibit will not be the only opportunity for central Pennsylvanians to see Hanka’s creations. Two other exhibits are taking place concurrently. Messiah College’s Murray Library is showing “Book Arts by Ladislav Hanka,” featuring his handmade volumes of etchings and text, made in collaboration with Jan Sobota. Meanwhile, Messiah’s High Center, the performing arts venue, is exhibiting “Scriptum Arborum,” which includes bee collaborations and other large-scale work.

Hanka will speak and demonstrate at several events at both venues before the shows close.

Stephen and Cherie Fieser, who own Robinson’s Rare Books & Fine Prints in Harrisburg, discovered Hanka’s work around 2013 at an art auction.

“We were hooked on the spot and bid until it was ours,” Stephen said. “This was our first knowledge of him. The pieces that went to our gallery found immediate favor with our visitors.”

The couple is now representing Hanka in the region.

Friends of Murray Library had already purchased one of Hanka’s books for the library’s Artists’ Books Collection—a special collection in which the book is the art form and that often challenges the assumed definition of a book, said Cherie Fieser, the library’s director.

Hanka’s bee work isn’t totally unique, but it remains rare.

“Other artists have looked at bees and wondered what might come of that collaboration,” he said. “Maybe a half-dozen folks. I suppose it has the look of an idea whose time has come and which might well have arisen independently [among these artists] as these things so often do.”

“Embraced by Honey Bees” runs through April 29 at the Susquehanna Art Museum, 1401 N. 3^rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.susquehannaartmuseum.org or call 717-233-8668.

Nature’s Eye: Harrisburg’s first major Ansel Adams exhibit lands at SAM.

September 29, 2017 | by Gina Napoli

I’ve always been fascinated by the early works of world-famous artists, to see the genius in its formative stages.

For the next few months, such an opportunity arrives in Harrisburg with “Ansel Adams: Early Works,” a traveling collection of 41 vintage black-and-white photographs, which opens this month at the Susquehanna Art Museum.

“This is the first time we’re seeing the real thing in Harrisburg, not just in poster or print reproductions,” said Lauren Nye, director of exhibitions. “This collection will show the real development of his photography into the masterworks that are most associated with him as an artist. We wouldn’t ordinarily have that opportunity.”

To fully realize the impact of Adams’ distinctive contributions to art, science and politics, his work should be placed in its 1927 context, when he came on the art scene with his first portfolio with scenes of “the natural world, the state/national parks and rural America,” Nye said.

At that time, both the National Park Service and the Sierra Club were young, founded in 1916 and 1892, respectively. Adams partnered with these organizations and took up their causes, with his talents helping make both organizations more robust. His work allowed people to share his vision through his photographs.

The Sierra Club featured Adams’ photographs on their brochures, giving impact to their environmental lobbying messages.

“He photographed areas around the country that many in Washington, D.C., had never seen before,” Nye said. “Even today, many people have only experienced these places through his photos.”

The photos inspired lawmakers to pass legislation to preserve these areas for future generations.

“[Adams] was among the first to treat the landscape with a painter’s vision,” said SAM Executive Director Alice Anne Schwab. “His work stands out not only for its technical merit, which is astonishing, but also for its groundbreaking originality.”

During his lifetime, Adams went on to serve on the board for the Sierra Club and personally lobby for environmental causes. His main concerns were over-developing, over-building, intrusive billboards and shortsightedness. His iconic images accompanied his letters, becoming points of persuasion all their own.

Just as important as Adams’ contributions to environmental activism were his contributions to arts education. His photography was created, without manipulation, in the dark room. He also served as a technical consultant in photography and delivered workshops to fellow photographers. Nye said,

“He championed photography as an art form,” she said.

Another art form important to Adams’ life was music. In his early life, Adams studied to become a concert pianist. To honor that portion of Adams’ life, SAM will feature a piano recital on a 1920s-era Steinway by local developer and musician Ralph Vartan on Oct. 25. Schwab said that other mini-concerts will follow.

“I am really excited for the exhibit that will showcase his early works from a time when he was considering a career as a concert pianist,” SAM board member Phyllis Mooney said. “Having an exhibit of [his works] in Harrisburg is incredibly special.”

Sharing space in SAM’s main gallery will be “Quartet for America: Neil Anderson,” abstract paintings by retired Bucknell professor Neil Anderson. Anderson’s tutelage inspired many artists in the regional area—Schwab was once his student.

“It feels right to juxtapose these works at a time when our nation is so at odds,” she said. “Maybe art can be that driving, uniting force.”

Nye hopes that visitors leave with a deeper understanding of the nuances offered in Adams’ work that extend beyond simple black-and-white photography.

“We hope to encourage artists to inspire one another, sharing techniques, much in the same way that Ansel Adams shared his passion for photography,” she said.

“Ansel Adams: Early Works,” runs Oct. 7 to Jan. 21 at the Susquehanna Art Museum, 1401 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit www.susquehannaartmuseum.org. SAM members can enjoy a sneak preview the evening of Oct. 6.

“Ansel Adams: Early Works” is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions, LLC. All photographs are from the private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg.

Wonder Wall: Beautiful murals once lined the Mulberry Street Bridge. A group now is trying to put them back on view

June 30, 2016 | by Kari Larsen

For about a decade, two enormous murals adorned the Mulberry Street Bridge in Harrisburg.

You may remember them: 86 panels, 43 panels per mural, spanning 640 feet in total, showing colorful scenes of life in Harrisburg.

In April 2014, PennDOT removed the murals to rehabilitate the bridge, with no plans to reinstall them. So, for the past two years, they’ve been in storage in Harrisburg’s old central post office on Market Street, in space donated by Blue Bell-based Equilibrium Equities, which now owns the building.

But a volunteer group—the Mulberry Street Bridge Mural Preservation and Relocation Committee—has formed to free them from storage and put them back before the public.

“We’re five volunteers with a monumental task,” said member Tara Leo Auchey, who also runs the online publication today’s the day Harrisburg.

The committee has engaged Navarro & Wright Consulting Engineers and has a preliminary arrangement with the YWCA of Greater Harrisburg to display one of the murals, the one that faced north on the bridge, at the corner of Cameron and Market streets.

Despite the all-volunteer effort, the expense to relocate and mount the murals is monumental. Besides their size, the unique makeup of the murals makes their re-display a costly effort.

“They were created on ‘parachute fabric’—polytab mural fabric,” said Lauren Nye, the exhibitions manager at the Susquehanna Art Museum and a committee member. “And that fused to the surface of the bridge, so there was no peeling it off.”

When the committee talks about preserving and relocating these murals, Auchey said, they are not just 86 panels of art. They are enormous sheets of metal, each one 7-feet tall and 7-feet wide.

The north mural depicts a single scene across 43 panels, a history of Harrisburg from its early days through the City Beautiful movement of the early 1900s. The committee is dedicated not only to keeping all of the north mural’s panels together in sequence, but to keeping it at the intersection of downtown and Allison Hill, the two neighborhoods the Mulberry Street Bridge connects.

The south mural is a series of individual scenes across two and three panels each, featuring people affiliated with the arts group, Danzante, and from around Allison Hill.

“We were at the South Allison Hill Multicultural Festival,” said Nye, “So many people—at every event that we go to—walk by and say, ‘Oh my God, I remember these! Do they still exist?’ They’re like, ‘My cousin is on there!’ ‘My daughter is on there!’ ‘A portrait of my friend is on there!’”

These interactions illustrate the committee’s other important mission, besides raising money: outreach to the community.

“That’s the biggest thing we want people to know, that they are still safe and there is still a group of people who are invested in bringing them back to the public,” said Nye.

A Gift

These works of art need to be displayed again not just because they’re beautiful, but to demonstrate Harrisburg’s identity as a unified city and to contribute to its economic development as a source of tourism, say committee members.

“For the 10 years they were up on the Mulberry Street Bridge, there was no graffiti on them,” said Harrisburg artist Nancy Mendes, a committee member. “That shows that people loved and respected it. Why not give it back to them as a gift?”

During its campaign, the committee has formed relationships with people and companies that have helped with various aspects of the project. In addition, they say they have the support of the city, which has promised flood clearances to mount the murals on the Y’s property at Cameron and Market. However, when they applied for tourism funding, Dauphin County rejected their application. So, to raise money, the committee has begun throwing events.

“But it’s not $1,000” they need, said Auchey, referring to the average amount an event pulls in.

In fact, the installation for the north murals alone will require a budget of $250,000.

Auchey said the goal now is to have a small fundraiser every two to three months. Fortunately, both of the artists who worked on the murals are dedicated to preserving and restoring them.

Elody Gyekis, who painted the north murals, donated a piece of art to the committee’s last auction. The committee also wants to launch a Kickstarter campaign featuring photo prints by south mural artist Cesar Viveros of his work on the north Philadelphia mural “The Sacred Now,” which was painted for Pope Francis’ 2015 visit to Philadelphia (the pope signed it).

Indeed, if the Mulberry Street Bridge murals are ever going to be a part of the community again, the effort is going to need to be bigger than just a five-person committee. When committee members attended the Multicultural Festival, Nye said, they saw a man walk by.

“He totally didn’t care about anything,” she said. “He’s walking down the street. He sees our picture and stops. He’s like, ‘Oh my God. I remember those murals! You guys have them?”

Nye told him that, yes, they did. He then pulled out his wallet.

“He said, ‘My wife gave me $2 today to spend however I want. I want you to have it. This is important.’”

To learn more about the effort to save and re-mount the murals, please visit the Facebook page: Mulberry Street Bridge Murals Preservation and Relocation.

Structural Assets: Architectural exhibits rise in Harrisburg.

September 30, 2015 | by M. Diane McCormick

Photo by Elizabeth Stene

Throughout history, says Carrie Wissler-Thomas, humans have “designed structures to live in and to work in and have always enhanced them with visual arts.”

“Art and architecture,” says the Art Association of Harrisburg president, “flow together.”

This fall, Harrisburg’s art and architecture don’t just flow together but collide in joyous profusion through a groundbreaking partnership among the Central PA Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Art Association of Harrisburg, Historic Harrisburg Association and Susquehanna Art Museum.

Together, the four groups are presenting programs and exhibits showcasing historic and contemporary architecture.

It began when SAM refashioned a classic bank building into its new Midtown home, which opened in January. The project included a large addition, not duplicating the bank design but holding a 21^st-century mirror to the original edifice.

That project inspired SAM and AIA to develop “Towards a New/Old Architecture,” the exhibit that has become the four-group collaboration’s centerpiece. It spotlights historic Pennsylvania buildings given new life by contemporary additions.

While developing the exhibit, SAM staff would hold meetings with collaborative members and then head to meetings with architects at the construction site, says Director of Exhibitions Lauren Nye.

“It was very, very fresh in our minds,” Nye says. “We would go from that meeting and put our boots on and come down here with hardhats and talk about what we had just talked about.”

The complicated exhibit—“the most moving parts I have ever planned,” says Nye—features giant, gallery-quality photos of 12 projects, including the instantly iconic Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the revitalization-sparking CODO 241 in York, the apocalyptic Levitt Pavilion at Arts Quest in Bethlehem, and a cantilevered home hovering over a Pittsburgh art glass factory. In specially designed light tables, photos and images reveal the evolution of each project.

The overall effect spotlights “the inherent art in the architecture,” says Nye.

“It gives people ownership of the spaces they live in,” she says. “It gives you a new reason to visit a space you may not have before, to come to a neighborhood that is growing, and care about not just tearing something down because it’s old but thinking about how you can use what is good there, and use additions to make it a workable space that people will thrive in.”

On Board

Harrisburg architect Chris Dawson, whose own Hershey Fire Station is in the exhibit, worked with SAM to select exhibit-worthy projects and images that tell stories of transformation.

A successful contemporary addition might purposely contrast the historic space, “but that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for all,” says Dawson. “You have to take cues in scale and proportion.” In the Harrisburg area, “we have these beautiful, under-utilized buildings in our midst, and to have people look at them with fresh eyes was part of our intention.”

Historic Harrisburg Association, long known as a bulwark against bulldozers, is all on board with that, says Executive Director David Morrison.

“The SAM exhibit definitely conveys a vivid message about how old buildings can be transformed and added to,” says Morrison. “The SAM building itself is the perfect example, having received HHA’s 2015 Preservation Award, and then adjoined by a 21^st-century sleek, modern, state-of-the-art museum.”

HHA is showing its collection of drawings by 20^th-century Harrisburg architect Clayton Lappley, designer of such landmarks as Riverview Manor, John Harris High School and the Moose Lodge temple now slated for a mixed-use renovation by WCI Partners. The news that SAM was planning an architectural exhibition inspired HHA to display its Lappley collection, donated after they were found in the basement of Riverview Manor during restoration.

Quiet Fashion

The snowballing of SAM’s exhibit into a four-way collaboration among arts, architecture and history organizations is “unprecedented, completely unprecedented in terms of the scope of the undertaking,” says Morrison.

“By having four organizations simultaneously present architectural-themed exhibits, it has enormous impact on the viewing public to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of art, architecture and the professions of artists and architects,” he says.

The Art Association of Harrisburg’s involvement created a platform for “all kinds of wild and crazy interpretations” of architecture and structure in its exhibit, “Structures II,” says Wissler-Thomas. There are a whimsical, found-objects rendering of the state Capitol, stainless steel sculptures, a “charming” sculpture of two floating squirrels, and a twig-bamboo bird’s nest construction titled “Christopher Wren” (get it? Look it up for a little architectural history).

“Structures II” will be followed by “Architectural Visions,” an invitational exhibit where architects and artists show their skills in sculpture, photography, painting and other media. Wissler-Thomas hopes the shows—AAH’s and the others—open visitors’ eyes to the artistic value of architecture, “one of the highest form of visual arts because it combines the ability to draw and to see spatially and create three-dimensional reality on a huge scale.”

“All these shows really show how artistic, how visually skilled these people are,” she says. “They don’t just work on a computer and come up with some model of blocks you stack up to make some building. They really have a huge visual sense.”

Arts groups frequently collaborate in quiet fashion, but the joint architecture celebration puts “the fruits of our labor” before the public eye, says Wissler-Thomas.

“I would hope that the general public would come out with a more abiding appreciation for the beautiful architecture that surrounds them, and the feeling that it’s not something you just work in and live in,” she says. “It’s something you should look at and appreciate.”

For information on the exhibits and related events, including lectures, classes and walking tours, visit www.sqart.org, www.historicharrisburg.com and www.artassocofhbg.com.

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