MEDIA ALERT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Abigail Fota, College Relations Associate - Media, 610-740-3790

OBJECT EXPLORATION

New Exhibit Displays the Association of Everyday Items

Allentown, PA (March 7, 2003) - No detail is overlooked in Janet Henry's new exhibit entitled The Big Kahuna, opening March 17, 2003 in the Tompkins College Center Gallery at Cedar Crest College. The exhibit presents a series of mixed-media pieces created with objects that the artist finds visually intriguing such as beads, toys and doll miniatures. The objects are manipulated and then braided onto a wire or thread to create lariats ranging from inches to feet in length.

Much of Henry's inspiration surfaces through her unguided tours of New York, where she has lived most of her life. Neighborhoods such as Chinatown have provided the artist with an abundance of intricate objects that she uses in her work. "The fruit of my shopping adventures became 'juju boxes' which consisted of rice paper covered boxes that I filled with miniaturized items that would interest or reflect the people receiving them," says Henry. "The process of compiling the contents of the box allowed me to play around with sequence and ways of accumulating visual information. I considered them finished when I could go through a box without stopping to question why something was included."

"I've been influenced by Yoruba dance costumes, rural Japanese packaging, West Indian carnival costumes and European sculpture, painting and drawing," says Henry. "I like to think that my work chronicles the lives of the people and situations that get my attention. I'm curious about the ways in which culture manifests itself physically. I'm fascinated by the things that people use to symbolize themselves."

Henry studied at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and has served on the Advisory Panel for The New York State Council on the Arts. She has devoted much of her time to teaching at the Brooklyn Children's Museum, the Lower Eastside Girls Club and Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, where she currently leads art instruction for grades one through eight.

"The Big Kahuna" runs March 17 through April 18 in the Tompkins College Center Gallery. The exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Cynthia Hawkins, Director of Galleries at Cedar Crest College at 610-606-4666, ext. 3469.

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Abigail Fota
College Relations Associate - Media
610-740-3790
afota@cedarcrest.edu