Brookhaven Courier

Issue date: 10/22/07 Section: Entertainment

Media Credit: Shreeya Rana "Ritualized" by Dave Van Ness

If I had a waste-paper basket, filled with not-good-enough, balled up love letters, I would reconsider emptying it. I have come to see the prospects of trash becoming art after a visit to the Forum Gallery in F101.

Susan Mollet's piece titled "Letters Never Sent" is on display in the gallery and it gave me the inspiration to litter my room with letters. Mollet, Brookhaven College professor of ceramics, uses porcelain clay and steel to transform a dustbin into something that could be decorative.

"Letters Never Sent" is part of the Brookhaven College Art Faculty exhibition, which will be showcased at the gallery until Oct. 26.

Mollet said, "I wet the letters, cut a silk screen and rolled out flat slabs of clay and silk-screened the letter onto it."

She said the idea for "Letters Never Sent" sparked in her mind from a song by Carly Simon.

"It got me thinking about people who have left my life, whether they have died or relationships have ended. … I just thought about things I might want to say to people," Mollet said.

Another work at the exhibit that caught my attention was "Ritualized" created by professor Dave Van Ness from fiberglass, a mannequin and a real buffalo skull. Van Ness said it cost him about a month and a half of industrious work to develop his piece and about $80 for the buffalo skull, which he bought on e-Bay.

Van Ness teaches Drawing I, Introduction to 3-D Design, sculpture and art appreciation at Brookhaven. He graduated with a master's degree in sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.

"I think the biggest thing is just to stay open and keep thinking. … Don't let things be told, how certain things are supposed to look," Van Ness said. "Learn the skills and then you will come to your aesthetics eventually. It takes time; just stick with it."

Elizabeth Erickson, Brookhaven freshman who is going to custom build her major in dance, film and music, said she liked the ingenuity of Van Ness's "Ritualized."

"I liked the way he incorporated raw elements as well as the use of the space in creating the circle, the sand and not just the sculpture," Erickson said.

Corey Johnson is another faculty member whose artwork is presented in the Forum Gallery. Johnson's artwork is called "Domestication" and, to me, represents the artistic nature of everyday life.

Using glass, sand and ant lion larvae, Johnson has put together a microcosm that seems to express how nature can be incorporated into art.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools