Holy Cross’ Cantor Art Gallery to Exhibit Large-Scale Quilt and Multimedia Installation About Senior Citizens

WORCESTER, Mass. – The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross will present FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA, A QUILT FROM THE ROSE BAKER SENIOR CENTER and These Beautiful Hands: A Tribute to Lives Long Lived, An Installation by Juni Van Dyke from Aug. 24 to Sept. 17.

Two public events in conjunction with the exhibits will be held at the Cantor Art Gallery:

* Artist Talk, Juni Van Dyke: Stories Hands Tell: Sept. 15, 5-6 p.m. * Reception for the artist: Sept. 15, 6-7 p.m.

FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA is a large-scale hand-sewn quilt pieced together by a team of more than 40 individuals during a four-year period at the Rose Baker Senior Center in Gloucester, Mass. FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA was produced under the guidance of the Rose Baker Senior Center Arts Coordinator, Juni Van Dyke, who has, for the past 12 years, developed a very successful and widely recognized program of art education and practice for seniors in the Gloucester region.

In the fall of 2001, following the tragic events of 9/11, Van Dyke suggested to a group of seniors participating in her program the idea of creating a monumental quilt as a collaborative project that would celebrate the beauty of the United States through images representing the grandeur of the American landscape. After four years of work, FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA was completed. The quilt, measuring 9 feet tall and 30 feet wide was first shown outside of Gloucester at the Massachusetts State House in Boston in the spring of 2004. FROM SEA TO SHINNG SEA will be on display at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass. later this year. The quilt will then return home and be permanently installed in the main community space of the Rose Baker Senior Center.

Van Dyke’s These Beautiful Hands: A Tribute to Lives Long Lived is a four-part installation in which the artist honors the wisdom, dignity, and courage of acquaintances born during the first quarter of the 20th century.

Speaking about her work, she says: "My work seeks to reverse a common American stereotype which suggests that to be old is to be unattractive and useless. I wanted to alter this stereotype by creating a tribute to the wisdom, grace, and dignity of older individuals. The marvel of lives long lived! I wanted to honor elders with a project involving their hands - hands that have been worn smooth as gems - from years of loving, caring, toiling, living. Hands wrinkled and callused, arthritic, spotted, veined. Beautiful hands of time."

The work has evolved into four "projects," each in a different medium:

Part I. Sculpture and Dialogue: "Gifts" consists of a grouping of 40 plaster cast of hands of anonymous individuals all born in the first quarter of the 20th century. A short monograph accompanies each cast which is based on the life experiences of the people whose hands the artist cast.

Part II. The Drawing Project: "Memories" is a series of abstract and representational drawings rendered by Van Dyke that acts as a visual record of emotional states and feelings between the artist and her own mother.

Part III. The Painting Project: "Gratitude" is similar to "The Drawing Project" in that Van Dyke conjures up imagery from her encounters with "elders" and their life stories while conducting art workshops at the Rose Baker Senior Center. The "Gratitude" section is comprised of small-scaled paintings that compliment and affirm many of the oral histories that are conveyed to Van Dyke at the senior center where the artist works.

Part IV. The Photo Project: "Then" consists of a time-based work of projected vintage black and white family photographs onto a scrim of moving fabric, coupled with faint audio recordings from the 1930s -1940s of various popular pieces of that era. Again, the photographs used in this piece reflect a variety of individuals associated with the Rose Baker Senior Center.

Gallery Information

The hours for the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery are Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. - 5p.m., Saturdays 2 - 5 p.m. Located in O’Kane Hall, 1st Floor, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, Worcester, MA, 01610. Admission to the gallery is free. Public parking is located on Linden Lane, gate 2, off College Street.

For more information, call the Cantor Art Gallery at 508-793-3356 or visit the Gallery’s Web site at: www.holycross.edu/departments/cantor/website/index.html.