Holy Cross Professors, Alumnae Display Artwork at Local Exhibits

This summer, artists at the College of the Holy Cross have been out in the community, showing off their work at local exhibits.

Amy Archambault Remby '08, lecturer and Millard studio supervisor in the visual arts department, and Leslie Schomp, lecturer of visual arts, were featured in the 81st Regional Exhibition of Art & Craft at the Fitchburg Art Museum (FAM), the Telegram & Gazette reported. According to the article, the exhibition displays the artwork of artists who “live or work within a 30 mile radius of the museum” in order to celebrate local creativity. The exhibit will run through Sept. 4.

Archambault Remby has two sculptures on display, one of which the Telegram & Gazette called “a delightful mash-up of athletic equipment and patio furnishings…a nod to one of the artist’s childhood obsessions.” The sculpture, which is seven feet tall and made of pogo sticks, is called “Bounce.”

“I used to play on pogo sticks for hours in a day,” Archambault Remby said. “My mom would be 'Come on in. It’s dinner.' And I’d be there jumping and counting for, like, 357, 358….”

Schomp’s pieces are life-size stitched cloth portrait busts, which were inspired by classical sculpted portraits. One of the sculptures is called "Horse Girl with Morning Glory," and the other is titled "Double Self-Portrait." “They are based on myself, and use textures or gestures from the animal world,” Schomp explained.

Further north, Rachelle Beaudoin ’04, lecturer and supervisor of the Millard Media Lab at Holy Cross, spent a residency at 3S Artspace, a nonprofit arts organization that strives to change how people experience art, music and food, located in Portsmouth, N.H. During a portion of its ‘Excursions’ segment on Portsmouth, WCVB’s “Chronicle”  captured some of Beaudoin’s exhibit, titled “Welcome to the Bobhouse.”

During the length of the exhibit, which ran from May 31 to June 25, Beaudoin used a bobhouse as a studio. According to 3S Artspace, bobhouses traditionally “are workspaces designed for specific tasks that also become social and communal spaces,” such as the huts seen on frozen lakes to keep fishers warm during ice fishing season. However, in Beaudoin’s case, the bobhouse served as a space away from everyday routines for her to create new pieces, performances and videos.

Beaudoin, who majored in visual arts, has exhibited work in the Cantor Art Gallery in 2015, and received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2014 as an artist-in-residence at the quartier21, in Vienna, Austria.

This “Holy Cross in the News” item is by Jessica Kennedy.