Elizabeth Nogrady and Jill Schneiderman

 Joseph Tairraz. Traversing a Crevice on Mt. Blanc 1870 Albumen print from glass plate negative.

April 6, 2022.

Elizabeth Nogrady (VC'99), Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programs at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, and Jill Schneiderman, Professor of Earth Science at Vassar College, discuss their exhibition, Cryosphere: Humans and Climate in Art from The Loeb, on view January 18 - May 22 in the Focus Gallery of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar.

In 1914, literary naturalist and Hudson Valley resident John Burroughs wrote, “In the snow-storm: we are admitted into Nature’s oldest laboratory.” This laboratory is part of the cryosphere, the term given to places on Earth where water is in solid, rather than liquid, form. Describing the fleeting and varied forms of the cryosphere—ice and snow in particular—is a challenge shared by artists and scientists alike. This Focus Gallery exhibition applies the approach and knowledge of an earth scientist to art that focuses on the cryosphere, with the aim of enhancing viewers’ understanding of not only the works themselves, but also the planet we inhabit. It features paintings, prints, photographs and sculpture from the nineteenth century to the present day, including works by Sanford Robinson Gifford, Taguchi Beisaku, Doris Lee, and Oshutsiak Pudlat. This exhibition is co-organized by the Loeb and Jill Schniederman, professor of Earth Science.

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Stella Beratlis

 March 23, 2022.

Modesto poet Stella Beratlis returns to the program to talk about her new collection, Dust Bowl Venus: Poems, just out from Sixteen Rivers Press.

"Sometimes the ground shifts under our feet and leaves us stumbling; our world changed. DUST BOWL VENUS documents that stumbling; that changed world; and also the regaining of a footing that; if not what we had hoped for; is what we live with. In her second powerful collection of poetry; framed by the lyrics of Modesto-based country-bluegrass songwriter; Hazel Houser; Stella Beratlis explores the landscapes of California's Great Central Valley; the landscapes of fear and hope in the cancer diagnosis of her daughter; and the landscape of regret--what we have let go and what we have gained from letting go. Beratlis pays her characteristic attention to detail; invoking; for example; Louis Armstrong's blue kitchen and the hinges squeaking on an ice chest lid; in order to create her complex; lyrical images. She writes that "ghosts / have always been walking / through the spaces of our home;" and she has listened to these ghosts. This book is filled with imagery and emotion that builds and curves and accumulates; leaving the reader breathless; glad for the shifting of the earth that gave us these poems."

 

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