Nature House
July 8 – August 3, 2007
Opening Reception: July 8, 2 - 4 pm

The collages and drawings in this exhibit re-present the landscape in an unusual way. They reveal a reality that goes beyond the natural world we perceive through atypical juxtapositions of elements within each composition. Altars and animals, for instance, or a tree made from a little book. The fun for me is in trying out unusual combinations of forms and solving the mysteries of the links between them. After each picture is finished, I see connections between parts of Earth’s web of life as well as links between the physical and spiritual worlds. In some, the names of extinct or endangered species are written over and over, a litany of sorrow, a prayer that killing these creatures will cease. The viewer is invited into a contemplation of the wonder of the natural world, humanity’s dependence upon it, and humanity’s puzzling destruction of it. While some works are collaged images, others are rendered primarily through drawing or painting, with just a bit of collage and just a bit of color.

The Hoyt Institute of Art
124 East Leasure Avenue
New Castle, PA 16101
724-652-2882
www.hoytartcenter.org

Icons
May 5 - July 31, 2007

Like icons from other cultures and other times, these mixed media collages explore qualities common to every woman as well as archetypal goddess figures represented in art throughout human history. Richly diverse images of young maiden potential, sacred motherhood creativity, and old crone wisdom contain symbolic imagery, precisely cut photographic figures, small bits of lace, paint, paper or cloth. The contemporary figures of women in these collages tell stories of the ancient maiden-mother-crone trinity of. Mostly Luckett’s collages and smaller plaques represent the Life of the Universe with female visage, a rarity in contemporary Western religion and culture where male deities are the norm. These icons are framed in three-dimensional houses or shrines referencing medieval altar panels, Hispanic niché boxes, domestic folk cabinets, and mother earth imagery. They refer to ourselves too, reminding us that we are all vessels of the mysterious gift of life.

Fireworks Studio 14
Torpedo Factory Art Center
105 N. Union Street
Alexandria, VA 22314
708-836-5807

Out of Balance
May 24 - June 21, 2007

Reacting to human interaction with the natural world around me, I link up images of seemingly innocuous human made items: tree-shaped deodorizers and tree stumps; SUV and polar bear; real birds and fake birds; whales and submarines. Each surreal pairing implies a connection that is often hidden or denied as we go about living a fast-paced life. These collaged and painted landscapes embrace a language of easily understood objects such as trees, ledger pages, fish, air fresheners, axes and birds and invite viewers to contemplate their own connections to the natural world. Humorous first impressions lead viewers to subsequent layers of meaning in which the insidious power of humankind over all species becomes apparent.

Woman Made Gallery
685 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
312-738-0400
www.womanmade.org