Nearby Rock Sighs Pink: An Elegy of Sorts
Nearby Rock Sighs Pink: An Elegy of Sorts
Prints, Videos, and Projections made after learning of the closing of Cazenovia College, a small four-year, institution founded in 1824,
This project began as a series of photographic images of architectural details of Cazenovia College inspired by iconic 1970's photographic screen prints of Cazenovia made by artist and former Cazenovia College instructor, Rita Hammond (1924-1999).
Like so many alumni and Cazenovia residents, news of the college’s closing was devastating. I literally grew up on the campus, in Watts Hall, from the age of 12, as my mother, Peg Rickett, was the College’s Director of Residences and housemother of Watts. When Peg died in 2000, Dorothy Riester, artist, founder of Stone Quarry Art Park, and Cazenovia College instructor, created a sculpture, in her memory. House Mother lived in Watt’s courtyard until the college's closing.
I visited the campus in the summer after it closed, presumably to photograph some of my favorite architectural details of the college.
However, it was a natural formation, a large grey sedimentary rock, covered in bits of moss and traces of brightly colored paints that altered and subsequently deepened the project. I imagined all that this stately boulder has seen since Cazenovia College opened its doors in 1824. Was this Rock here since the college's beginnings? Did someone physically bring her to this spot on the campus like my mother brought me in 1971? I began to imagine this boulder's life and memories intertwining with my own.
And went home and wrote a poem I called Nearby Rock Sighs Pink two videos and six prints.
To me, this stately painted Rock serves as a reminder to always look deeply, beyond first impressions, to places that encourage creative thinking and associations, to make something new, renewed. How about you?
A portion of the proceeds from print sales to benefit Stone Quarry Hill Art Park in Cazenovia, NY.