The Exner Block Gallery is pleased to present Words & Images: A Collaboration, an exhibit that premiered in the Windham Art Gallery (WAG) in June, and, through the generosity of Rockingham Arts and Museum Project (RAMP), has moved to the Bellows Falls location for the month of July. The exhibit will be on display from Thursday, July 5 through Thursday, August 2, 2007, with a reception on Friday, July 20, from 5-7:30PM during Gallery Walk. Co-curated by WAG artist Stuart Copans and Write Action representative Arlene Distler, while in the Brattleboro venue, the show will be curated by Saxtons River artist, Matthew Peake, during its stay at the Exner Block Gallery.
Words & Images represents a collaboration between writers and artists that includes poems, excerpts from short stories, and a children's book, along with paintings, photographs, and ceramics. This exhibit represents a four-month process in which artists and writers met, paired up, and created unique works together. Several of the participants are member-artists from WAG, with many of the other artists and all of the writers being guests invited from the community. Some of the pairs were already acquainted, whereas others met for the first time in February 2007.
When poet Lynn Martin learned of this exhibit, she contacted friend and photographer Cindy Hutcheson. Formerly at the AIDS Project of Southern VT, both had the intention of finding something that their clients had had in common besides their illness, and discovered that it was their pets. Hutcheson's intimate photographs of individuals holding their pets paired with Martin's poetry, moving the reader to tears, forms the poignant piece entitled "Comfort."
