Hera Gallery

In Progress Senior Seminar Spring 2020 Exhibition Catalogue May 22, 2020 For the Department of Art & Art History at URI, the Senior Seminar class represents the capstone course for those approaching their hard-earned BFA degrees.  Students arrive with a diverse set of skills in various media, and work towards a final group exhibition, which has been an annual event at Hera Gallery for quite a few years.  Mid-semester, plans for physical installation at the gallery were halted, students’ projects were temporarily abandoned on campus, and students were sent home, wondering how we would continue. During our many online video meetings, the group decided the best way to move forward was to create an exhibition catalogue, where the written thoughts, the documentation of the work, and the spirit of this collaboration could be shared among our audience.  Our friends, family, faculty, artists, and peers can now experience the journey this Senior Sem...

#FoodforThoughtCreativeQuarantine Artist Rebecca Siemering shares her practice during the pandemic. Within the first month of the current crisis, I was reading how it was important to document the  time we are in for historians. With being at home, conducting school at home, and working,  there has not been much time to use my hands for my art practice, much less write. As an artist  I need to keep my hands moving to feel ok or I get agitated. In times of stress, I often write  haikus to settle my mind.  Traditional haiku references nature and specifics to the season, drawing out a view of the inner  self by being reflective upon a moment. I think of the crisis of COVID19 as a temporary season  itself. I found a small notebook and set some limitations to begin writing a poem a day. I find  limitations in mediums to be freeing. You have to work against them to express your idea and  that can lead to greater creativity. In my f...

#FoodforthoughtCreativeQuarantine Hera artist, board member and past president, Barbara Pagh shares some cellphone photo editing experiments she has been making. At one of Hera’s first Food for Thought Saturdays, Uli showed us experiments she was doing using a Photoshop app on her cell phone. We uploaded it on our own phones, but I never used it. During this quarantine, I’ve been walking the dog as much as I can in different local wooded trails and I started photographing during the walks. For Earth Day I decide to use the app and posted one result on Facebook and Instagram. It’s kind of gimmicky, but I love the different shapes and patterns that emerge, so I am trying it with more of the images. There is also something soothing about the symmetry.

#FoodforthoughtCreativeQuarantine From Hera Board President Uli Brahmst: some days I am overflowing with gratitude I feel the planet breathing love and care pouring out blessings all around other days I find myself in a dark vortex of dread exhausted hospital workers mask imprints on their teary faces wrapped bodies in dismal isolation meatfactories endless lines at food banks rapidly climbing unemployment numbers lies, betrayal, a true sense of horror and most days I fluctuate between both A month ago, on March 27th I committed to post a daily drawing on fb for the duration of our shelter in place order. The drawings are my contribution to the larger creative response to our shared Covid-19 reality.

#FoodforthoughtCreativeQuarantine An offering from Hera Board member Wendy Wahl Today this video arrived in my email at just the right moment to lift my spirits during these challenging times. It was forwarded to me from one of my dearest friends and amazing artist Rene Stawicki. We met at Hera Educational Foundation and Gallery in the 1990’s and it’s a relationship that I treasure. We don’t know who to credit this awesome work but I’m delighted to share it in the hopes that it brings you joy through laughter and/or tears.

#FoodforThoughtCreativeQuarantine From Hera member John Kotula A Virtual tour of Gates of Heaven and Other Stories My exhibit titled Gates of Heaven and Other Stories opened at Hera Gallery on March 7th and was scheduled to be up until April 4th. Well… life is what happens while you’re making other plans. Of course, the gallery had to close well before April 4th. On the other hand the show is still on the walls, because subsequent events were also put on hold and it is unclear when things will get back to normal and Hera’s always excellent programing will get going again. It maybe that my show and its companion exhibition, Chad Amos Self’s WE TIED HOTDOGS TO STRINGS AND MARVELED AT OUR DISCOVERIES: FINDING FORMS IN LOCAL WATERS, will stay up until Hera reopens, allowing some time for things to get reorganized. Perhaps there will be a public event to celebrate Hera being back in business! In the meantime, I want to present this blog entry as an alternative means of shar...

#FoodforthoughtCreativeQuarantine From here member Abigail Wambolt, thoughts on being a teacher during the pandemic. VIRTUAL LEARNING: CAN WE DO IT? Abigail Wamboldt Transitioning to virtual learning this semester has been an incredible undertaking for both instructors and students. Teachers who never needed to be tech savvy have had to spend hours in virtual training, and watching webinars on how to effectively run classes online. Some teachers have it harder than others. How are ceramicists, or printmakers expected to create virtually without the proper tools? In many ways I count myself lucky that in drawing and painting our materials are relatively easy to transport and work with in a variety of settings. If teachers are struggling with online platforms students have been asked to do something more difficult: navigate whatever material their teacher has managed to throw together. One student confided in me that he had classes on Zoom, Blackboard C...