Author: Will Rothfuss

September 6-22, 2024
Seeing Solitude: Joni Oye and Susie Forrester
Opening Reception: Friday, September 6 from 5-7 pm

Please note early reception times because of the jazz festival.

Regular gallery hours are Saturday and Sunday from 1-5. The show runs through Sepyember 22.

Joni will show wall reliefs in clay that reflect on her personal journey. She was the chair of the ESU art department for many years and lives in Stroudsburg.

Susie will show photographs that depict natural forms and the American scene. She has been a printer and archivist for the legendary photographer Larry Fink. Susie lives in Stroudsburg.

Join us at 3pm on August 25th in the gallery for a talk by artist Rita Baragona

Rita will talk about her floral and ocean paintings, including her  sketchbook drawings. While viewing individual works, she will discuss her painting process as a moment to moment conversation with nature, as well as her use of color and rhythm to describe form and energy. For her color and rhythm are the main visual elements which describe nature’s deep design.

In her career she has searched for aesthetic order in art which runs parallel to scientific and philosophical ideas. Part of her process is to ask questions like: “What do I really see, when I know all is in flux?” In this show she wonders, “Where does rhythmic order and felt color meet appearance?” She explores them as she paints directly from nature.

In her sketchbook pages she jots down notes which come to her while drawing. For her, beauty is found in repetitive rhythmic, spacial, and color harmonies. She says, “I paint for those personal ‘ah-ha’ moments when the painting comes alive with light and color. Being conscious of impermanence, heightens my awareness of an inner timeless beauty hidden beneath apparent solidity.”

Rescheduled: Wednesday September 4, 7-8PM in the gallery

Dutot board member and retired ESU history professor Larry Squeri will present a talk on the history of the Poconos as a tourist destination, the subject of his book: Better in the Poconos. From the days of DWG as a top tourist destination in the late 1800s, to the heart-shaped tub honeymoon hotels of the 1950s, to the waterpark haven of today, Larry will present how the Poconos was and continues to be a tourist magnet.