Allegheny Reunion Art Exhibition at Hatch Hollow

Oftentimes colleges graduates have reunions to talk over the good times. It’s not so often that grads “reunite” on art gallery walls.

However several Allegheny College grads, faculty and staff from different decades currently offer their artistic visions at Hatch Hollow, a Meadville art gallery, art supply retail store and “coworking space.”

“Within these walls, you will encounter a variety of expressions, reflecting the myriad journeys and experiences. As we reminisce about our shared memories and forge new connections, let us also celebrate the power of art to evoke emotion, provoke thought, and bridge divides,” promotes the exhibition statement.

Class of 1973’s Douglas Lodge’s mixed media creation, “This Party Sucks I’m Movin On,” is a collage (Or is it a Rorschach Test?) that places pieces of singed, rusted metal atop the other that offers an abstract fabrication that looks (to this viewer) as a brown-skinned elephant wearing a black bonnet above a funky map of South America.

(Does that mean I’m crazy?)

“Untitled” by Gregory Blackman (Class of 1970) initially appears to be an abstract image at first glance. However when one realizes that the three simple bands of colors are actually a photograph of a calm Presque Isle beach scene of sky, water and sand, the Mark Rothko-esque vision demonstrates the simple aesthetic that nature has to offer.

Allegheny College staff member Paige Waring’s “Restore (triptych)” provides a unique artwork to the show. The first acrylic painting shows an adult ram and a baby ram in a field. The second picture shows them both in the same field, eyes shuttered with mushrooms and other vegetation apparently growing out of the adult ram’s body. The third panel portrays the skeletons of both the creatures in the same field.

Is this an “ashes to ashes” parable of life?

The most distinctive artwork within the show is class of 1974’s Charmaine Koehler-Lodge’s “The Power of Art: A Crankie.” (See image above.) A wooden box of “mixed reclaimed material” that holds a watercolor scroll full of different scenes, it’s operated by the viewer by using hand cranks atop the wooden panel. Telling a fairy tale story of an artist and a newly-crowned evil king, after the story has concluded, we’re instructed to rewind the paper roll for the next patron.

An art form that harkens back to the days even before of VHS tapes, is this where the motto “please be kind & rewind” originated?

***Gregory Greenleaf

Allegheny Reunion Art Exhibition continues through July 15. For more information about the show or Hatch Hollow visit www.hatchhollow.com

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