Selected art faculty exhibition to open Sept. 15

The Schick Art Gallery at Skidmore College will start the academic year with a crowd-pleasing show: the 2011 Selected Art Faculty Exhibition, showcasing work that faculty do on their own time, in their own studios.

The exhibition opens with a reception scheduled from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 15. The show runs until Sunday, Oct. 16. The selected art faculty exhibition spotlights the work of a small number of faculty each year, allowing them to share some of their newest work with the campus and community at large. The fall's featured faculty members are Leslie Ferst, ceramics; Deb Hall, graphic design; Robert and Shana Parke-Harrison, photography; and David Peterson, jewelry.

While the works on view are varied in material and sensibility, there are common threads. The photographs of Deb Hall and of Robert Parke-Harrison both explore, through divergent means, human interaction with the environment and with technology. Leslie Ferst's ceramic sculptures embody a dialogue between organic form and utilitarian (man-made) form. David Peterson's meticulously crafted metalwork implies mechanical function, while remaining enigmatic.

Ferst, a visiting assistant professor at Skidmore since 1993, received a B.A. degree in art history from Skidmore in 1976, and an M.F.A. degree in ceramics from Boston University in 1984. Her work has been exhibited extensively at such venues as the Munson Williams Proctor Institute in Utica, N.Y., the Fuller Museum in Brockton, Mass., and the Rockland Center for the Arts in West Nyack, N.Y. Sculpture by Ferst is held in numerous public and private collections, including the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana and the Mori Museum in Japan. 

Hall has taught at Skidmore since 1992 and has been associate professor since 2006. She received a B.F.A. from the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y., and an M.F.A. in digital and visual art from Vermont College in 1998. She has exhibited extensively, including a recent solo exhibit at the Tom Myott Gallery in Glens Falls; group exhibitions include the 33 ^rd PhotoRegional at Albany Center Galleries in 2011 and Context: Art, Words + Letters at the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Gallery in Auburn, N.Y., in 2007.

Robert Parke-Harrison is a new faculty member at Skidmore this fall. He received a B.F.A. from Kansas City Art Institute in 1990, and an M.F.A. from the University of New Mexico in 1994. In 1999 he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He and partner Shana Parke-Harrison create and exhibit work as a collaborative team, publicly claiming co-authorship since 2000. In 2007, the Parke-Harrisons were awarded a Nancy Graves Foundation Fellowship. 'The Architect's Brother," a museum exhibition of 45 of their images, recently traveled throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, showing at the Jack Shainman Gallery in Manhattan in 2011. Their works are held in numerous collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

A Skidmore faculty member since 1984, Peterson has been professor since 1989, and is currently the department chair. He received his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Geneseo in 1980, and an M.F.A. from Indiana State University in 1982. He has exhibited his work in numerous national and international venues, including the Rabonovitch Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum In London in 2006, and SOFA (Sculpture Object and Functional Art) in Chicago in 2005. His work is held in private and public collections at numerous renowned institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the American Craft Museum. 

The exhibit and opening reception are free and open to the public. The Schick Art Gallery is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m. on weekends.