Oil and Clay: Two Artists Offer Variety in Mullins Library

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The artistic output of Jean Collins and Cheryl Buell may not take the same form, but it originatesin a similar impulse-the creation of art to explore the spiritual.

Collins states, "Painting offerspassage to a sacred realm for me." A native of New Mexico, Collins spent a year studying painting and art history at the Paris American Academy, but she says her life as an artist did not begin in earnest until she took a year-long sabbatical from her position as library dean at Northern Arizona University. She says, "There were so many paintings pent up inside that I simply watched in amazement as one painting after another came from somewhere deep within me, paintings I must have been harboring for years."

Buell, a longtime regular exhibitor at Farmer's Market on the FayettevilleSquare, says her series of ceramic wall hangings began with the desire to "explore the thought of death and release." Buell's pieces, not for the faint of heart, feature mummified remains of birds fired onto the clay wall hangings. These carefully wrapped birds symbolize for Buell "the feeling of being bound and wrapped in this shell we call the body," whereas their arched wings "represent release as we break free of the shell." In one whimsical piece, "The Observer," a tiny mouse joins the party to watch two birds joined in their frozen dance of death-or rebirth.

"Oil and Clay" will be exhibited in Mullins Library's main lobby level through the end of October. For more information, call (479) 575-6702 or visit http://libinfo.uark.edu/info/artexhibit.asp