The exhibit includes various prints created through the years by Sweet Briar students.

The third and final exhibition in a series of College-made art, “Sweet Briar Creates III: Student Print Exchanges from the Studio Art Department,” opens Thursday, March 28, in Benedict Gallery.

The show will feature a variety of “print exchange” portfolios created through the years by students in Professor Laura Pharis’ printmaking classes. A different theme unites each class’ prints, which are collected into a single portfolio at the end of the semester. Several of these print portfolios have also made it into the College’s art collection and are now being shown for the first time.

Sweet Briar galleries director, Karol Lawson, says the prints are a great way to wrap up the “Sweet Briar Creates” theme, and a nice complement to the print exhibition “Material, Method, Medium,” which is on view until April 7 in Pannell Gallery.

Benedict Gallery is open from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday, and for special programs and events as announced. Closed for all College holidays and breaks. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at (434) 381-6248 or klawson@sbc.edu.

Tearrance A. Chisholm visits the slave cemetery during his stay at Sweet Briar.

Endstation Theatre Company and Sweet Briar College will host a reading of “In Sweet Remembrance” by playwright Tearrance A. Chisholm at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, in Pannell Gallery. A reception follows the event, which is free and open to the public.

Commissioned by Endstation, Sweet Briar and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, “In Sweet Remembrance” is a tribute to the significant role of the black community throughout the College’s history. Chisholm, who lives in Washington, D.C., has spent the past four summers researching Sweet Briar’s cultural and historical importance, resulting in an original play that, according to Endstation, “explores the landscape of its past, discovers the contours of its present and realizes its future.”

A cast of actors, including Sweet Briar students and hired professionals, will perform the manuscript in its entirety for the first time on March 27. Michael Stablein Jr., who heads the company’s Playwrights Initiative, will direct the reading and also play a small role. Beginning March 10 until the end of the month, Chisholm will be in residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts to revise and complete the play. His visit will also include on-campus workshops for students at Sweet Briar.

In his writing, Chisholm explores the many faces of the African-American experience. The theme of race as a double-edged sword of advantages and shortcomings permeates all of his works, including “Burning Books” (MU New Play Series), “Liddy’s Sammiches, Potions & Baths” (Arkansas Rep; Voices on the River), “Vulpicide” (MU New Play Series) and “A Month of Sundays” (Midwinter Madness Short Play Festival; NYC). Chisholm has also been published in interJACtions: 75 Monologues by some of America’s Finest Playwrights and Arcadia Magazine.

You can learn more about the Playwrights Initiative and “In Sweet Remembrance” on Tumblr.

— Janika Carey

Craig Pleasants, “Taino,” sculpture installation, ca. 2012. Photo courtesy of the artist.

This spring, Virginia-based artist Craig Pleasants will display drawings and a site-specific sculpture installation in Babcock Gallery at Sweet Briar College. “New Work” opens with a reception and gallery talk by the artist at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14. The exhibition is on view until May 5.

The focus of the show will be a large-scale piece constructed of various materials, such as wood, cardboard, used clothing, BFK Rives drawing paper, aluminum foil and the existing, movable walls in the gallery. Pleasants is well known for his functional in- and outdoor installations, but this time, he’s adding a twist: Instead of completing the entire sculpture beforehand, he will be adding to it as the exhibition progresses.

“I have challenged myself to try to do something that can be visited many times over the course of a semester and remain new and fresh,” he said.

“In effect, I will come into the gallery at intervals during the semester and add things or take things away or change things or create large-scale drawings onto the form.”

Sweet Briar galleries director Karol Lawson believes Pleasants’ emphasis on site-specific, unfolding art will fit right in with the College’s dynamic academic (and architectural) landscape.

“Craig’s work will resonate with classes such as Professor Tracy Hamilton’s popular art history course ‘The Land as Art,’ as well as with a new initiative … from the Friends of Art to commission an original sculpture for the Cochran Library renovation and addition.”

Craig Pleasants, untitled drawing, ca. 2012. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Pleasants is the artistic director at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), an artists’ retreat in Amherst. He has exhibited in numerous venues across the country and in Europe for more than 30 years. His shows have included site-specific installations, life-size sculptures, drawings and multimedia performances. He is the recipient of several grants, including three fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Pleasants studied at the University of North Carolina, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture in 1976. He went on to study at L’Institut d’Arts Visuels in Orleans, France, before moving on to Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., where he completed his M.Ed. in humanities in 1983. To learn more, visit craigpleasants.com.

Babcock Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and closed when the College is not in session. It is recommended that visitors call ahead to confirm hours. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at klawson@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6248.

Community art shows such as “Sweet Briar Creates II” are great for providing plenty of I-didn’t-know-you-could-do-that moments. The show is a faculty and staff invitational art exhibition that opens with a reception at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7 in Benedict Gallery. It will remain on view through March 24.

Sweet Briar galleries director Karol Lawson and registrarial assistant Nancy McDearmon organized the exhibition. With Gloria Higginbotham from development and Cyndi Fein from the dean’s office, they formed a panel to select works by more than a dozen College staff and faculty members. The artists and their works represent offices spanning the campus and an array of media.

Crystalline-glazed ceramics by Tony Lilly.

So it is discovered that a poet takes fabulous photographs and crafts artisan furniture, a housekeeper is also a jeweler, a Spanish teacher sculpts metal into fine objects, and a Ukrainian-born pianist from a long line of artists is inspired to paint the vibrant colors of her motherland.

Some have been at their craft for years, even made a living at it. For assistant professor of English Tony Lilly, art is a newfound delight. About 18 months ago he took Joe Monk’s hand-building ceramics class. Soon he was throwing pots on a wheel, but when he saw crystalline glazes at a North Carolina pottery show, he was truly hooked. Now he experiments with dozens of glaze recipes and marvels at the colors and unexpected crystal patterns that emerge from the kiln.

“It’s beautiful, that’s the first thing,” Lilly says of ceramics’ appeal. “And there’s a great balance between control and fate.”

Crystalline, more so than other glazes, allow the artist some say over the outcome, but only so much, he explains. You have to let go and let the crystals do what they’re going to do.

Grants officer Sheila Alexander finds that paintings also can hold surprises and that each one teaches lessons in the process of discovery. Her “Iconic View” depicting New Zealand’s Ruahine Mountains is one such image that visitors can expect to see in the show. It is inspired by the ridges she could see from her home when she lived there. Alexander is naturally drawn to traditional scenes, but tried experimenting with a more contemporary look.

“From [Sweet Briar art professors] John [Morgan] and Laura [Pharis], I’ve learned to take some risks and try some different things. It’s evolving. I’ve had people say that even a beautiful painting of a scene is rather boring and that they like the exploratory nature of looking at a contemporary painting.”

Yet as she worked, she wanted to stay within her ability. One day, she’ll try again to capture the scene more completely — the one she remembers with a touch of homesickness.

Admission to the exhibit is free. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at klawson@sbc.edu or (434) 381­6248.

— Jennifer McManamay

Pablo Picasso, Vallauris 1951 Exposition, 1951, linocut on paper, 30 x 22 inches. Sweet Briar College Art Collection; gift of Rodman Townsend, 1965.

Sweet Briar College will open its exhibition “Material, Method, Medium: Relief and Intaglio Prints from the Permanent Collection” with a reception at 5 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 24, in Pannell Gallery.

The selection features an eclectic mix of prints by American and international artists, including famous names, such as Pablo Picasso and Roy Lichtenstein, path-breaking women, such as Anni Albers and Judy Pfaff, and young innovators, such as Jean Shin and Tara Donovan.

In keeping with other recent art shows in Pannell Gallery, “Material, Method, Medium” is drawn completely from Sweet Briar’s teaching collection, which offers students the opportunity to study art in person without traveling somewhere.

“Not all undergraduate colleges our size have such a wonderful resource conveniently available on campus,” said Sweet Briar Galleries director Karol Lawson.

This time, however, there’s one difference.

As its name suggests, the exhibit is not focused on a unifying theme, but on materials and techniques.

“We will focus here on intaglio-engravings, etchings and the like — and relief prints, in a selection of thirty of the collection’s boldest and most complex works on paper,” Lawson noted.

“We are trying to get people to really look, and to figure out how something’s been made.”

And it’s not always easy to tell. From letter-size black-and-white linocuts to intricate 8-foot collographs, the exhibit showcases the many different ways in which prints can be created. Some are made from engraved images, others from the object itself — such as a lily pad or a pair of jeans.

In Donovan’s case, it’s bubbles of ink and etching acid on a metal plate, using the bubbles in place of an engraving burin to create the image.

Gabor Peterdi, Angry Gulf, 1970, drypoint on paper, 24 x 35 ¾ inches. Sweet Briar College Art Collection; purchase made possible by the Friends of Art, 1979.

Printmaking is a fairly recent endeavor for the New York native, who is best known for site-specific installation art. Using toothpicks, paper plates, pencils, twist-ties, drinking straws and Dixie cups, Donovan “transform[s] utterly mundane materials into mesmerizing, almost ethereal, visions,” Lawson said.

Donovan had her first solo exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1999 and came to national attention with her inclusion in the 2000 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2001, Donovan was the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial fellow and soon thereafter received a residency with Atelier Calder in France. In 2008, the MacArthur Foundation awarded her a prestigious grant recognizing her professional achievements. That same year, Donovan was also given her first major museum retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston.

“Material, Method, Medium” is on view until April 7. For more information, email klawson@sbc.edu or call (434) 381-6248.

— Janika Carey

Students in theater, music and dance will present performances inspired by the Asian theme.

Molly Harper ’13 in “As You Like It” (2011)

The dance department has prepared two dances choreographed to Taiwanese composer Lu Yun’s music. Professors Mark and Ella Magruder met Yun in Taiwan this summer while teaching and presenting at the Dance and the Child International conference (daCi) in Taipei. Ella’s choreography to Yun’s “Puo Suo” will be brought to life by senior Jessica Murphy, sophomores Lily Hoblik, Chelsea Modeste and Katherine Hoyt, and first-years Katie Craig, Calee Whitten, Abby Smith, Jasmine Taylor and Comora Littlejohn.

Mark Magruder’s contribution is a solo to “Monologue for an Old Tattooed Man” from the composer’s “Music from the Mountain” suite.

“I call my solo “Bamboo Memories,” [using] some Sweet Briar bamboo as part of the set,” he said.

The evening will also feature Sweet Briar voice students singing selections from the comic opera “The Mikado” (1885) by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. Led by vocal instructor Marcia Thom, the ensemble includes seniors Ally Booth, Noelle Ames and Kate Macklin, junior Caroline Lacy, sophomores Haley Foraker and Sarah Capen, and first-year Shannon McCarthy.

Flute player Caitlyn Playle ’13 will perform two pieces of folk music arranged by Han Guoliang — “Jasmine” from Jiangsu Province and “Kangding Love Song” from Sichuan Province.

The theater department will be represented by Molly Harper ’13, who will stage excerpts from Brenda Wong Aoki’s “Mermaid Meat and Other Japanese Folk Stories.”

Daisy Williams

Even before Sweet Briar’s recent appearance on the SyFy Channel’s “School Spirits,” the College was known for its rich history of alleged ghostly encounters. The tap clubs Chung Mungs and Tau Phi have been hosting ghost tours and readings for some time, but this year’s event features stories that may not be familiar to past audiences. The program includes fictional and non-fictional accounts, such as “The Shadow Child,” which appeared in the very first Sweet Briar Magazine in 1909, “A Mid Summer Night’s Vision of Daisy’s Garden” from 1915, and a news story from 1928 titled “Novel Ghost Flits Far Ahead.”

After the reading, attendees are invited to tour the museum and learn more about Sweet Briar founder, Indiana Fletcher Williams, and her daughter, Daisy Williams, who died at the age of 16. The exhibition features a variety of historical artifacts, such as family portraits, jewelry and toys, as well as a lock of Daisy’s hair. Many of Sweet Briar’s ghost stories revolve around Daisy and the idea that she still “haunts” the College today. Synopses of some of these stories can be found on the College’s interactive campus map under the layer “Ghost.”

For more information about the event, please contact Sweet Briar galleries director Karol Lawson at (434) 381-6248 or klawson@sbc.edu.

CM Burroughs ’04 during a reading

Burroughs has been awarded fellowships and grants from Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Cave Canem Foundation, Callaloo Writers Workshop and the University of Pittsburgh. She has received commissions from the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Warhol Museum to create poetry in response to art installations. Her poetry has appeared in various journals, including Callaloo, jubilat, Ploughshares, VOLT, Bat City Review and Sou’wester. She holds an M.F.A. from the University of Pittsburgh and has been teaching composition and poetry for seven years, currently as the Elma Stuckey Poet-in-Residence at Columbia College of Chicago.

Her debut collection, “The Vital System,” was released by Tupelo Press in September. On its website, the publisher praises Burroughs as a poet who is “already setting off sparks among readers across the globe.”

As the title of her collection suggests, “The body is the most significant figure of my poetry,” Burroughs says. “The beginning and end of all acts, the body is the harbor of all my thematic obsessions: vulnerability, modes of strength, the female body, and the ‘I’ in relation to all Others, namely the relationship of the ‘I’ to threatening and/or intimate Others.”

Fellow poet Douglas Kearney sees “vivid grief, livid vulnerability and bristling sensuality” in her texts, as well as “terrible resilience and dangerous vitality.”

These emotions are driven and enhanced by the poet’s deliberate use — and abuse — of linguistic conventions and imagery.

“The Vital System,” writes Laurie Sheck, is a “provocative” collection in which Burroughs engages with the page “as a visual field.” In it, Sheck adds, Burroughs “enacts the ways in which the very nature of thought is brokenness and disruption.”

Tupelo Press explains that “Burroughs’s compression of phrasing, subverted syntax, and ability to release a story through cinematically sequenced images allow her to expose particular tensions that are gendered and racial as well as essentially human.”

The cinema connection isn’t a coincidence. After all, the poet says that much of her inspiration comes from French movies.

“Godard films always draw contemplation,” she says. In 2011, Burroughs spent a month in France “in order to have quiet, the observatory quality of foreignness and to work on my second book.”

Burroughs says her poetic voice began developing when she was a student at Sweet Briar. Back then it wasn’t France, but the Central Virginia campus, that served as her “quiet place.”

“I used Sweet Briar’s landscape in order to have quiet, an open observation to what my poetry wanted to be, and cultivate a careful listening for who I was then and, perhaps, who I would become,” she remembers.

While at Sweet Briar, Burroughs, who graduated a year early, took advantage of many other opportunities. She was a resident advisor for two and a half years and held other leadership positions.

“I found it the perfect place to develop myself and to develop what have become decade-long friendships,” she says.

This will be her third time returning to campus.

— Janika Carey

Kevin Crowe, Vase, 2012, wood-fired stoneware. Courtesy of the artist; photo by Tim Carlson, Studio C.

Renowned local potter Kevin Crowe is exhibiting his work at Sweet Briar College this fall. “Kevin Crowe: Feeding Fire” will open on Thursday, Sept. 20 in Babcock Gallery with a reception and talk by the artist at 5 p.m.

“The exhibitions featured in Babcock Gallery typically focus on established artists who are actively producing new work, so that Sweet Briar students can see current works coming right out of an artist’s studio,” said Sweet Briar galleries director, Karol Lawson.

“Crowe’s stoneware will offer ceramics students working with Professor Joe Monk some fascinating examples to study.”

Crowe is the founder of Tye River Pottery in Nelson County and has been creating wood-fired stoneware and porcelain pottery for 30 years. He is internationally known for “sophisticated, contemporary pieces using ancient techniques,” according to Lawson. His work has been shown in galleries across the country, and he has shared his expertise in throwing pots and designing and constructing wood-fired kilns in numerous articles, lectures and workshops. For more information, visit kevincrowepottery.com.

The exhibition runs until Dec. 9. Babcock Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at klawson@sbc.edu or (434) 381-6248. The gallery closes when the College is not in session; it is recommended that visitors call ahead to confirm hours.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865), Autumn Moon, 1857, woodblock on paper, 14 x 9 1/2 inches. Sweet Briar College Art Collection; gift of Miss Ruth Woodhull Smith, 1970.

Sweet Briar College will open its exhibition “ASIA: Selections from the Permanent Collection” with a reception at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14 in Pannell Gallery. The exhibition runs until Dec. 14 and is free and open to the public.

Drawing from the College’s extensive permanent collection, “ASIA” showcases a variety of works “with an Asian theme and from a wide geographic area spanning Japan, China and India,” said Karol Lawson, director of Sweet Briar galleries. The selection includes woodblock prints, textiles and decorative arts, as well as manuscripts, scrolls and modern paintings.

“Our primary goal is to support the curriculum,” Lawson said. “We anticipate that this exhibition will provide much material for classes such as associate professor Tracy Hamilton’s art history class on the arts of Asia.”

The exhibition will be complemented by two related gallery events later this fall. “A Conversation in the Gallery” featuring Professor Debbie Durham’s informal remarks on the anthropology of globalization will take place at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 9. Attendees are welcome to bring lunch. Students from the Division of Performing Arts will present music, dance and dramatic readings during an “Evening of Performance” at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30.

Pannell Gallery is open from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, and for special programs and events as announced. Closed for all College holidays and breaks. For more information, contact Karol Lawson at (434) 381-6248 or klawson@sbc.edu.