When I first read Truong’s “Bitter in the Mouth,” it quickly became a favorite of mine. My memories of reading the book are ones of home. I read much of the book lying in a hammock in the shade of a magnolia tree fearing the blistering North Carolina weather.

I think my fondness for “Bitter in the Mouth” is due to its familiarity. The book follows Linda Hammerick as she navigates friendship, family and adolescence in Boiling Springs, North Carolina — a small, southern town not too different from my own. Truong exquisitely captures this place, the people that inhabit it and, most acutely, the emotion of this stage of life.

Similarly, her most recent novel — published in 2019 — “The Sweetest Fruits,” is also told from the first-person perspective of a woman; in fact, several women.

When I asked how she would define being a woman, or womanhood more broadly, Truong said:

“It’s to be defined by your body, whether you like it or not. I think to unpack that, it means you are not a blank slate in the world. There is already a narrative, multiple narratives, written about your body that you are essentially born into. Some of it may be things that you can embrace and you feel connected to, and others…are things that you will need to push against.”

In this moment, in the wake of Roe v. Wade and ensuing uncertainty over the governance of female autonomy, it is so pertinent to address how women are often defined by their bodies. 

Truong continued, “I think the struggle for me, and for many women, is that journey of defining what it means to be a woman in relationship to these existing narratives. What does it mean to you and not what others have imposed upon you?”

Reconciling mixed emotions over what it means to be a woman is its own battle. Truong voiced her experiences and the unique difficulties that came with growing up in the South as an Asian American woman.

“I have never been comfortable within my body. Part of it was actually growing up in the U.S. … it was something that was problematic to other people. And it was something that I could not understand as a child because, not only was I in a female body — which later would become even more significant to all that is going to try to define me — but I was in an Asian body. When I came to the U.S. and specifically Boiling Springs I became something that I didn’t understand, which was this racial other, this Asian other.”

When feeling uncomfortable in her body, Truong says that she has always found a certain redeeming confidence in her brain, her intellect.

“The thing about my body that I am comfortable with, and have always been comfortable with, is my brain. That has never let me down!” Truong says laughing. 

Truong then added, “[My brain] has gotten me everywhere that I needed to be in my life today.” 

The everywhere Truong refers to includes Yale College, where she studied literature. 

Truong arrived at Yale, typewriter in tow, in 1986 — 17 years after Yale College first began admitting female students. 

When asked if her educational career’s proximity to Yale College’s first female admits affected her experience Truong began, “I don’t think I understood the impact of the relatively brief history of women at Yale and … what sort of message it sent to me as I was a student there.”

During Truong’s time at Yale, the odes to female success that we see around campus now — The Women’s Table, residential colleges Grace Hopper and Pauli Murray and the Portrait of Yale’s first seven women doctorates in Sterling, to name a few — weren’t around.

Commenting on this lack of representation, Truong said, “There hasn’t been that long history of women playing a significant role at the university. And, you know, that might seem like a kind of superficial or trivial thing like ‘What does it matter if the paintings are of white men?’ Of course it matters! It matters because every single day this is what you’re looking at.”

Female role models are the igniters of progress, as they do what has never been done. Seeing women on screen, or reading about them in books, is what allows young girls to envision their futures unobstructed by what a woman can or should be. 

Truong spoke a lot about how she has been shaped by both real and fictional women, primarily her mother and Jo March from Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” “[Before Jo], I don’t think I had read about a woman, a girl, being a writer or wanting to be a writer,” Truong said. “Reading about her desire and seeing her so doggedly working towards it and wanting this life of letters that was just kind of the beginning of the road map.” 

When asked about who inspires her the most, Truong responded, “…my mother because she has gone through the kind of life changes that I could never imagine: being a woman in her thirties all of a sudden losing her country, her language, her family, everything and coming to the U.S. and having the ability to continue to live and create a life.”

Truong’s mother later went to nursing school in North Carolina to become an Intensive Care Unit — ICU — nurse. Reflecting on this time in her mother’s life, Truong remarked that she didn’t think she would have that kind of strength.

When asked what she would say if she could go back in time and give a piece of advice to the girl who left Saigon, Vietnam for Boiling Springs, North Carolina, Truong provided a sentiment that many, regardless of gender, age or sexual orientation, will resonate with:

“There are certain limits to words. Even though I’m a writer. If I reach back and tell that little girl ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’ I don’t think she can actually do very much with that. I think what I would want to do for her is to hug her. You know, there are other forms of communication.”

As March comes to a close, take a moment to reflect on how far we’ve come; as individuals, as a university, and humanity as a whole.

The post Monique Truong on identity and the female narrative appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Roger Reynolds, the senior legal director at Save the Sound, explained that Tweed is in a small residential area that is in a flood zone, so thoroughly studying the environmental impacts of Tweed’s expansion on surrounding neighborhoods and the environment is essential.

“It was the FAA that ultimately concluded that there were no significant environmental impacts, again, despite the fact that this would increase emissions in the area, would have flooding consequences and would have water quality consequences,” Reynolds said.

According to Reynolds, Save the Sound is concerned that the FAA’s use of an Environmental Assessment, or EA, rather than the more rigorous Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, may have overlooked some consequences of Tweed’s expansion.

Both East Haven and Save the Sound are seeking an EIS, specifically due to the EA’s neglect of how Tweed’s expansion could affect tidal wetlands, water quality and flood control in the East Haven area.

Typically, once an EA has been issued, this leads to either an EIS or a FONSI. An EIS is issued if there is evidence of significant environmental impact in the initial EA. In this case, the FAA did not identify the potential for significant environmental impact.

In the event that the appeals of the Town of East Haven and Save the Sound against the FAA’s FONSI are approved, they would move on to the Environmental Appeals Board for review. 

Reynolds added that one of the FAA’s conclusions was that increasing the size of the airport would result in reduced emissions under the assumption that the demand for flights would not be affected by the expansion, even though the expansion would increase the capacity of the airport and would allow for more flights and bigger planes, including additional freight flights.

Neelakshi Hudda, a professor at Tufts University who has studied the air quality impacts of Tweed’s current emissions, also questioned the assumption that the number of enplaned passengers would remain constant after the expansion. 

“There’s no need for [an expansion] if there isn’t a demand. How is this profitable if there’s no demand?” Hudda asked.

She noted that the building of new infrastructure would likely induce greater demand.

The Tweed New Haven Final EA document mentions that the estimated number of enplaning passengers in 2026 without and with the expansion is the same, so the number of enplaning passengers will increase over time but not as a direct result of the airport expansion.

The FAA’s environmental protection specialist assigned to review Tweed’s environmental impact was not immediately available for comment regarding how this assumption was made.

“I can say that all of us in our neighborhood deserve an Environmental Impact Statement. There is simply too much at stake to let this proposed expansion go through uncontested,” Lynne Bonnett, the New Haven representative on the Project Advisory Committee for the current Environmental Assessment, wrote.

Save the Sound has noted that the EA assumes that expanding the airport could potentially improve air quality.

This conclusion is a result of the FAA’s assumption that an expansion will not increase passenger demand for flights and that the expansion will allow them to use larger, more efficient planes.

“The decision is neither fair, safe, nor equitable, offering no resolution to the multitude of issues posed by a project of this magnitude,” Mayor of East Haven Joseph Carfora wrote. “The appeal is our only recourse.”

The Tweed New Haven airport is located at 155 Burr St.

The post East Haven and Save the Sound appeal FAA findings on Tweed’s environmental impact appeared first on Yale Daily News.

KLG is an art collective located in the Westville neighborhood at 873 Whalley Ave. The gallery represents 22 of New Haven’s notable and emerging artists. The latest exhibitions that closed earlier this month were “HEDGE,” by photographer Marjorie Wolfe, and “CLAY,” by ceramic artist Amanda Duchen.

“This gallery has been great for women,” Wolfe told the News. “We’ve had all kinds of wonderful people represented here who no longer show their work here but have done amazing things — Emilia Dubicki, Susan Clinard. I mean, these are big names in New Haven art.” 

Wolfe grew up in Beaver Hills, the neighborhood just beside Westville, where KLG is located.

Wolfe’s idea for HEDGE began two years ago when she was visiting Martha’s Vineyard. There, she photographed a hedge on the island. She later returned to it in the following months to find that, after the season change and a huge snowstorm, the hedge looked drastically different.

In this way, Wolfe’s work is reminiscent of Monet’s “Rouen Cathedral” series. The intentions of both artists are the same: to photograph a static object as the world around it changes.

For Wolfe, this exhibition is also nostalgic and personal. 

“I first had an experience with hedges when I was about four years old. I lived on a street exactly one mile from [KLG] and to get to my best friend’s house I would [go through]  a hedge with an opening in it just big enough for a little girl to crawl through,” Wolfe said. “So [with this exhibition] I was kind of coming back to something that was in my mind all along. It struck me this morning [that] this little girl, my best friend who I would crawl through the hedge to visit, it would be her birthday. She’d be 75 today.”

As a child, art was always a part of Wolfe’s life. At an early age, her parents encouraged her to take art lessons outside of school.

It was this love for art that led Wolfe to the Rhode Island School of Design, where she received her bachelor’s in painting and took her first photography class.

“Junior year I had one class in photography as an elective,” Wolfe told the News. “It was that slap upside the head moment, aha, too late.” 

While it was have been too late for her to switch majors, that did not stop Wolfe from pursuing photography. She said that many of the art techniques that she learned from painting were directly transferable to this new medium. 

Studying painting allowed Wolfe to learn composition, which could then be applied to her photography, to determine “what belongs in the frame,” as she put it.

Wolfe has gone to great lengths to capture the perfect composition. Once, when photographing a sports car in front of a gigantic hedge in California, she laid down on the road to get the shot.

She recounted another time when she ran — camera bag and all — to chase a composition for her photograph “Ocean Park Hedge.”

“[And so I’m] running up the hill thinking ‘get this picture before that cloud goes away’ because the cloud makes it. So that was a lucky photograph,” Wolfe recalled.

The photo, “Ocean Park Hedge,” demonstrates repetition of shape. In the foreground, there is a group of round hedges off to the left. In the background, the clouds in the sky mirror the shape of the hedges.

Repetition is pervasive in Wolfe’s photographs. In “Wainscoting” the sharp edges and repeating vertical lines of a staircase create a compelling composition. Similarly, in “The Road to San Galgano” the perspective provides the viewer with a diverging path lined with trees, which creates a linear structure and a repeating pattern of the trees on either side.

Wolfe taught photography to high school students for 37 years. She said that finding perspective was something she always instilled in her students. 

“I would teach my kids if you find something that you think is going to make a good image, before you release the shutter, just step to the right or left or just kneel down a little bit and see how it changes through the viewfinder,” Wolfe said. “Stand on your toes. Just make sure you have the best composition.” 

The second exhibition on display was the work of Amanda Duchen. Duchen is a trained architect from South Africa. In addition to architecture, she also creates works of art using clay.

A common technique that Duchen utilizes is raku. Raku is a Japanese firing technique for pottery where it is first fired at a lower temperature and then moved while hot. Transferring the pottery from the kiln while it is still hot causes a shock to the clay. As a result, the glaze crackles. The next step is putting the pottery in a container filled with combustible material which causes a reaction within the pottery that creates unique colors and patterns.

“What’s so lovely about raku [is that] it’s so unpredictable,” Duchen said.

Though Wolfe and Duchen are working with different materials and subject matter, there is some overlap with the nature motifs present in their works.

Duchen’s exhibition consists of several of her wheel-thrown ceramic bowls and other vessels, many of which use the raku technique or a variation of the technique, called naked raku. This variation creates a different effect due to the second porcelain slip that is added to serve as a barrier glaze. The slip eventually peels away to reveal a smoke-like design as the combustible material is able to permeate through.

Another technique Duchen uses in her work is inscription. Carving into the clay while it is still malleable allows Duchen to write quotes and phrases on the inside of the bowls.

In one instance, she inscribed the words of Rudyard Kipling, “I am by calling a dealer in words and words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”

Beside the bowls were a set of seed-shaped vases. Within them were South African protea flowers.

When asked about the influence of South African culture on her work, Duchen said, “There’s definitely a strong connection with Africa. The gourds, or seed-like vessels, are very African.” 

She also mentioned that the smoke-firing technique is a common practice among South African potters.

Another feature of Duchen’s exhibition, aside from the ceramic bowls, was a series of hand-molded figures. The figures were animalistic, resembling goats and canines. 

The animal figures incorporated used objects and little trinkets that Duchen had collected, such as miniature light bulbs and sugar tongs.

The News spoke with another KLG artist Eddie Hall, who was helping manage the closing reception for Wolfe and Duchen’s exhibits, about his time at the gallery. 

“It’s been a great experience,” Hall said, “It’s a lot of artists working together. We share the responsibilities. It’s a great combination of artists and brings a lot of diversity of art.” 

KLG exhibited their annual Deck the Walls event starting Nov. 16 and will remain up until Dec. 24.

The post Kehler Liddell Gallery presents CLAY and HEDGE appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Bitner spoke with students enrolled in the Advanced Photography Project Seminar, which is taught by professor Lisa Kereszi ART ’00. The talk was supported by the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism.

“I’ve had a camera in my hands since I was a child,” Bitner wrote to the News. “When I was studying art and exploring various art-making methods and tools, photography felt the most natural to me. It was my language.”

Bitner’s photography is on display at Hamilton College’s Wellin Museum of Art. The exhibition includes seven of Bitner’s photographic series, such as “Circus,” “Stage” and “Pointe.” The exhibition went up on Sept. 9 and it will remain on display until Dec. 9.

The photographic series spans 30 years of Bitner’s work. “Circus” documents a decade of Bitner’s life, during which she followed 46 different circus troupes around Europe. 

“I was interested in the parallels between how the circus is structured: The circle as mimicking our planet but also as a sacred space, and the hierarchy of the performers,” Bitner wrote. “The acrobats are angels flying through the air, the clowns represent us; we get knocked down and we have to get back up, we juggle, jump through hoops, hang by a thread, perform balancing acts.”

Bitner said that she has been inspired by other artists including Zoe Leonard for her process and structure, On Kawara for his exploration of time, Claude Monet for his methodical technique and Jason Moran for his “ferocity.” 

Place, Bitner said, has inspired her work as well. Growing up in New York gave the photographer broad access to the arts. As a child, she often visited museums, ballets, concerts and the theater.

“[I sat] mostly [in] the last rows of the balcony, which was what our budget allowed,” Bitner said. “Seeing the stage at that angle was in some way defining. That is why my work retains a sense of wonder — someone once described it as the perspective of a child peering through a keyhole.” 

Lisa Kereszi, who is also the director of undergraduate studies for art, welcomed Bitner to Yale last week. Kereszi, like Bitner, is a photographer and shared that the two artists have photographed many of the same subjects.

“Our work intersects around themes of performance and spectacle, and the spaces that house them when they are not full of people,” Kereszi wrote the News. “We somehow had previously passed like ships in the night, circling around some of the same subject matter, such as circuses and venues like CBGB’s [a New York music club].”

Bitner also visited the studios of School of Art students, as well as seniors concentrating in photography to provide them with feedback on their work.

Among the art students who received a studio visit from Bitner was Aliaksandra Tucha ART ’25.

“I’ve had a studio visit with Rhona Bitner. I was moved by how kind, perceptive, and caring she was,” Tucha wrote. “She is a true teacher. She shared how she thickened her own skin, shared about her journey as an artist. I needed it all. In moments of doubt, this is what I hold onto. Rhona is someone who made me feel courageous, which I know I am, but it doesn’t always feel so. I feel stronger now that I know her.”

Her exhibition at the Wellin Museum of Art is the first solo museum survey of Bitner’s photographs. Her work has also been exhibited at museums and institutes including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and Fonds national d’Art contemporain in Paris. 

Bitner is a 2020 recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, and she recently published a book of her photographs with Rizzoli titled “Listen: The Stages and Studios That Shaped American Music.” 

When asked about whether or not she’s ever experimented with other media, Bitner hinted at future work saying, “I am an active and willing participant, viewer, reader, audience member, but I do not incorporate other media in my work … yet.”

The Poynter Fellowship in Journalism will host The New Yorker’s art critic on Tuesday at 4 p.m. at Pierson College’s Leitner House.

Update, Nov. 11: The article was updated to more clarify Kereszi’s title.

The post Artist Rhona Bitner visits seminar, talks photography work appeared first on Yale Daily News.

“I would say that we have three of the most controversial figures in the art world [with us tonight],” Magnus told the class before introducing the first speaker. 

Magnus Resch, an author and economist, is the instructor for “Entrepreneurship in the art market.” 

Every class session throughout the course begins with an artist talk. There are also guest lectures with a Q&A section prepared by student groups. 

Due to the nature of the class, the final project can be either a paper about the future of the art market or a piece of artwork students create that reflects what the they have learned.

“I’ve always been interested in the intersection of art and business,” Resch told the News. “It’s important for artists to understand what industry they’re really getting into.” 

The lineup began with Jeff Koons, the most expensive living artist, who was followed by art columnist Kenny Schachter and art collector Stefan Simchowitz — all three of whom dialed in on Zoom. An expensive artist is someone whose work is sold at high prices. 

Big names like these are typical for guest speakers in Resch’s course. Students in past years have heard from speakers including artists KAWS, Alex Israel ’03 and Tavares Strachan ART ’06. Other past speakers have included prominent figures in the business world, such as the CEO of Sotheby’s, Charles Stewart ’92 and the Chairman of the Fine Arts Division at Sotheby’s Amy Cappellazzo.

Every year, the course brings in notable players in the art world to speak directly to students about their experiences making, selling and buying art. The students also receive hands-on opportunities in the form of class trips to art fairs, such as the Armory Show in New York.

“Magnus is not only an engaging speaker, but his deep involvement in the subject matter makes the class feel authentic and dynamic,” Rafael Villares ART ’24 wrote the News. “Furthermore, the class serves as a unique intersection between two worlds often kept separate in academia. Many art schools shy away from discussing the art market with students, so this class is enlightening in that regard.”

Koons is a sculpture artist known for his large-scale works like “Balloon Dog,” “Puppy” and “Rabbit.” He has also made headlines for plagiarism and copyright infringement allegations. 

His works, which he self-described as having “transcended” the art world, have sold for millions at top galleries including Gagosian, Pace and David Zwirner.

Each discussion with the three speakers was framed around questions compiled by students in the class. The topics included art and technology, criticism and career planning. 

“I think what I’ve come to appreciate about this class and about the interview of the guest is that we’ve been really encouraged to ask the hard questions,” Samanta Cubias DRA ’24, SOM ’24 told the News. 

The prestige surrounding Koons’s work prompted Cubias to ask about the power imbalance between artists and the galleries and curators that they work with. She asked if Koons’ status had provided him with an upper hand in negotiations with gallerists.

Koons responded by saying that he enjoys the social and relational aspects of his job — working with galleries and curators — but his purpose in art making is always to serve his work and others. 

“Hopefully when people come into contact with my work, they realize their own potential,” Koons said.

During his interview in class, Koons also shared anecdotes about his family and his early life as an artist, mentioning the time he met surrealist painter Salvador Dali at The St. Regis Hotel in New York.

When one student asked him if there was “a point where you had to release the need to have your hands in every piece,” Koons’ responded that since his works have gotten larger, he has required a team of people to help execute his vision. Processes like casting, which Koons said he has other people do, “take a lot of instruction.” 

Koons said that he had to relinquish control over his work “Puppy,” which is composed of live flowers. Despite planning out where each flower was to grow, he said the ultimate creative decisions were up to nature.

The second speaker, Kenny Schachter, made his first appearance in the art world as a writer and critic. He now has a column for Artnet, an art market website, and has his own exhibitions.

Schachter did not elaborate much on current issues in the art world during the talk — beyond referring to the art market as “the most conservative, backwards business … 90 percent of which is old white rich people.”

“Women and people of color are [still] underrepresented in galleries and museums. It’s an uphill battle for a lot of [these] artists to make a living and find success and recognition for the work that they dedicate their lives to,” Leigh Bushnell SOM ’24 told the News after class.

During his segment of the talk, Schachter showed the audience his two most recent exhibitions, called “Keep hope alive” and “Kenny’s list.” 

Students in the class then asked Schachter to explain the meaning behind some of his most prominent works. One of the chosen pieces was “Koons Call of Duty,” a photo of Jeff Koons holding his balloon sculptures with an edited Call of Duty backdrop. The text in the foreground reads: “There’s an artist in all of us.”

When explaining the purpose behind his art, Schacter said that humor is often integral to his creative process.

Stefan Simchowitz spoke last. Simchowitz was recently profiled in The Wall Street Journal about his success in curation and art collection. Similar to the previous two speakers, however, he also received criticism and backlash during his career, with one New York Times headline referring to him as “The Art World’s Patron Satan.” Those that criticize Simchowitz’s work claim that he buys the work of young artists and then “flips” them to increase the prices before selling them to buyers. 

Simchowitz spoke about his non-traditional approach to curation and art collection. He discovers budding artists on Instagram, rather than through networking at art events.

In a similar way to the speakers at the talk, Resch said he entered the art world early on by selling art as a way to finance his undergraduate education. However, he said that art is not a very good investment.

“Don’t buy art as an investment, but to support artists and the art community,” Resch told the News when asked what advice he would give to students interested in art and business. 

“Rabbit,” a sculpture by Jeff Koons, sold for $91.1 million at Christie’s.

The post Art market icons talk to SOM class appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Recently, Yale and New Haven have seen many new works of art go on display. This past summer, the Wu Tsai Institute finished Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #1081” at its new location on College Street. Around New Haven, other artists such as Lindaluz Carrillo and FUNQUEST have painted murals for the city over the last few years. 

“That’s something that is really important,” Carrillo told the News, “being intentional about how you’re connecting with the people you’re creating artwork for.”

Carillo’s “Shifting Perspectives” is located on 151 Orange St. The mural is a diptych. The background is a cloudy sky, painted over with rich hues. On one side, a hand extends from a portal and clenches the stem of a yellow flower; on the other, a young woman’s melancholic face looks out at the street. Its subjects are people of color.

Carrillo is a multimedia artist. Having recently finished an artist-in-residency program at the School of Visual Arts in New York, she said that the mural helped push her out of her comfort zone. 

As an artist, Carrillo typically deals with typography, or text-heavy works — the heavy use of imagery, as seen in this mural, is a new experience.

“With this one, it was a combination of wanting to push outside of something that I normally do, … but also thinking about the people that go to the store,” Carrillo said. “I think that the space holds a specific demographic of folks and I want to make sure that the color choices that I’m using and the concept of exploration and curiosity ties in with what that space is.”

According to Carrillo, “Shifting Perspectives” is open to public interpretation. Something that was important to her during the process of creating the mural was thinking about how it would interact with and impact the surrounding community.

Below the mural is Strange Ways, a fashion accessories store. 

“Everything is very vibrant; everything tells a story,” Carillo said of the store. “I took a lot of the space into consideration while I was making [the mural].” 

Another mural, “Coming to New Haven” by FUNQUEST, can be found on 278 Orange St. The piece was completed in 2022. 

Originally from Japan, FUNQEST’s work has been heavily influenced by anime. Their artistic style is very colorful and geometric, with an almost cartoon-like quality reminiscent of street art or pop art.

This mural in particular depicts a cyborg-like character that FUNQEST created called “Mr. No Limit.” In the mural, Mr. No Limit is carrying a bucket of bright pink paint. His body is composed of many smaller puzzle pieces, and he is holding a paint roller, having just written “Love you, New Haven” on the wall. The character is one that resurfaces in many of his works. 

When asked about the color choice and the purpose of the mural, FUNQEST told the News that “the story behind the mural is that Mr. No Limit came to New Haven to brighten the atmosphere and make the people happy.”

On Yale’s campus, the Wu Tsai Institute revealed a new work of art at their 100 College St. location. The wall drawing is a design by artist Sol LeWitt.

LeWitt’s portfolio consists of blueprints and sketches for what would later become thousands of wall drawings. With every sketch, LeWitt also provides instructions on changing the proportions of the drawing; he also lists the specific pigments as well as how to mix them to achieve a certain color.

The specificity of the instructions allows anyone with an understanding of artmaking to recreate one of Sol’s sketches and turn it into life-sized wall art.

According to John Hogan, an archivist for Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings at the Yale University Art Gallery, accessibility to artmaking was a large inspiration behind LeWitt’s work.

One way LeWitt aimed to make artistry more widespread and accessible was through Printed Matter, his own bookstore that provides fairly priced books on art for easy dissemination of knowledge.

“When [LeWitt] made his artists’ books, he didn’t want them to become collectible. He just wanted people to be able to mail [someone an] artwork for 20 bucks,” Hogan told the News. “[You] could fax the instructions in the diagram to the other side of the world [and recreate it] with number 6 pencils, basic primary, secondary colors of paint. [Anyone] who has a reasonable understanding of art making skills can install the work.”

The Wu Tsai Institute was established in 2021 with a gift from Joseph C. Tsai ’86 LAW ’90 and Clara Wu Tsai.

The post If these walls could talk appeared first on Yale Daily News.

One is covered in vibrant portraits, and the other showcases high-contrast black-and-white images of natural scenes, displaying the current exhibitions of Brian Flinn and R.F. Wilton. 

Kehler Liddell is a local art gallery located on Whalley Avenue. This past June, the gallery celebrated its 20th anniversary. The ever-changing exhibitions at Kehler Liddell cover an array of artists and media. From Sept. 7 until Oct. 8, two exhibitions are on display: “Adjusted Intentions” by digital artist Brian Flinn and “Forces of Attraction” by photographer R.F. Wilton.

“[Art] is just another way of expressing who we are as people,” Flynn said. “This kind of work for me began and still remains kind of my own internal search, you know, just basically collecting things and putting them together and then [seeing] what these relationships say to me. What sense do I get out of it? It’s almost like writing a story and not knowing where the ending is going to be.”

“Adjusted Intentions” is an exhibition that focuses on how artificial intelligence can be a collaborator in the creative process. Flinn’s exhibition can be separated into four different “niches”: early illustrations, large-scale collage, or one of two different portrait series.

Flinn has been with Kehler Liddell since 2017, making “Adjusted Intentions” his fourth show at the gallery.

“It’s been a fantastic gallery with really great artists that just work to make sure we always have places to show and to support each other as you go through that process,” Flinn told the News.

Flinn began as an illustrator in the ’90s. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that he began to use computer technology, like Photoshop, in his practice.

The use of AI, Flinn said, has been considered a faux pas in many art circles. Flinn mentioned that several of his colleagues are adamantly against the use of AI. However, Flinn told the News that believes that it is going to be an invaluable tool for artists.

“I liken [the use of artificial intelligence in art] to what happened with digital photography for years,” he said. “There were a lot of arguments about how digital would never surpass film. The grain was too good.”

Upon entering the gallery, the first of Flinn’s works is a series of black-and-white scarecrow portraits. The photos began as illustrations that were then uploaded into DALL-E 2, an art-producing artificial intelligence software. DALL-E 2 enhances the photos, sometimes creating a new iteration of the original sketch, but Flinn makes the final adjustments.

Another section of Flinn’s exhibition is a series of 10 portraits. Like the scarecrow photos, the portraits begin with a collage that Flinn created called “685,000 reasons.”

“When I was playing with the generators, I would take some old work and some new works and just kind of throw them in there and see what happened. And sometimes the results were fascinating,” Flinn said. 

“I felt the exhibit was creative and interesting,” Rachel Spells, who was visiting the gallery exhibition, said. “ I was intrigued by the piece done with the AI.”

The second exhibition currently on display at the gallery is R.F. Wilton’s “Forces of Attraction,” which spans 50 years: from the conception of his experimentation in photography to the present.

Wilton told the News that one of his favorite things to photograph is how substances and materials interact with light, or “hold the light” as he puts it.

Wilton’s works cover a wide range of subject matter. Many of the photographs on display were ones he took in Litchfield County, Connecticut, even in his own backyard. 

When asked about the purpose of his work, Wilton told the News, “I’m retired now, so the only agenda I have to satisfy or adhere to is my own. Does this work? Do I respond to the work itself?”

The first few photos are all black-and-white photos of nature — a solar eclipse, a waterfall and mounds of snow. The works are reminiscent of Ansel Adams who Wilton named as one of his artistic influences. Each photo shows stark contrast as darks are juxtaposed with bright areas of white light.

“I meditate and so I kind of apply that sort of practice to my state of being when I’m looking to be engaged with the environment and let it reveal things to me and I can respond to these stimuli or phenomena more easily and more readily,” Wilton said. “These are the kind of things that tend to draw my attention when I’m in the world. And so consequently they’re subjects and approaches that I have repeated time and time again over the course of a 50-year engagement with photography.” 

Other photos in Wilton’s exhibition “Forces of Attraction” showcase architecture and signage. One image of a colorful storefront resembles a page from “Where’s Waldo,” Wilton added. A close inspection of the work reveals layers within the photo: the storefront itself, the items found within the store and the reflection of the street in the glass. 

“Sometimes the end result isn’t always, I think, what’s so important [with art], although that’s what drives you,” Flinn told the News. “It’s all about the creative process, that continual thing that just keeps going.”

Before taking up photography, Wilton worked as an enterprise software engineer for Dun & Bradstreet.

The post A.I. and intentionality explored in two new Kehler Liddell Gallery Exhibitions appeared first on Yale Daily News.

The band and the authors inside the auditorium celebrated the fourth annual Elm City Lit Fest. The festival welcomes authors of comic books, memoirs and children’s books. The theme for 2023 was Literature of Hope, and the celebration culminated in the announcement of the 2023 Elm City Poet Laureate: Sharmont Influence-Little.

“I believe that when people in New Haven get to read these stories, it will make a difference [in] their lives in a positive way,” author Yvette Phillips told the News. “What difference can I make in my community from the stories that I’ve read?” 

The event at the Q-House was held in conjunction with the Stetson Branch Library, a public library that hosts events year-round. Attendees at Saturday’s festival pointed to Stetson as being the epicenter for the Dixwell neighborhood, bringing people of all ages and backgrounds together. 

In the month ahead, Stetson will be hosting several events for community members including Stay and Play for children, the Fair Haven Book Club and a Headshots and Networking event. 

Following the day’s events at Q-House and the Stetson Branch Library, a keynote conversation and author signings was held at Yale Humanities Quadrangle featuring authors Roxanne Gay ’96 and Beverly Jenkins.

Samantha Corr, a high school English teacher, told the News that, after hearing one of the talks at the festival, she hopes to bring what she has learned back to the classroom.

The Lit Fest featured activities for attendees of all ages. Several families attended the festival with their children, enjoying a session called “Children’s Storytime and Youth Art” with artists Marshun Art and Isaac Bloodworth in addition to live music, food trucks, book signings, panels and workshops.

Many of the authors at the festival spoke about how they want to inspire the next generation. 

“If someone hadn’t encouraged me to read, I would not be anywhere…So whenever I see a young person, I’m gonna encourage [them] as much as I can because someone certainly encouraged me,” William H. Foster III, a professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College, told the News. 

Tangular Irby, author of children’s book “Pearl and Her Gee’s Bend Quilt” and program manager of content for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, explained how she takes a different approach to inspiring the next generation through her writing. 

Irby spoke about how her grandmother was skilled at creating the renowned and iconic Alabamian Gee’s Bend quilts, which are regarded as some of the most important pieces of art in United States history. The quilting tradition has been passed down through generations of Black women in the U.S. as people who were formerly enslaved developed a distinct, simple geometric style that differs from other American quilting. Irby, who never learned her grandmother’s unique quilting style, said she now appreciates the importance of recognizing family traditions and passing them down to future generations.

“Every family has a story, so what is it about your family that makes you special? There’s always something – whether it’s someone in your family, whether it’s a friend – there’s something that should inspire you to be better,” Irby said. 

Through her storytelling, Irby said she hopes to bridge generational gaps within families and encourage young readers to preserve their heritage. 

As stated on the KulurallyLit website, The Lit Fest’s mission is to “cultivate awareness around the Arts within the African Diaspora” and “honor and celebrate the African Diaspora and the communities we create.” 

Like Irby, Dale Napolin Bratter, author of “In Their Presence: Untold Stories of Women and Children During the AIDS Epidemic,” spoke about safeguarding history through literature. 

 “When I left [Fort Lauderdale, Florida], I took their stories with me in my head and in my heart and told myself one day, when you can, you will write their stories. I am not their voice,” Bratter told the News. “But I am speaking truth to power on their behalf and I’m extremely proud of this book because it gives them a voice.” 

The Lit Fest also featured the Literacy Volunteers of Greater New Haven, an organization whose mission is to provide every adult with the opportunity to learn English or improve their literacy. 

Robert J. Sodaro, a comic book author applauded the event for its impact on the New Haven community, saying that “anything that gets people reading is a good idea.” 

T.C. Ford, publisher and editor of United Comics spoke with the News about the importance of diversity in literature.

“People talk about diversity and inclusion as if it’s a new thing; it’s not,” Ford said. “Diversity used to be that you had not just all different types of people, but all different types of stories, all different types of adventures and that kind of thing. So by creating comics that are not just superhero adventures we’re reminding people that comics are for everybody.”

The first comic book was published in Waterbury, Connecticut.

The post Dixwell Q-House hosts fourth annual Elm City Literature Festival appeared first on Yale Daily News.