Yale Bulletin and Calendar

October 8, 2004|Volume 33, Number 6

Iris Thompson will show her 2000 mixed-media work, titled "Aboriginal," during the final weekend of City-Wide Open Studios.

Interest in community building, world
of theater are at heart of artists' works

A nurse and veteran artist who has just begun to show her work publicly again after a hiatus and a young illustrator now fine tuning his skills in the craft of scenic design at the School of Drama are among the dozen or so Yale-affiliated artists who will share their creations with the public during the annual City-Wide Open Studios (CWOS) taking place this month in New Haven.

Iris Thompson, who works at Yale as a community care coordinator in the Department of Pediatrics' Center for Children with Special Healthcare Needs, and Arthur Vitello, who is studying this year at the School of Drama as an intern in the technical design and production department, will exhibit their art during the final weekend of CWOS, a month-long celebration of local artistic talent hosted by Artspace.

Yale is one of the sponsors of the seventh annual event, which features exhibitions of work by 600 artists at different venues in the city over three weekends. On Oct. 9 and 10, artists welcome the public into their own studio spaces in New Haven and surrounding towns. On Oct. 16 and 17, artists with studios in the Erector Square complex in the city's Fair Haven section open their doors to show their work. On Oct. 23 and 24 -- dubbed "Alternative Space" weekend -- artists without their own studio spaces will show their creations in two currently vacant city elementary schools or in spaces in the city's Ninth Square. In addition, a main exhibition is open daily at Artspace, 50 Orange St., featuring one small representative work by each participating CWOS artist. Admission to the main exhibition is free.

In conjunction with CWOS, graduate students at the School of Art will welcome the public into their studios in the evening on Friday, Oct. 22. Open studios will be offered 4-6 p.m. at the School of Art, 1156 Chapel St. (use the sidewalk alongside the building and enter through the metal gate). Students in sculpture will show their work 6-8 p.m. in Hammond Hall, 14 Mansfield St.

The following brief profiles of Thompson and Vitello are designed to illustrate the diversity of artistic leanings of Yale-affiliated artists in CWOS. Both artists will show their work during the Alternative Space weekend. This year's alternative spaces are two city elementary schools that will soon undergo renovation -- the Beecher School at 100 Jewell St. and the Barnard School at 170 Derby Ave. as well as vacant spaces and storefronts in buildings around Artspace in the Ninth Square. The exhibits are open noon-5 p.m., and there is a suggested $5 donation. Specific artist locations will be available in an official "Maps of the Arts" guide being published in the Oct. 6 issue of the New Haven Advocate. The map is also available at Artspace.

Iris Thompson

Building community through art

Over the years, Iris Thompson has created an eclectic mix of artworks, ranging from mixed-media collages and intricate pen-and-ink drawings to quilts and painted ceiling tiles.

As varied as the results of her artistic imagination may be, they often have common threads: In some way, they build bridges by fostering a sense of community, stirring communication between people or lending support to those in need.

As an artist-in-residence at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in 1998, for example, Thompson engaged children in the city's Hill neighborhood in the creation of a mixed-media collage made with a variety of discarded objects she found there and photographs of neighborhood scenes. The exercise not only involved the youngsters in teamwork, but also got them to think about objects that would visually represent at the festival the unique features of their community, she says.

Before joining the University staff in 2000, Thompson was a full-time nurse in the pediatric intensive care unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where she helped develop a project painting ceiling tiles for sick children that were then placed over their beds. The colorful tiles, she explains, helped to divert them from their illness or comfort them when they were anxious or afraid. She also encouraged and helped brothers and sisters of the ill children to paint tiles for their sick sibling.

"We'd generally paint serene pictures, with clouds or rainbows or suns, or kites, trains or animals," says Thompson, who now works as a nurse on a per diem basis at the hospital. "They would become a nice focal point for the children."

Thompson also designed bereavement cards -- often pen-and-ink drawings in which simple images conveyed both loss and hope -- for the hospital staff to send to families grieving the death of a child.

"I'm interested in art and health and how they can overlap," says the artist. "I'm always exploring ways of doing art with young people that focuses on health and community, and looking at how art can be an educational tool in terms of public health: how art relates to community and people's well-being -- both their physical and inner well-being."

For one of her projects, Thompson talked to youngsters in the Church Street South neighborhood about community and health issues, then collaborated with them on a mural, which was later presented to the housing complex's community center.

Her recent works include a pen-and-ink series that explores the relationship between men and women; several quilts -- two of which are now on view in the Art Place exhibit at the Yale Physicians Building; a series of works in acrylic and watercolor that explores color; and a number of mixed-media collages, among others.

Thompson has had some formal training as an artist, having studied for a year after high school at the Philadelphia College of Art and since taken courses at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven and the School of Visual Arts in New York. However, the artist says that she has mainly developed her artistic skills by continually exploring different mediums and taking new artistic directions on her own. In the 1990s, she co-founded an art group for people of color called Kaleidoscope Arts (which has since evolved into Kaleidos Arts Women's Collective). The group provides a forum and a means for artists to discuss and exhibit their art. While she is no longer a member of the group, Thompson will exhibit at CWOS with other members of Kaleidos Arts.

At the Center for Children with Special Healthcare Needs, which provides resources and support services for children with special healthcare needs and their families, Thompson provides community care coordination for families in the Title V federal program and helps qualified families connect with a network of support services, ranging from respite care to community-based programs. Even in this capacity, she finds herself inspiring artistic expression in others.

"I'm always trying to figure out ways to have kids do more art, and in encouraging those with special needs to do so," says Thompson. "I'm a big arts advocate because I think that whenever art is created, everyone benefits -- both the artist and the viewer." She adds that she also encourages the family members of children with special needs to write in journals as a way to document and remember important information and as an expressive outlet.

While her work has been exhibited at such venues as Artspace, the Small Space Gallery and the Lyman Center for Performing Arts at Southern Connecticut State University, Thompson hadn't exhibited her art for about two years previous to showing her quilts at Yale's Art Place. This will be her first time exhibiting in CWOS, and her first time attending the event at all. She plans to show a range of works in different media at CWOS, combining some of her earlier work with recently completed projects.

"This will be a whole new experience for me, says the artist. Since I haven't shown my work in awhile, I'm a bit out of the loop. This is rather like a 'coming out' party for me. I've been rather secluded as an artist, so I am looking forward to seeing what other people are doing, reconnecting with other artists, and immersing myself in the experience of all that art. From there, we'll see where it leads."

Art Vitello

A flair for the theatrical

Until he applied this year for a one-year student internship in the School of Drama's technical design and production department, Art Vitello had limited exposure to the theater and few thoughts about a career in it.

In fact, he says the extent of his previous interest in theater was that he once aspired to be a make-up or special effects artist when he was a child.

But for as long as he can remember, the 25-year-old Vitello has loved to draw and paint, and his creations have always tended toward the theatrical.

Art Vitello painted over a sketch made by a friend to create this image of actor Vincent Price. It will be on view in his alternative space studio.

One piece he will show in his CWOS exhibition, for example, is a painting of actor Vincent Price, looking as cryptic and wicked as he might portraying a character in an Edgar Allen Poe story. The actor's features are exaggerated: One eyebrow is raised menacingly high on a forehead wrinkled with loose flesh, and beneath it, an eerie blue eye fixes on the viewer. The other eye is closed. Smoke rises in curls from a cigarette held lightly in a hand that looks too large for the frail wrist that supports it.

Vitello, a native of New Haven, created the painting while a student at the Paier School of Art, from which he graduated in 2002. The work was a collaboration with fellow Paier student George Selas, who provided a sketch; Vitello then textured and painted the image. The piece reflects the drama student's interest in illustration that blends the real with the phantasmagoric, and that is at once detailed and mysterious in its haziness.

Vitello says that he has loved creating illustrations since he could first hold a crayon, and spent his earlier years drawing pictures of people, superheroes and monsters in pencil. His superheroes and monsters, however, were not duplications of those he saw on television, but came to life in his own imagination.

Today, he is most noted for his high-quality posters advertising band show performances and other one-time events. One of his clients is the New Haven club BAR on Crown Street, for which Vitello has made close to 20 advertising posters.

"I like this kind of work because I get the name of the band and the dates, but then I can illustrate the poster in whatever way I want," says the artist. "I just go with a feeling; the image doesn't have to tie in in any real way with the band."

While the posters serve their purpose for only a brief span of time, they continue to attract attention after the event for their artistic merit, notes Vitello, who says that much of his CWOS exhibition will be devoted to such art. A September 2003 article titled "The Art of Rock" in the New Haven Advocate described the poster and flyer art of Vitello and several other local illustrators as being "just as engaging as the events themselves."

Vitello says he has only more recently emerged as a poster artist. For a time, he stuck with pencil drawing because he was "deathly afraid of color," he says. He eventually began incorporating color in to his work and started creating collages and textured paintings, often working with watercolor. Some of his collage works include clipped magazine photographs, fabrics and other materials. While at Paier, Vitello studied with the internationally known set and costume designer and illustrator Vladimir Shpitalnik, an alumnus of the Yale School of Drama, whom Vitello says has been "a big influence" on his work. He adds, however, that he hasn't "patterned" his own work on any particular artist.

Much of his art, says Vitello, incorporates his other interests, including a love of horror movies and monsters. He also enjoys creating art with subtle references to literary themes, and notes that his favorite authors include Hubert Selby Jr., William S. Burroughs, Franz Kafka and Edgar Allen Poe. Another interest is merging children's book art in his work, and he is particularly fond of work by children's book illustrator Maurice Sendak. He has sometimes illustrated traditional children's stories in a painting or collage, adding a "slightly off" or "darker" twist.

"In some of my work, there is a bit of shock value, but in a very subtle way," says the artist. "For example, when I paint eyes, I'll make them pretty realistic but do them upside down."

At the drama school, Vitello is learning the craft of scenic design as he works in the paint shop with faculty members Melissa McGrath, Run Jun-Wang and others on designs for Yale Repertory Theatre and School of Drama shows. He is also taking courses on shop technology and set building at the drama school as well as printmaking and woodblock classes at the School of Art.

"The idea is to then go off to a job in the field," says the Yale student.

In the meantime, Vitello continues to create his poster art, and has sent off samples of his work to venues throughout the country. This will be his second year exhibiting at CWOS, where he looks forward to sharing some of his latest creations.

"I like to talk to people about my art in a general way without getting technical about it," he comments. "You don't ask a magician how he pulled the rabbit out of a hat, you just enjoy it. I guess I feel the same way about my work: I like people to just be able to come and enjoy it, interpreting it in their own personal way."

For further information on CWOS, call (203) 772-2709 or visit the CWOS website at www.cwos.org.

--By Susan Gonzalez

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