|
|||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Press Release: 09/08/08 |
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE/OPPORTUNITY FOR COVERAGE TO: All News Directors MEDIA CONTACT: |
COMMUNITY FOLK ART CENTER (CFAC) “FOUNDING VISIONARIES: Herb Williams and Jack White” Venue: The Community Folk Art Center (CFAC)
Celebrating Herb Williams: His Life, His Work, and His Art - As Community Folk Art Center's founding Director, Herb Williams (1938-1999) devoted his life to promoting the work of diverse artists and ensuring that a large audience could experience their work. His dedication to the collective vision of the founding members kept Williams busy and while he avidly supported and promoted other artist he rarely took time exhibit his own work. This will be the first large-scale exhibition of Williams’ work in Upstate New York. Though he identified himself primarily as a sculptor, Williams worked across various artistic mediums; manipulating wood, plaster and bronze into figurative and abstract forms. His lithographs and etchings not only indicate the measure of his artistic skill and creativity but also serve as a chronicle of his literal, figurative journey as an artist. During his lifetime, Williams received numerous awards, including the Syracuse University Friends of the Arts Award for Service to the Arts, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of African Museums, an award for Outstanding Contributions to the Black Community from the Ghana Society of Central New York and the Service to the Arts Award from the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse and Onondaga County. Williams served on the boards of directors of the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and WCNY Public Broadcasting, acted as the chair of the Community Task Force, and served on the Syracuse Mayor's Urban Arts Commission as well as the board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Jack White: An Ancestral Image While serving in the Air Force, White was both stimulated and inspired by the cultures he was exposed to during his world travels. White's global experience manifests in much of his art, with paintings, that are a mixture of various media that construct abstracted visual landscapes. White began his more than forty-year career in art as an art and education major at Morgan State University in Baltimore and later continued with graduate studies in Museum Arts at Syracuse University in Upstate New York. He has been featured in various solo and group exhibitions, with work represented in many prominent public and private collections: Schomberg Cultural Center, Syracuse University Collections, Arkansas Arts Center, Tampa Museum of Art, The Donald T. Byrd Collection, and Passaic County Community College Art Collections, among others. He recently moved from Auburn, New York to Austin, Texas, where he continues working as an artist, teacher, and curator. CFAC: A Look Back The Community Folk Art Center, then known as The Community Folk Art Gallery, was founded in 1972 by a group that included Herb Williams, Jack White, Shirley Harrison, David MacDonald, Bashir Alim, George Campbell Jr. and Mary Schmidt Campbell. The gallery first occupied the site of the former Elk Bakery at the corner of South Salina and Elk Street. In the 1980's, the gallery was moved to the site of the former Jewish Community Center at 2223 East Genesee Street. The Community Folk Art Center moved to its current location at 805 East Genesee Street in February 2006. |
The Community Folk Art Center is a program of the African American
Studies Department in the College of Arts & Sciences at Syracuse University and |
|