February 2nd-April 24th, 2018

Curators' Statement 

“The objects I chose were designed to hold something, but I didn't fill them up. They remained empty. They were little symbolic shrines to thirst.”  ― Margaret Atwood

Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space is a meditation on the imaginative ripeness of empty spaces. Emptiness as we experience it often overwhelms us--isolation births feelings of profound pain, waves of sorrow cascade over us in the wake of personal loss, and sometimes the simple quiet of night summons a dreadful hollowness we long to banish or wall out. The wrongness of emptiness is reflected in the language we use to describe it--to lack is to be in deficit, failure makes us “lesser than,” the poor are those who have not. But of course the empty cup was fashioned to be filled. The chest heaves with grief, but what of the mysterious blessed-ness of those that mourn? The growth, the death, the new life that can only come to fruition in the dark and lonely places of the earth--empathy grows here; wisdom does too. And as we learn to tend, protect and value empty spaces, both within ourselves and in the physical world we inhabit, these desolate and often painful emptinesses create potential for charged encounters that often lead to necessary change.


Exhibiting Artists 

Kevin Donegan

Samantha Eckert

Lydia Kern