Crossing Boundaries Words and Images by Sylvia Little-Sweat and Louise Napier

Description: Since 1965 poet Sylvia Little-Sweat and artist Louise Napier have crossed departmental boundaries. Their first crossing occurred when they served as Faculty Editors for the newly founded literary magazine Counterpoint. For the first time in Wingate's history, creative writing and art could mutually represent the talents of Wingate students. Both professors have also spent their entire teaching careers at the University. For many years they have planned a personal artistic project to combine creative writing and art. The October 2012 exhibit Crossing Boundaries in the C. Douglas Helms Art Gallery at Wingate University and its companion book Crossing Boundaries: Words and Images have allowed them to realize their dream. The project debuts other new publications as well: a collection of poems by Sylvia Little-Sweat, Montage: Memory and Metaphor, and two art collections by Louise Napier, Watercolors and Other Media and Etchings and Other Prints. Both professors, recipients of the Charles and Hazel Corts Award for Excellence in Teaching, have crossed similar educational boundaries. Both are graduates of Union County high schools. Both are graduates of Wingate College and of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Sylvia Little-Sweat holds graduate degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Middle Tennessee State University. She has studied creative writing at Duke University's Writers' Conference and Sewanee Writers' Conference multiple times. For Wingates centennial, she wrote The Chalk Dust Chronicle. Additionally she has performed poetry at two campus concerts and has recorded one professional CD, The Way Home. She has studied enameling, metalworking, and copper jewelry at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. Louise Napier holds graduate degrees from the University of Georgia and further art training at the Cocoran Gallery in Washington, DC, San Reparata in Florence, Italy, and the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts. She has exhibited widely in juried art shows. Both artists have crossed boundaries in their own practice of the fine arts. Louise Napier often finds inspiration in Nature-in landscapes and natural forms-in the intricacies of architecture and in her travel experiences. These inspirations become watercolors, paintings, etchings, drawings, and fiber designs. In her art she searches for ways to connect or to crossover from one medium to another, choosing to manipulate and duplicate images for meaningful compositions. She experiments with paper and fiber and frequently mixes media to capture the essence of her subject. Her central concentration is the visual image. Sylvia Little-Sweat uses words as her brushes and paints. She renders images through careful word choices ordered in particular ways, through the use of sound, and through the colors of emotion. Ionization of meaning is accomplished through figurative language, especially metaphor and symbol. She also finds inspiration in Nature, in human nature, and in various "spots of time" wherever they occur. She crosses boundaries in her poetry from formal patterns to experimental combinations. Her poems exist visually on the page but also simultaneously in the ear. Ultimate meanings can reside in the silence between the lines-in what is said and not said. For both poet and artist, the motivation is similar, but the execution is different. The Crossing Boundaries Exhibit and the book Crossing Boundaries: Words and Images illustrate both art forms separately, but at the same time their frequent crossings add resonance. Each art form enriches the other so that together they become deeper companions of meaning. The long friendship of Louise Napier and Sylvia Little-Sweat has allowed each artist to test her own artistic limits against the other's art for many years. The result is finally a very meaningful, personally satisfying collaboration.

Price: 40 USD

Location: Star, North Carolina

End Time: 2024-10-24T15:55:28.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.88 USD