Tag Archives: gallery talk

Arts Festival director to give Gallery Talk June 29

In conjunction with its current exhibit, the Eberly Family Special Collections Library is hosting a Gallery Talk from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday (June 29) in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, University Park.

horizontal photo of glass exhibit case holding paper artifacts with fabric banners in background against wall

Arts Festival Executive Director Rick Bryant comes to Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium at noon this Wednesday (June 29) to discuss the past and present of the festival, in conjunction with the Special Collections Library’s exhibit on display through July 29.

Featured speaker Rick Bryant has served the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts for more than 32 years, first as a volunteer picking up trash in 1984, as an employee since 1999 and now as its executive director.

From the festival’s early days through today, his talk reviews how the Arts Festival has changed yet stayed the same.

The festival, like his talk, emphasizes fun! In Bryant’s words, “It’s not a 50-year-old calculus test!”

The Special Collections Library’s exhibit “Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts at 50: Making Lasting Memories” is on display with artifacts from the CPFA archives, including programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, T-shirts, buttons, brochures and reports, through July 29. The 2016 Arts Festival is July 14-17 in downtown State College and on the University Park campus, with its annual Children and Youth Day on July 13. BookFest, sponsored in part by the Arts Festival and the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 16, in and outside Schlow Centre Region Library. This year’s BookFest explores the comic book as a graphic medium of storytelling.

Special Collections exhibit honors Arts Festival history

horizontal photo of glass exhibit case showing a red Arts Festival program from the 1970s, with festival banners hanging in the background

The exhibit “Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts at 50: Making Lasting Memories” is on display through Friday, July 29, in the Exhibition Room of the Eberly Family Special Collections Library.

The Special Collections Library’s exhibit “Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts at 50: Making Lasting Memories” opened Tuesday (June 7) in the Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

The Special Collections Library’s University Archives is the home of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts’ (CPFA) official archives; the exhibit reflects back through a half-century of artifacts from the annual arts celebration.

Popularly known as the Arts Festival, the top-ranked annual event brings more than 125,000 attendees to downtown State College and Penn State’s University Park campus each July. It began in the summer of 1966 as a nonprofit, volunteer-run corporation that celebrates the arts.

The Arts Festival includes a nationally recognized Sidewalk Sale and Exhibition, performers of international and regional stature on outdoor and indoor stages, a massive sand sculpture, Italian street painting, BookFest, gallery exhibitions, Children’s Day activities, festival races and much more.

To commemorate its semicentennial year, the University Archives is exhibiting materials from the CPFA Archives, including programs, photographs, newspaper clippings, T-shirts, buttons, brochures and reports.

Among the special features of the Special Collections Library’s exhibition are approximately a dozen historic banners dating back to the early 1970s. Banner artists include local creators such as Ronald Way, Ginny Cooper, Joan Schrock, Marty Edmunds, Joanie Eyster, Sally Bowers, Lois Rector, Teresa Shields, State College Chapter of Mothers and More, and the Park Forest Middle School Art Club.

In addition, selected artworks from participants in the Sidewalk Sale will be displayed, including a sweetgrass basket by Mary Jackson; photography by Pat Little, Gene Pembroke and Dan Westfall; graphic arts by Andy Van Schyndle, Bruce Reinfeld and Susan Loy; and other samples of the creative talents evident throughout the Arts Festival.

The exhibition is open to the public 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays through July 29. A gallery talk by CPFA Executive Director Rick Bryant will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, June 29, in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium.

For additional information about the exhibition or the gallery talk, contact Jackie Esposito, University archivist, at jxe2@psu.edu or 814-863-3791, or Paul Dzyak, sports archivist, at pjd106@psu.edu or 814-865-2123.