Essays on Artists & Acquisitions


February 13, 2024

Art & Ecology in the Anthropocene | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kate MacDowell

                        As English-teacher-turned-ceramicist Kate MacDowell knows, there are many ways to tell a story. MacDowell synthesizes her taste for poetic allegory and her fascination with scientific case studies to create pieces that tell the story of human impact on the natural world. In this […]

Read More
November 13, 2023

Replanting: Seeds of Change | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Crystal Morey

Crystal Morey’s latest series, RePlanting, features porcelain sculptures that explore the interconnection and precarious balance between humans, flora, and fauna. While her work focuses on weighty topics, such as endangered species and climate change, her pieces are imbued with whimsy and hope for a more consciously interconnected future. Morey’s sculpture, Scrub Jay and Deer, was […]

Read More

The Power of Porcelain | Cecelia Blum ’24 Interviews Artist Kieko Fukazawa

Banner designed by Cecelia Blum SC ’24 Kieko Fukazawa uses clay to fuse ancient craftsmanship with contemporary commentary. Her recent series, Peacemaker, uses delicate porcelain to pay homage to the many victims of senseless gun violence in the United States. In this interview, she shares her thoughts on the universality of social issues, her upbringing […]

Read More
October 12, 2022

Conduit Between Artist and Audience: An Experience with Jenny He

            As you enter the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, to your left, you will find the Spielberg Family Gallery, home to the first room within the Stories of Cinema, an ongoing exhibition that spans the first three floors of the museum. Here, museum-goers are invited to view a multi-channel […]

Read More
October 11, 2022

Tara: A Powerful Feminine Force

The presence of Tara in the Buddhist pantheon over the centuries, both as a bodhisattva and as a female buddha, has offered a sense of inclusivity to many female practitioners.

Read More
August 18, 2022

Highlights of the Collection, Oliveira, Everts, and Marini

These artists employ the recurring motif of bodily distortion to express postwar trauma.

Read More
May 11, 2022

Gilded Dharma: A Japanese Lotus Sutra

These sutra fragments are so sacred and artistically refined that they often rank among the most highly treasured objects in temple, museum, and private collections.

Read More
October 28, 2021

Recent Acquisitions of Laurie Brown’s Photography

The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has recently acquired five photographs from Southern California-based photographer Laurie Brown (Scripps College class of ‘59). Brown’s work focuses on the oftentimes jarring division between the rural and the urban, addressing issues from urban sprawl to the impact of industrialization on the natural landscape. She is interested in areas that […]

Read More
February 23, 2021

Maya Angelou Joins Our Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection

  In 2007, Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Director of the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, Mary MacNaughton ’70, artist Alison Saar ’78, and Professor Emerita Susan Rankaitis, created the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection. The collection was formed in honor of Dr. Lewis’ seminal career as an esteemed artist, curator and art historian, visionary museum founder, and celebrated […]

Read More
January 24, 2021

Wisdom, Compassion and Wrath: The Many Faces of Female Buddhist Deities

For over two millennia, Buddhist practitioners have aspired to liberate themselves and all other living beings from the suffering of saṃsāra—a Sanskrit term which refers to the never-ending cycle of death and rebirth endured by all inhabitants of the six Buddhist realms of existence. In order to transcend saṃsāra, Buddhists strive to rid themselves of […]

Read More