The Buck’s County Community College Department of the Arts had put together a beautiful array of art at the Hicks Arts Center Gallery, located at the Newtown Campus, which lasted from January 22 to March 8, 2014.

The gallery speaks to the idea of language in art, and encompasses the beauty of it.

“I don’t make or receive telephone calls anymore.” states Gerard Brown, curator of the Reading and Writing Visual experience, in the R/W brochure.
But who’s to say that’s a bad thing? Text messages, emails, blogs—the written language defines the twenty-first century, and connects us to each other.
The written language seems to be popping up in more ways of communication than we think. Rather than just being used in English class, on the phone, or on Facebook, writing (and of course, reading) is now being used to inspire and communicate the arts.

“It’s something I’ve been thinking of over the past few years” says Fran Orlando, director of the Bucks County Community College Hicks Arts Center Gallery.
She explains that the R/W is a demonstration of the uses of reading and writing in contemporary art. It combines the visual sense with communication and language, signifying the interrelationship between the arts.

“Just as artists draw in a sketch book, writers write in a journal. But even though what’s in the journal or the sketchbook might not be wonderful…it’s the practice that’s important…and the problem solving. It improves technique. It’s a way of practicing your craft,” Fran states.

Fran’s goal with the gallery was to intertwine these practices, attracting a variety of students to the Hicks Art Gallery Center, and turning it into a learning recourse for the whole campus to enjoy, just as they do the library.

The first artist curator Gerard Brown thought of when putting together the gallery was performance Artist Martha McDonald. Martha uses her pieces as part of her performance. Every morning she religiously writes a minimum of three pages, takes her daily practice, and uses it in her performance—whether using the words she aimlessly writes as lyrics, or embroidering them on fabric and placing them in the background while she performs.

At the R/W Visual Experience, the audience is presented with some of Martha’s embroidery—words that were once on pen and paper turned into art—making phrases made of blue string sewn onto white cloth—showing her inspiration and emphasis on the importance in writing and its daily practice.

The second artist was Susan White. At first sight, the piece looks like honeycombs scaling the gallery wall. Yet with further analysis, and a little help from the description under her name, it is seen that the “honeycombs” are actually book pages, cut and formed into circlets, and placed ascending the wall of the gallery.
She shows the audience how communication through books, reading, and text, is ascending upward and becoming increasingly important.

The third artist was Sheryl Ridenour, who takes a totally new and analytical approach to art inspired by reading and the analysis of it. Sheryl does this by, as Fran states, “…decoding the reading…” and showing the structure and repetition in writing.

The fourth artist, Aubre Costello, takes a crack representing her inspiration in words and writing through graffiti…with a feministic and ambiguous touch…not of course leaving out the aggressiveness of the art.

Aubre carefully, yet bellicosely, for her piece had nailed pink and white silk ripped into pieces to the wall in a style which replicates dripping graffiti paint. The silk forms beautiful poem-esc phrases, “We were the only ones here. We stared out at the garden, plus I wondered if they were ever in love.” stated the first line of silk.
Yet these beautiful phrases are harshly interrupted by the French expression, “Tu Parles comme un idiot!” Which translates to English as, “You speak like an idiot!” This phrase adds a simple set of ambiguity to the piece, bringing the observer to ask, “Who?”

The fifth artist was Martha Rich, who takes phrases she overhears, some funny, some inspiring, some sad, and so on, and puts them in speech bubbles. She then groups the speech bubbles together to make her piece.

For example, one of the speech bubbles state, “Your reputation is glorious.” The phrase is random and ambiguous, catching the eye of the audience and showing the vague nature of words and phrases. She also shows the importance of listening and speech—to listen is to understand and communicate one’s thoughts and emotions.
The sixth artist was Sharka Hyland. Sharka creates her art by taking passages from famous novels and as Fran put it, “…presenting it in a way that it’s drawn…” not only simply written or typed.

Sharka specializes in typography, or in other words, the style and appearance of printed matter. Yet for this gallery she stylized her “printed matter” into a drawing—drawing out each letter of each passage, so perfectly, that it looks as if it was typed and printed on the computer.

Sharka’s distinctive way of depicting the printed word shows the uniqueness and perfection in language—and of course the importance of typography in today’s society.

The seventh artist was Marianne Dages, whose creative interests lies in the symbols of language that do not signify sound—the silent punctuations (i.e..!,?;).
Marianne sees the meaning in these silent forms, and passes onto her audience this meaning. For without punctuation, the English language would make little sense.
And so just as these senseless yet important forms, her art, made of these forms, at first glance is seemingly hollow. Nonetheless, with analysis, the true importance is seen through its theme—all aspects of a language, no matter how insignificant, are important. It all comes together to make something totally unique and stunning, just as her art and art in general.

The eighth artist portrayed in the gallery was Matthew Sepielli. Matthew’s inspiration came from reading various poetries. For his piece, he took the first letter in each poem he read, made a large version of it out of canvas, and adhered the letter to two pairs of pants.

The ninth and final artist in the gallery was Rebecca Targ, who created a true visual art with her short video “This is Ventriloquism”. The video is of a girl first reading a passage, then reciting it by memory, showing the importance in reading and the wonder in recall.

The audio in the video fades in and out, is out of sync, and focuses on random noises. This shows the confusion of understanding.

The gallery overall was a wonderful experience and truly brought together the art in language in a creative way that anyone could understand.