When Marie Doll helped establish the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania 40 years ago, she never imagined it would grow into the organization it is today.
"It's hard to keep an organization going for 40 years when most of the people -- in fact, at times, all of the people -- were volunteers. To have a volunteer organization exist and grow and thrive is something we're really proud of," she said.
Based in Lemont, the Art Alliance has existed as a "nonprofit organization, specializing in the visual arts, that provides classes for adults, summer camps for kids and exhibitions for the public," Doll said.
And today, in celebration of its 40th anniversary, the Art Alliance is bringing a juried exhibition to the Robeson Gallery in the HUB-Robeson Center.
"We have an annual juried show at our own building in Lemont, but because it's our 40th, we wanted to do something special," Doll said. "The Robeson is a lot bigger than our gallery here, so we were able to have a larger show, and certainly larger works as well."
The exhibition was open for submission by all artists within a 100-mile radius of State College, she added.
Doll then invited Lisa Hanover , director of the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College, to juror the show.
Hanover selected 87 out of the total 198 pieces that were submitted. She also selected several prizewinners to be announced at a later date. Hanover's selections are opened to public viewing today, and a public reception for the exhibition will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 3.
Hanover said it was difficult to choose the final pieces not only because the quality of work was high, but also because she wanted to ensure that a broad spectrum of media was represented.
"There's such a great variety -- 3-D work, collage, painting, traditional media -- and the technical approach by the artists is really at a high level. And the colors are fabulous. These artists were not afraid to work with color," she said.
Bethany Van Velsor, publicist for the Robeson Gallery, said the exhibition highlights the quality of art in Central Pennsylvania.
"We have a lot of talented artists in this area, and it's going to be nice to have them all in one place to celebrate the talent that's here," she said.
Doll said she was excited about displaying the exhibition in the Robeson Gallery. "By having it on campus, we feel that we will have a whole different audience or, at least, additional people that have perhaps never made it out to Lemont to see one of our shows," she said. Van Velsor said a podcast will be available next week on the Robeson Gallery Web site, http://www.sa.psu. edu/usa/galleries, for those who are interested in learning more about the Art Alliance or the exhibition. The podcast will consist of still shots of featured artwork and voiceover narration from interviews with Doll and several artists. Overall, Hanover said she believes the exhibition is a great opportunity for students and the State College community in general. "I absolutely think there's something for everyone," she said.
