Grandmother’s Circle -
A Tribute to Crecy's People and to Sallie Alpha:
An Installation by Alpha Bruton
Alpha Bruton’s installation is a simulation of a ceremonial purification circle, in which objects and images are selected to “serve as cultural mirrors and the sites in which they are situated serve as part of a broader cultural commentary.” The artist has examined cultural signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. She believes that objects in the public sphere serve to communicate and reinforce certain cultural narratives, hierarchies, and social mythologies.
A painter and an installation artist, Bruton synthesizes aspects of theater, sculpture, and other two-dimensional forms. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues internationally, Berlin, Canada, Mexico, Chicago, New Jersey, Baltimore, in California (Auburn, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento).
Guest artists, contributors to the installation, Caryl HenryAlexander, LA Happy Hyder, Talver Germany Miller, Antia P. Lowe, J. Andreas Porras., Myths Stories, and Living Tradition with the Visual Arts Development Project in Auburn California.
Bruton is the Tarble Arts Center’s 2013 Arts-In-Education artist-in-residence and will be in residence at four area schools between Nov. 11 through Dec. 13. The residency is funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, by participating schools, the Coles County Arts Council, and Tarble membership contributions. The Tarble Arts Center, a division of the College of Arts & Humanities, is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Diana Bruton, telling our story of eight generations of the "Crecy, Sallie" women, a research project that has taken a decade of compiling for a publication.
