The Emerald Art Center presents "SEPTEMBER SONG" by Jerry R. Williams - A show of mostly new paintings and sculptures.

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     Jerry R. Williams is a scenic designer, painter, sculptor, educator, and Professor Emeritus of Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon.  He received degrees from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of  Washington. Before joining the University of Oregon, he served on the faculty at Purdue University.

     Prof. Williams was selected for the prestigious honors of a Fulbright Lectureship. As a Fulbright Lecturer in Taiwan, he represented the United States through teaching and artistic collaboration. Throughout his career he has designed scenery for numerous professional theatre companies and received multiple honors recognizing both his artistic accomplishments and his contributions to arts education. In retirement, Professor Williams has continued to paint landscapes and other works that reflect the skills, understanding of light, and visual storytelling developed during his long career as a scenic designer.

 

 

Also showing are Featured EAC Members:

Susan Chapin and Susan Walenza.

 

     Susan Chapin is showing "Thirty-Three for Thirty-Nine", a unique exhibition featuring at least 33 original surreal assemblages, each priced at no more than $39. The body of work focuses on accessible art ownership, sustainable practice, and personal interpretation. The collection relies entirely on surplus, salvaged, and thrifted elements, including found objects and repurposed thrift store paintings. Drawing heavily on wabi-sabi—the traditional Japanese philosophy centered on finding beauty in the imperfect and fleeting—the exhibition highlights the inherent value of second-hand materials while minimizing environmental impact.
"I want these pieces to be taken home—especially if the owner finds the same joy in displaying them that I found in making them," says Chapin. "These works are a way to celebrate the universal human impulse to create while keeping art accessible." Each three-dimensional piece serves as an open-ended narrative and peculiar Rorschach test. Rather than imposing a fixed meaning, the assemblages invite viewers to project their own perspectives, memories, and

associations onto the unexpected combinations of objects.

     Susan Chapin is a Eugene-based multi-disciplinary artist working primarily with found, salvaged, and repurposed media. Through surreal assemblage and sustainable practices, she explores themes of accessible art, spontaneous interpretation, and the philosophy of wabi-sabi.

 

     "Finding Light" by Susan Walenza shows blurred edges allowing color rather than object to come to the foreground. Color is simply a creation of light.  To her, when she blurs the edges, she imagines a oneness- oneness that exists with the integrity or sensibility of each thing intact.

     Whether taking photos of plums and shallots in my garden or of wisteria blossoms amidst bumblebees on ancient stone walls, she plays by using a camera as a paintbrush to capture impressions and fields of color. 

 

 

And: "Memories of My Homeland"- Embroidery & Photography Exhibition

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Memories of My Homeland brings together embroideries by Latina women from Eugene and Springfield, evoking memories, traditions, family, and their homeland.

The exhibition also features photography by Diego Sebastián Hernández Zapata and the work of renowned Mexican artist Maricela Figueroa Zamilpa, creating a dialogue between memory, identity, and cultural roots.