Writers & Books’ glass-enclosed atrium is home to changing exhibitions that intersect with the literary arts, storytelling, Rochester’s history, and issues in the public conversation. Annalisa Barron inaugurated our Artist in Residence series in 2020 with Place Projectors: Bringing Light, Lenses, and Words Together, and currently serves as volunteer curator. Mounted three or four times a year, exhibitions are selected by invitation. Artists in Residence facilitate interactive public experiences of their artwork, conduct open-house gallery talks, and document the evolving nature of their exhibitions on our website.
Current Residency: September 9 – November 5, 2022
Poet Kathy Engel and artist Ellen Driscoll’s Eyechart is a collaborative exhibit combining words and physical art. Engel’s words are fused into beautiful paintings displayed in an accordion-book style sculpture.
“Eyechart gives the reader a sense of what can ground us in times of extraordinary uncertainty. At this historic moment, Engel and Driscoll’s sensibilities are distilled down to their purest essence. The experience and willpower they bring to Eyechart spring from deep reservoirs of commitment and a determination to celebrate each moment of connection as a victory over despair. Their finely wrought salute to the creative process elucidates how much we gain when we face what is most fraught within us. At our most fragile we can choose to be most open, and perhaps discover new ways to measure the breadth of our existences.”
– Joanne McFarland, Artistic Director, Artpoetica
Fall 2022 Events
Gallery Talk with Ellen Driscoll
October 7 | 6:30 – 7:15 pm | In-person event
Behind the Curtain: View Eyechart, then join us for artist Ellen Driscoll’s talk on her creative process.
Free Admission | Registration Required
Poetry Reading with Kathy Engel
November 4 | 6:30 – 7:15 pm | In-person event
Kathy Engel reads new work and selected pieces from Eyechart.
Free Admission | Registration Required
Kathy Engel is a poet and essayist who has worked for many years at the nexus between social justice movements and art/imagination. Her writing has been published in numerous journals and anthologies. Books include Ruth’s Skirts, poems and prose; We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon, co- edited with Kamal Boullata; The Kitchen, with art by German Perez; and the chapbook Banish The Tentative. Her most recent collection of poems is The Lost Brother Alphabet, (Get Fresh Books, 2020). A member of the Elma’s Heart Circle poetry group and a 2021 Pushcart nominee, with the writer Alexis De Veaux, she co-founded the project Lyrical Democracies. She is Associate Arts Professor in NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts’ Department of Art and Public Policy and Master’s Program in Arts Politics.
Ellen Driscoll’s work encompasses sculpture, drawing, and public art installation. Recent large scale installations include “Site Woven” for the Charles R. Jonas Federal Courthouse in Charlotte, NC; “CartOURgraphy” for Middle College High School and the International High School in Queens, NY; “Bower” at ArtPark in Lewiston, NY with Joyce Hwang and Matt Hume; and “Night to Day, Here and Away” for the Sarasota National Cemetery. She has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bunting Institute at Harvard University, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Anonymous Was a Woman; and is the recipient of a Fine Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work is included in major public and private collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of Art. She is Professor of Sculpture at Bard College and the 2018 recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award from the International Sculpture Center.
Previous Exhibitions
- Wishbones (Susan Begy, 2022)
- Place Projectors: Bringing Light, Lenses, and Words Together (Annalisa Barron, 2020)