CURATOR'S STATEMENT
Lee Ann Riccardi
Associate Professor of Art
The College of New Jersey


Homer's  Odyssey  is a text that is rich in imagery. The language, especially in Greek, is elegant and beautiful, and filled with colorful words and phrases that stir the imagination and create a vivid sense of place, mood, and the appearance of things. Robert Fagles' English translation captures the lush descriptiveness of the original, and retains its evocative visual power. When viewing the art in this exhibition and reading the accompanying passages of text, the union of the verbal and the visual seems both natural and obvious. Homer's words blend in unique and exciting ways with the works of art on display. This exhibition demonstrates the lasting power of Odysseus' adventure stories, but it also has the added appeal of showing the way the written word can evoke and inspire visual art, and the way visual art can illuminate and enhance the written word.

Planning for this exhibition began long before it was installed in The College of New Jersey's Art Gallery. Gallery Director Judy Masterson first saw the Princeton Artists Alliance interpretation of Homer's   Odyssey  at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Gallery in 2000, and decided that it should be brought to TCNJ. She is largely responsible for its success, handling all the logistics, planning, and coordinating the thousands of decisions involved with cheerfulness, energy, and enthusiasm. Ruane Miller and Charles McVicker, two members of the Princeton Artists Alliance who are also on the faculty of TCNJ's art Department, generously aided with the arrangements and agreed to participate in activities surrounding the show to benefit our students and the entire campus community. I am grateful to Michael Padgett and Maureen McCormick of the Art Museum at Princeton University for loaning ancient Greek pottery to complement the contemporary pieces. Thanks are also due to Dave Ulrich, whose creative concept for the graphic materials of the exhibition enhanced its themes and added an exciting dimension to the viewing experience. And I would especially like to acknowledge Meghan Gandy. Thanks to a scholarship awarded to her by the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, she was able to write the essays for this catalogue. Her thoughtful and well-r-searched efforts are presented here as an important component of the experience of this exhibition.

Finally, special gratitude must be accorded to our financial benefactors: the Department of Art; the School of Art, Media, and Music; and especially to Dr. Suzanne Pasch, Vice-Provost of Academic Programs and Initiatives. In the 8th c. B.C., Homer may have written his epics without a patron, but on this campus, Vice Provost Pasch consistently serves as ours.



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