My Own Fairy Tale: Works by Stacy Clark
companion to student exhibit
November 29, 2008-July 31, 2009
Fraktur Gallery
Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center
My Own Fairy Tale: Works by Stacy Clark features new work by the artist Stacy Clark. Clark’s individual hand sewn, painted, and stuffed figures are inspired by nursery rhymes, folklore, and fairy tales. The square gallery depicts four seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter; each corner features between 8-16 different characters from mythology, nursery rhymes, and folklore. At the center of the gallery, each season branches out from the canopy; branches transition into multiple sheer fabrics with mesh lights that project seasonal hues of orange, blue, silver and white onto the landscapes below. Elves and fairies transition delightfully between the seasons, each dressed according to Clark’s color profiles. Characters interact inside landscapes containing half timbered houses, mountains, and forests that reflect the early Germanic heritage of European fairy tales. Selected characters such as the Wunderfisch and the Pink Deer are inspired by Pennsylvania German drawings in the Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center’s collection.
Folk artists Charlie and Betty Shank, exhibit designers of Stacy Clark’s 2006 exhibition, Once Upon A Time: Fairy Tale Creatures by Stacy Clark, and SLHC Curator, Candace Perry, have worked alongside Stacy Clark to create a complex environment reflecting the artist’s use of fabric, color, craft, and chosen characters.
Visitors to My Own Fairy Tale exhibit are invited to create their own storylines and narratives inspired by exhibit content and design. Stories left behind will be collected into a binder for other gallery visitors to provide multiple points of entry into Clark’s fairytale world.
The Wunderfisch, a Schwenkfelder fraktur character
The Silesian Rübezahl
