Art Faculty Exhibition

Mr. Goodwin, the clay working and sculpture teacher, as well as the Co-Director of the Hostetter Art Gallery, grew up around art his entire life. His parents were both artists, and during his freshman year of college, he fell in love with clay working. In graduate school, he found his passion for mixed media sculpture. Mr. Goodwin says that he is “fascinated with people’s curiosity and investigations,” and this fascination led him to the creation of the piece. He also hopes that “people make a cursory observation of the work, and then investigate further.” One of his pieces on display was formed from wasp paper, which is produced when the queen wasp chews wood to mix the fiber with her saliva to create paper pulp. He mentioned that this piece reveals “people’s anxieties and their veiled feelings, thoughts, or identities.”

Ms. Ring is the Photo 1, Painting and Drawing 1, and Art Fundamentals teacher. She has been working at Pingry for six years. Art has been a lifelong passion for Ms. Ring; she says that her “experience of the world has always been intensely visual,” and that she loves language and writing. Ms. Ring, in addition to being an artist, is a professional writer and the author of a book, Walking on Walnuts. Ms. Ring explained that her numerous pieces in the gallery are her “response to the current state of the world.”

The pieces being displayed in the exhibition are named from lines from a poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, titled “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus. Her largest piece, “Tempest Toss’d,” represents the rising flood waters of climate change. “A Mighty Woman,” Ms. Ring said, depicts “a storm [brewing] both inside and outside as a figure based on the Statue of Liberty [becomes] a real woman rather than [as] an ideal one, beset with the burdens of ‘women’s work’ in a world that is tilting with upheaval.” Ms. Ring has several other works in this series including works inspired by the cause of gun control and freedom from the patriarchy. Separate from the series, Ms. Ring also has two figure paintings of her son which represent impermanence. For more information on her pieces, you can visit her website, www.nanringstudio.com.

Another artist is Mr. Christian, who teaches grades 3, 4, and 5 at the Lower School and has been at Pingry for ten years. Mr. Christian says that he has always loved to draw and used to copy his brother’s art. When his brother told him to create his own art, that is exactly what Mr. Russel did. His first independent drawing was of a hand holding a baby. Mr. Russell explained that his motivation to create is the joy it brings him, as well as “the need to surprise myself, to avoid repeating myself or [falling] back on facile mark making.” By visiting this exhibition, not only can Pingry students learn from their teachers as professional artists, but they can also learn more about their teachers and their artistic interests.