Just one of Gram’s necklaces with duplicate pendants and shots of choose 365 Gram selfies.
Following Rebecca Strzelec inherited costume jewellery from her grandmother, she conjured up the notion to make a touching tribute to the sentimental treasures through her occupational specialty — 3D wearable art.
The Penn Condition Altoona visual arts professor, whose work has been identified and displayed nationally and overseas, shares her new venture, “365 Grams,” in an show at the Altoona Campus, on exhibit through March 18 in the Sheetz Gallery of the Misciagna Relatives Centre for Carrying out Arts.
Strzelec arrived up with the name of the task when she determined to share pictures of the jewellery on Instagram and Facebook. She posted a selfie donning her grandmother’s jewellery every day for a calendar year. “Grams” in the title pays tribute to her grandmother.
The articles or blog posts of jewelry, although not especially important, Strzelec reported, have this means that far surpasses that of any diamond.
“I do not want any of the excellent things,” Strzelec explained. “That does not definitely suggest nearly anything to me. ‘Good’ is relative.”
“Orbital” functions beads and closure from Gram’s triple strand.
The jewelry Strzelec inherited involves an array of rings, necklaces and earrings.
The show functions a lot more than 70 items of wearable objects manufactured from or impressed by her grandmother’s jewelry.
Strzelec took the jewellery and repurposed it via lasers and 3D printing.
Strzelec, an early adopter of 3D printing, started utilizing the method in 1999 when she was a university student at Temple University’s Tyler University of Artwork.
Her art has been featured throughout the nation and the globe, together with in the Museum of Arts and Structure in New York, Racine Artwork Museum in Wisconsin and in an show in Munich, Germany.
“Heap” characteristics beads from Gram’s triple strand.
She also has a piece in the long lasting collection of previous Secretary of Condition Madeleine Albright.
“I’ve been in several exhibitions that operate for a number of months at several galleries,” Strzelec claimed. “I consider almost certainly the more important achievement is that my get the job done is component of the permanent collections at a number of museums. When you have a everlasting collection piece, that signifies the museum has obtained your function.”
Penn State Altoona Chancellor and Dean Lori Bechtel-Wherry, who frequented Strzelec’s show in January, claimed the visual arts professor’s operate has touched her personally.
“Rebecca’s work, creativity and educating acumen go on to encourage me,” Bechtel-Wherry claimed. “Each year, she would make holiday tree decorations that have a unique this means in her lifestyle, and she has offered one to me each and every calendar year considering the fact that she’s been at our college. I treasure them, and I have the complete assortment. A number of of the pieces that especially contact my soul are shown in my household on a everlasting basis and they carry on to encourage me and carry solace to my lifetime. Her operate is certainly inspiring.”
A neighborhood collector of Strzelec’s art, Gail Maatman is thrilled to show up at the exhibit, which she explained is a end result of Strzelec’s initiatives to “make a genuine inventive assertion.”
“Barrel” showcasing beads from Gram’s triple strand.
“She really has a statement to make, and I like that component of her work,” Maatman explained. “She’s just really inspiring, and, getting an artist and trainer of her caliber here in this area, we’re privileged and blessed to have her in Altoona.”
Maatman very first met Strzelec when she taught the latter’s daughter at Penn-Mont Academy in 2012. Strzelec experienced donated 1 of her items to the school’s auction, and it was then that Maatman took an curiosity in her work.
“I was just fascinated by the piece when I first noticed it,” Maatman mentioned. “It was a necklace and it was completed using a laptop or computer-printed method. It was a medallion, and on one particular aspect was a brick wall and on the other was a feather. It took me a minor little bit, but I understood it was asking which was heavier — a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks. I appreciated the humor and wit as well as the approach.”
From there, Maatman commenced adhering to Strzelec on social media. She mentioned Strzelec’s job is “eye-catching and absolutely appeals to focus.”
Strzelec said the project’s connection to her late grandmother built it more complicated than her extra plan initiatives, which ordinarily contact on themes like politics and science.
“Pin Cushion,” that includes Gram’s stick pins.
“It’s a distinct feeling,” Strzelec said. “I assume the big difference for me is that it is riskier. There are folks in my orbit who will get in touch with me on things. I can’t slash any corners. If it’s not fantastic adequate, I’m heading to enable down various individuals who indicate a large amount to me. If this turns into how we bear in mind (my grandmother), it is acquired to be genuinely very good.”
Strzelec’s mom, Donna, mentioned she couldn’t be a lot more proud.
“We’re immensely happy there are no terms,” Donna said. “This couldn’t strike closer to house. We’re so incredibly proud, her father and I each are. It’s just remarkable she’s labored definitely tricky on this.”
Donna reported her daughter has generally been immensely pushed and focused to the private and specialist sides of her life.
“She’s caring and sweet, a fantastic mother, daughter, spouse and an excellent professor,” Donna stated. “For as extended as I can remember, she wanted to be an artist. It is normally been a constant generate in her. She just loves what she does.”
“Very low Poly Partial”
Strzelec, initially from St. Louis, grew up in Bucks County, exterior Philadelphia, and was inspired by her artwork lecturers to become an artist.
“For as long as I can don’t forget, I was going to be an art teacher,” Strzelec stated. “Seeing other individuals passionate about artwork is what built me want to be an artist.”
Originally preparing to train art at the community faculty stage, Strzelec did her pupil training in Philadelphia, but made the decision she desired to go in a diverse way. Ideal following graduating from Temple, she bought the task as a professor at Penn State Altoona, where by she discovered her area of interest.
“I’ve been actually fortunate, but I have also been fortunate just simply because of my parents and their conclusions. I’m not likely to say I wouldn’t be an artist if I experienced stayed in Missouri, but I don’t know if I would. You normally want to search back and imagine the path was rather straight, but mine could have been a ton bumpier. I’m just glad I landed exactly where I did when I did.”
Strzelec mentioned she’s grateful that her journey as an artist, stuffed with progress and individual discovery, has led her to where she is now. 365 Grams, she said, is possibly the most exclusive endeavor of her experienced vocation and personal existence, too.
“It wasn’t even about just sporting it it was expressing goodbye,” Strzelec explained. “It was sporting each and every piece for one of its past occasions. I believe, in a unusual way, my gram understood all all those a long time ago that this is what I’d do — that I’d do something actually awesome, diverse and attention-grabbing with this work in its place of just leaving it in a box.”
Donna stated her daughter realized she experienced to set the sentimental treasures to very good use.
“Rebecca bought all this stuff and made a decision, ‘I require to do anything with this,’” Donna claimed. “It’s so amusing to see it once more and reproduced in a various way. It’s fantastic and definitely remarkable how she’s reinvented every little thing even though retaining the first thought of the jewelry. She’s very creative and I do not know wherever she got it from. Her grandmother is leaping up and down in heaven I know it.”
Mirror Staff Author Andrew Mollenauer is at 814-946-7428.
