In the April First Friday at the Anderson Arts Building, Richard Margolis (of Restore Rochester Airport Art) welcomed Rochester emerging artist Krit Upra’s photography exhibition in the new Gallery 4 – 8.
This June First Friday, from 5pm – 9pm, Emily Bellinger will display her installation, S h a t t e r e d. So come to the Anderson Arts Building, enjoy the show, and meet Emily.
Emily just graduated with an MFA from RIT. S h a t t e r e d will be her first solo exhibition. The exhibition features two different works: a series of found book page block-out poems and a fiber art installation.
“The work in this exhibit deals with personal memories and the emotions associated with my past relationships. Utilizing fabric, installation, and poetry, I use vibrant colors and repetitive linear marks as a method of abstract storytelling. Process and materials are integral components of my work. Fabric is a medium that I have always found interesting. I started making quilts in 2008. The fabric represents my own personal memories and piecing it together into a quilt is a metaphor for connections. When sewn together, the individual pieces of cloth represent segments of life combined into a non-linear time line. I approach my quilts as abstract paintings created out of fabric and assemble them intuitively. Quilting provides me with a medium that
is tactile, easily manipulated, and rich with personal memory. In addition to quilting, I extend my media exploration into installation and block-out poetry. In these works, I strive to create a space and a sense of place in which new memories are sparked.
The poems were created using text from a selection of found books. I took pages from the books and used oil pastels to block out everything but a few selected words. This is a practice that I have been utilizing since my undergraduate study. The poetry has become means of brainstorming. Manipulating the written text to depict extremely personal and ambiguous narratives has been necessary for my process in developing the conceptual ideas I display in my artwork. I carefully selected words on a page to give the viewer a small amount of information about my pieces. These poetic segments of text help further clue the viewer into my emotions and allow them to experience a deeper individualized connection to the work.
The quilted fiber installation, titled S h a t t e r e d, conveys the feeling of complete brokenness after the sudden ending of my most serious relationship. The graphic and jagged edges of each individual piece replicate a broken mirror. This metaphor is representational of my reflection looking back at the unsettling memories. I used striped fabric to depict a strong visual narrative. The use of perpendicular lines generates a sense of anxiety and causes the viewer to strain their eyes. The difficulty of viewing the piece represents the complexity of emotions associated with the memory of the break up. This piece expands the boundary of fiber in the contemporary art world. S h a t t e r e d not only breaks the traditional, rectangular shape of a quilt, but also uses installation in an unexpected way.”

Our good luck, Emily wants to write more for the magazine. At the First Friday opening. (l-r) Good Luck charm, Emily, myself [Photo: Jia, also a recent R.I.T. MFA grad]
“Futility of Knowing One’s Self” by Anna Overmoyer from the Anderson Arts Building
War (literally) made into art at the Military History Society of Rochester
Passover as a universal symbol of liberation with Lynne Feldman