The Romano Gallery at Blair Academy will host “Emerging Artists Trio” from until March 14, with an artists talk on Feb. 23, to which the public will be welcome.
The work of artists Daniel Jenkins, Joseph Mandel and Jacklyn Scott will be featured at the gallery. They hope to share their experiences and their journeys into the art world and inspirations with the Blair community.
Jenkins, a graphic designer who attends Moravian University, is the owner DHJ Design and is president of Studio South, the school’s student-run design studio. He is also a pottery studio instructor at The Art Establishment in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania.
“Sharing is my biggest tool I utilize because my work will eventually be for other people,” Jenkins said. “I want to make sure that everyone can understand it and enjoy it.”
Mandel, a 2016 graduate of Blair Academy, works in several media including painting, sculpture, print, photography and graphic design. Describing himself as an “introverted extrovert,” he said he uses his artwork as a reflection of who people are through his eyes.
While working toward his fine arts degree at the University of Michigan, Mandel was awarded the David Davidson High Commendation for his summer semester at Studio Arts Colleges International in Florence, Italy in 2018.
“To me, painting someone is the most intimate thing I can do for them,” Mandel said. “By confronting their physical elements and literally generating someone’s form by my own means, my own body, I find that bond to the subject grows stronger. That is why I paint.”
Mandel works as a junior art director for the e-commerce agency, Bold Strategies, and as a freelance artist. He’s also been a handbag designer for Steve Madden and brand designer for MUSH, a ready-to-eat health food company co-founded by 2008 Blair graduate Ashley Thompson.
Scott has spent her life immersed in art, growing up in her mother’s clay studio and earning her master’s degree in ceramics from Hood College. Her work has been featured in exhibitions across the nation, and she currently works out of her Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania, studio where she also operates her business “Craft Into Art,” which provides art education to the local community.
Scott’s passion as artist emanates from “her exposure to the beauty of handmade objects and the interesting people who make them,” she said.
In this exhibition, Scott explained that she uses her wood-fired clay pieces to represent the female form and “explore the gestural and ephemeral beauty in the movement of the body and the clay.”
All are welcome to attend the artists talk with Scott, Mandel and Jenkins on Feb. 23 in the Romano Gallery.
Joe Phalon, Contributing Writer
Joe was lured out of retirement by the opportunity to be a part of the Ridge View Echo. During a decades-long career in publishing and journalism, he has covered government on many levels from local school boards to the United States Supreme Court.
Along the way, Joe has worked at American Lawyer Magazine, The National Law Journal and The Record among other publications, and as the Press Officer of Columbia Law School. His work has been recognized with several first place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the New Jersey Press Association.
Being part of the Ridge View Echo brings Joe back to his roots and the kind of news coverage he loves: Telling the stories of people and local communities as well as keeping an eye on how their money is spent by their government officials.
Joe lives in Blairstown with his wife Rose, the founder of Quilting for a Cause, and their two wiener dogs. He is an artist in his spare time.
