Berks Now: Kristen Tabone Woodward

In response to visitor and Member requests to see more local art, Berks Now is an exhibition program that has been launched to feature the work of local artists, many from Berks County. The second artist to be featured is Kristen Tabone Woodward, Associate Professor & Department Chair, Albright College.

Woodward’s series Civilizations, mixed media on pelt stretcher boards, will be featured in the auditorium hallway May 15 through August 1, 2004. Ron Roth, Director & CEO comments, “Kristin Woodward's installation is inspired by ethnographic materials in the Reading Public Museum's Oceanic collections. She has taken design features of objects from Australian Aboriginal culture and created an iconography of color and design that is evocative and rich in association. Visitors will have a rich and unique experience viewing her exceptional work.”

Upcoming Berks Now artists are Yadira Torres August 14 – October 24, 2004 and Marilyn Fox November 20, 2004 – February 6, 2005. Local artists interested in having an exhibition at the Museum in 2005 are asked to submit their resume and slides and/or photos of their artwork to Ron Roth at the Reading Public Museum.

Berks Now, is supported by the Friends of the Reading Museum, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Regular Museum admission is $7 adults and $5 children 4 to 17. Museum hours are Tuesday, Thursday-Saturday 11am to 5pm, Wednesday 11am to 8pm and Sunday Noon to 5pm.

Kristen received her BFA degree from Syracuse University in 1991 and her MFA from Clemson University in 1993. She has exhibited her mixed media works in solo and group shows throughout the country. She currently resides in Reading, PA, where she is on the faculty in the Art Department at Albright College. Speaking about her series Civilizations Woodward states, “There’s something about working with found objects that adds another layer of information to a work of art. It’s as if the objects retain an essence of their former life. That essence is what initially intrigued and repelled me when I first came across the pelt stretchers at a flea market. I assembled a collection – painting and collaging images that reinforced the grouping as some sort of skewed ethnological survey…. Civilization is nothing if not a collection of contradictions – the beautiful and the ugly, intertwined with the painfully ordinary.”

Along with numerous awards and distinctions, Woodward’s work is also in the permanent collections of many institutions including Clemson University, Clemson, SC; Consolidated Southern Industries, Inc.; Cottonlandia Museum, Greenwood, MS; Reading Area Community College, Reading, PA; South Carolina National Bank; United States Federal Reserve Bank, Charlotte, NC; Shearwater Corporation, Huntsville, AL; and Wachovia, Columbia, SC.