This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 9, 2011 -"Poems by Bobby Thiel" by St. Louis artists Gina Alvarez and Jana Harper, now on view at the Sheldon Art Galleries, is a lovely, totally disarming collection of mixed media works produced by the artists during a residency in Maryland.
Their collaboration involved a third participant -- Bobby Thiel, a relative of Alvarez, whose childhood book of poems from the 1940s served as the artists' primary inspiration.
The works, which combine photographs, digital and traditional prints, drawing, hand-stitching and other collaged elements, are sentimental in the best sense of the word, tender reminders of the fragile beauty of memory.
Ivy Cooper, a professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, is the Beacon art critic.