Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9201300098
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF DeBELL
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
CRAFTS GUILD PUTS ON A NEW SHOW
Attendance has been disappointing at the Virginia Mountain Crafts Guild's recent spring shows, so the organization will try something new.It will hold this year's show at the Science Museum of Western Virginia, which will suspend its programs for the three-day period. The museum is in Roanoke's Center in the Square.
Guild spokesman Ken Hamblin said a number of its members have exhibited their work successfully at the museum's annual wildlife art show, so it was decided to try the association on a broader and more formal scale.
Approximately 55 artists and crafts people will display their work at the show, which is set for May 1-3.
"We know how to put on a show," he said. "We felt the science museum could use our know-how. They have the facilities, and we both need to raise money."
The guild uses virtually all proceeds from its shows to support four annual scholarships for Virginians studying art or crafts in college.
Tom Armstrong, director emeritus of the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, will be juror for this year's Roanoke City Art Show.
The show is set for May 9-July 12 and will be in the first-floor gallery of the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts.
Roanoke Symphony Orchestra officials are happy with Roanoke's approach to the problem of the broken orchestra shell at the Roanoke Civic Center auditorium.
The city is looking into the possibility of getting expert acoustics advice from Artec Consultants Inc. of New York, which is exactly what the orchestra had recommended. The city also is moving immediately to get figures on what it might cost to replace the shell.
A pleased Margarite Fourcroy, executive director of the orchestra, said her organization and the city will be taking a "cooperative" approach to the problem.
Pulleys used in the process of lifting the heavy steel and metal shell and moving it for storage came loose from their moorings after the orchestra's Jan. 13 concert. The shell's rear wall and folded-down ceiling had to be returned to the stage floor and cannot be moved.
The orchestra people have never liked the shell, which they consider a complete failure acoustically. Nor have they felt the city responsive to their complaints. Now that the shell is broken, they're pushing hard for complete replacement - with expert advice - rather than repairs to the existing shell.
One longtime critic with firsthand experience is John Husser, a bassoonist in the orchestra. He said one problem is that the shell's ceiling isn't solid; It allows sound to float into the recesses over the stage instead of being bounced into the audience where it belongs.
"A lot of people don't know the sonic impact of an orchestra if that's the only place they've heard one," said Husser, who is on the music faculty at Virginia Tech.
Musicians say the inferior acoustics also are a problem onstage because they can make it hard, if not impossible, for one section of the orchestra to hear another. It's tough to play together under conditions like that.
"I'm hoping this will afford us the opportunity to make a real improvement," Husser said.
The United Way's token of appreciation for its volunteers this year was art - specifically, a work in hand-made paper by Liz Kregloe.
Working with an assistant, "and a babysitter," Kregloe produced no fewer than 79 one-of-a-kind pieces - in three weeks.
"I wanted to see if I could do it," said the Roanoke artist, who also has been commissioned by the Marriott hotel chain to make large-scale pieces for the lobbies of four Residence Inns in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York and California.
She is to be commended - as is the United Way, for choosing art as a way of thanking its volunteers.