Architecture Exposed: The summer Community Gallery exhibition

Buffalo is a magical place. People can follow their passions and imagine ways to address important needs in the city, and the ingredients are just right to make things happen. The Architecture Exposed collaboration among Starlight Studio and Art Gallery (340 Delaware Avenue), the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Art (CEPA) and Preservation Buffalo Niagara began in spring 2011 in anticipation of the fall National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference. Lauren Tent, Education Director of CEPA, and Fred Schrock, Education Coordinator at Preservation Buffalo Niagara, provided history and art lectures and arranged tours through Buffalo. Schrock created a Google map so that anyone can follow the path of the Starlight Studio artists and learn about each location. Carrie Marcotte, Director of Starlight Studio, explained that the aim of the project was to become more aware of the city around us and to find new ways to interpret our urban environment.

Marcotte received her master’s in art therapy from Buffalo State College and worked at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in the Matter at Hand program for nearly a decade. She also held an education position at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center for a short period. At both museums, Marcotte gained extensive experience in working with individuals with special needs. When Marc Hennig, deputy executive director of Learning Disabilities Association of Western New York, presented Marcotte with a plan and the grant to create Starlight Studio, she was ready to devote her life to this new adventure. Marcotte described that the gallery is a place for people to make art and join a program that “has no end.”

Starlight Studio was born in 2005. The organization was created for people who like to make art and have exposure to lots of different media. Participants develop a confidence in artmaking in a community that is based on freedom of choice and individual goal setting. Its location in downtown near CEPA and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is an enormous benefit since the program involves many visits to galleries and museums, including regular trips to the Burchfield Penney. Currently, there are 42 people in the program, and there is a waiting list.

Starlight Studio is open to the public Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 4:00.

— Alana Ryder

Email Alana at ryderah@buffalostate.edu

Alana Ryder
Alana Ryder, Curator for Public & Academic Programs, is part of the education department at the Burchfield Penney. She curates the Community Gallery, leads the museum’s student group, the BPAC Street Team, and has organized a number of M&T Second Friday, music and community programs. Ryder was recognized by the Museum Association of New York for RendezBlue art and music festival and by the NFTA and Grow WNY for the Edible Complex farmers’ market event. She earned her B.A. in the history of art from the University of California, Berkeley and recently completed her M.A. at Buffalo State College. Her thesis was entitled "By My Side: Charles E. Burchfield’s Letters to Bertha K. Burchfield from 1923 to 1963."