[OR_Archaeology] Hallie Ford Museum of Art Exhibit

[mdarby at teleport.com]

Dear All,

Please see the announcement of a very special exhibit soon to open at 
Willamette University. The PSU Middle East Studies Center's Bogue Oil 
Lamp Collection is to be featured in the exhibit and opening lecture. 
The timing is perfect as MESC kicks off the celebration of its 50th year!

Jean Campbell, PSU

PLEASE SHARE THIS INFORMATION WITH OTHERS WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED.

Please join us in *the Paulus Lecture Hall of the Collins Legal Center
(Willamette University, 245 Winter Street, SE, Salem, Oregon)* for an
illustrated lecture at *7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 18th*, celebrating
the opening of the exhibit entitled "From Hestia’s Sacred Fire to
Christ’s Eternal Light: Ancient and Medieval Oil Lamps from the Bogue
Collection, Middle East Studies Center, Portland State University,"
March 14 through May 17 in the Study Gallery at the Hallie Ford Museum
of Art, Willamette University, 700 State Street, Salem, Oregon.

The lecture, entitled "Illuminating Art: The Study of Ancient Lamps,"
will be presented by Dr. Lisa Brody, Associate Curator of Ancient Art
and the Yale University Art Gallery and co-curator of the HFMA exhibit.
Oil-burning lamps represent one of the most important types of object in
daily life prior to the age of electricity. Ubiquitous in homes, civic
buildings, commercial establishments, and religious sanctuaries, they
were constructed of clay, bronze, iron, and even lead. Like the sacred
hearth fire of an ancient Greek house, lamps burned for symbolic as well
as for practical purposes. They illuminated the nocturnal rituals in a
sanctuary, and the extinguished vessels themselves were offered as gifts
for the divinity. Not only archaeological artifacts providing evidence
of ancient technology, traces of burning, and residues of fuel, lamps
are also art objects, with figural decorative schemes rivaling those of
Greek vase painting. This dual significance, however, sometimes causes
lamps to fall through scholarly cracks, overlooked by both
archaeologists and art historians. In this lecture, Dr. Brody will
attempt to begin to remedy this situation, exploring the full value of
lamps as evidence of ancient life as well as enduring works of art.

Dr. Lisa Brody received her BA /summa cum laude/ in archaeological
studies from Yale University, and her MA and Ph.D. in Greek and Roman
art history from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University.  She
is the author of a book on the /Aphrodite of Aphrodisias/ (2007) and
numerous other articles and reviews.  She has extensive excavation
experience in the United States, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey.  She has
taught at numerous institutions including Fordham University, the
University of Notre Dame, Oregon State University, Portland State
University, Willamette University, the American School of Classical
Studies at Athens, Queens College, and currently at Yale University.

Dr. Brody's talk is co-sponsored by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, the
Salem Society of the Archaeological Institute of America, and the Center
for Ancient Studies and Archaeology at Willamette University with the
generous cooperation of the Middle East Studies Center at Portland State
University.

Dr. Brody's talk will be preceded by a *cookies and coffee reception at
the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, 5:30 to 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March
18th*, during which it will be possible to view the associated exhibit
as well as the newly renovated and re-opened Sponenburgh Gallery.

-- 
Dr. Ann M. Nicgorski
Faculty Curator, Hallie Ford Museum of Art
Professor of Art History and Archaeology
Chair, Archaeology Program and Department of Art and Art History
Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, Oregon 97301 USA

Office Phone:  (503) 370-6250