2008-2009 Exhibits

Made in Trenton
An exhibit of the many and varied goods
produced in the capital city today

June 27 - September 13, 2009

“This exhibit showcases a small sampling of Trenton manufacturers who have either survived the changing market and continue to grow and thrive – or who have identified their niche recently and produce products and services in the 21st century,” said Museum Director Brian O. Hill. “The slogan, ‘Trenton Makes, The World Takes’ is as true today as it was when S. Roy Heath (then owner of Heath Lumber) came up with the phrase and won a slogan contest sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce in 1910.”

The following contributors provide a glimpse of what the city offers the world today:

Ana Design Candles, Frank Weeden
Boehm Porcelain
Sharon Lee and George Parker, and Rick DePaola
Bolt Welding, Chris Hiltey
TAWA, Larry Chestnut
Hutchinson Industries
E-Learning, Ray Ingram
Modern Metal Work, Peter Abrams
Natural Edge Products, David Robinson
Blacksmith of Trenton, Sasha Parubchenko
Pierce Design, John Pierce
John P. Pierce Van Lines Company
Leon Rainbow
Saya’s African Fashions, Saya Richardson
Switlick Parachute Company
Terracycle, John Szaky and Jon Beyer
Zienowicz Signs, George Zienowicz

See Leon Rainbow's Ellarlsie exhibit in progress.

This exhibit is in conjunction with Key Ingredients: America by Food presented by the New Jersey Council on the Humanities, a Smithsonian "Museum on Main Street" traveling exhibition running concurrently at the New Jersey State Museum.

Although primarily known for its pottery, wiire rope and rubber industries in the 19th and 20th centuries, Trenton was also significantly involved in food production and delivery during thisperiod. The city had major breweries, bottlers of carbonated beverages, pork and beef processors, bakeries, and manufacturers of oyster crackers and confections. Many dairies serviced the city of 128,000 residents (at its largest population), and farmers sold their products downtown through farmers’ markets, which is how Market Street got its name.

Some of the best known products made in Trenton are highlighted in this exhibit, including Champale malt liquor (Champale, Inc.), beer (Peoples Brewing Company), oyster crackers (Original Trenton Cracker Company and A. Exton & Company), and pork roll (Case Pork Roll Company and Taylor Provision Company).  

From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, over 80 bottling companies operated in the city.  The bottles, which contained beer, mineral water, or carbonated beverages, have the name of the bottler embossed on the outside. On display are bottles representing 36 of these bottling companies, with an emphasis on  E. L. Kerns Company.

Trenton also has a great restaurant tradition. Eleven restaurants and hotel-restaurants that were prominent in the first half of the 20th century are pictured in early 20th century postcards. 

Ellarslie Open XXVII and

The Salon at Artworks

April 25 - June 14, 2009


2009 Awards

Made You Look

The Art of Deception

Deborah Raven, Eric Schultz &
Natalie Featherston
February 28 - April 19, 2009

An accomplished photographer, Deborah Raven has recently switched from the traditional gelatin silver film processing to the much “greener” world of digital photography.

Exhibiting since 1986 in local group exhibitions such as Phillip’s Mill, Gallery Siano, Philadelphia, Gallery 214, Montclair Maryland Institute, Baltimore, New Hope Arts, and our own Trenton City Museum, New Jersey, “Ellarslie Open” she is also an accomplished professional photographer. With literally dozens of book jackets and album covers to her credit, her extensive client list includes IBM, Microsoft, Time Inc., Xerox, Hallmark, Avanti, Nouvelles Images, Good Morning America, Wells Fargo, Coca Cola, Fuji Film, National Geographic, Atlantic Records, EMI Records, Unicorn Records, MC Records, Capricorn Records, Victor Records, Simon & Schuster, Ballantine Books, Harcourt Brace, Columbia University Press, Oxford University Press and Ralph Lauren.

Raven has also done production photography for New York stage and regional theaters, including Home for Contemporary Theater, Rapp Arts Center, Intar, Kaufman Theater, Circle Rep, Ubu Rep, Soho Rep, Long Island Stage, Bard College Theater, and McCarter Theater.  Ms. Raven is represented by Getty Images.


Born in Trenton, NJ in 1976, Eric Schultz began his artistic journey as a tinkerer and a character with eccentric creativity. Mr. Schultz’s knowledge of the creative process stems from many sources: private lessons, schools, other artists and the recognizing the opportunity presented to him by his surroundings and incorporating the processes he found appropriate.

Schultz attended Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts and received his BA in Fine Arts from Temple University Tyler School of Art in 2000. Teaching “found object” art classes at The Garden State Discovery Museum and his work at Grounds for Sculpture laid the groundwork for his current body of work. Schultz is currently employed at The Sculpture Foundation in Trenton, where he creates and installs major traveling sculpture exhibitions for J. Seward Johnson and the Grounds for Sculpture.

Schultz’s found object sculptures are displayed in various private collections, gallery exhibitions and museums. 

A resident of Trenton’s historic Cadwalader Heights neighborhood, Natalie Featherston has exhibited her work in galleries across the country and hangs in private and public collections around the world, but she has never before had a major exhibit in her home state of New Jersey.

This show will feature trompe l’oeil works in Featherston’s signature style, including her series of children’s drawings, “Young Artist Shows Promise.” Also included will be pieces from her confectionary series “Just Desserts” as well as several large virtuosic works that contrast with the traditional small easel genre of trompe l’oeil.

Featherston’s paintings have received numerous awards from some of the most distinguished art organizations in the country, including the Salmagundi Club and the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Club. Her work has appeared in, among many others, American Art Collector, Southwest Art, The Artist’s Magazine, and Santa Fean Magazine.

A Toy Story: Seven Decades of J. Chein and Company, New Jersey Toymaker

November 21, 2008 - March 22, 2009
Opening Reception: A Family Friendly Event
 

A never before exhibited collection of J. Chein and Company tin toys and memorabilia is on display on the second floor of the museum.  Chein family members of the Burlington, New Jersey business are exhibiting toys and memorablilia from their personal collections, accompanied by pieces from the extensive collection of Georgia Marsh, the world’s leading collector of Chein Toys.

 J. Chein and Company was founded in 1903, producing lithographed and stamped metal toys. In 1949 the company moved to Burlington under the ownership of Robert Beckelman and Irving Sachs. By 1960 the company was turning out 100,000 toys a day. Known to collectors today for toys of such iconic figures as Popeye, Krazy Kat, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Chein also produced holiday toys, transportation toys and banks. Mechanical ride toys, introduced in the 1930s were very popular, especially the Ferris Wheel.

Forged by Fire

Cooled by Water

Sasha Parubchenko, Earl Lewis and
Hari Hawkins

January 10 - February 22, 2009

Sasha Parubchenko is a well-travelled modern day Renaissance man.  Born in 1944 in Lvov, Poland (Ukraine) Parubchenko endured the camps in Germany during and after the war.  Before coming to Trenton he lived in Italy, Egypt, Australia, and Canada, did he settle down in Trenton. After completing a degree in Nuclear Physics at Rutgers University, he served in the Air Force for seven years during and after the Vietnam War, his tour of duty including service in Europe, North Africa, The Middle East, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Ethiopia. 

An accomplished pianist and violist, Parubchenko has played with the Mercer County Symphony Orchestra, Rutgers Orchestra, and New Jersey State Orchestra. 

After blacksmithing in Canada, in 1972 Parubchenko opened the doors to his own shop in Trenton.  Since then, he has worked on the gates for Jasna Polana, Peter Benchley’s home in Princeton, and for West Point—a project in which he duplicated the style and architecture of the links that crossed the Hudson River during the Revolutionary War. Artists from around the world have sought the assistance of this Master Blacksmith including Alain Kirilli of Paris, France; Johan Hoston of Switzerland; and staff from the Johnson Atelier. 

In this retrospective of his work, pieces from the 70’s through the present day show Parubchenko's evolution as an artist.          

Born in Philadelphia, PA on December 16, 1956, Earl Bradley Lewis displayed artistic promise as early as the third grade and decided he wanted to follow in the footsteps of two uncles, who were artists. After finishing the sixth grade, he attended the Saturday morning Temple University School Art League run by one of his uncles. Under the tutelage of Clarence Wood, a noted painter in Philadelphia, Lewis began his formal art training andremained in the program until enrolling at the Temple University Tyler School of Art in 1975.

During his four years at Temple, Lewis majored in Graphic Design and Illustration, along with Art Education. There he discovered watercolor, his medium of preference.

Upon graduating in 1979, Lewis went directly into teaching illustration, while freelancing in Graphic Design. Between 1985 and 1986 he completed a body of work which was exhibited in a downtown Philadelphia gallery. The show sold out and brought him public recognition and critical acclaim. Within two years, his work was exhibited at the prestigious Rosenfeld Gallery in Philadelphia, where his shows continue to sell out.

Lewis' work is now part of major private collections and is displayed in galleries throughout the United States. Currently, Earl Lewis is teaching illustration at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and is a member of The Society of Illustrators in New York City.            

Born in Jamaica Queens, New York, Hari Hawkins has shared his extraordinary photographic and woodworking talents for 25 years with art lovers across the United States and beyond.

Early in life Hari’s desire to travel and develop his creative vision became clear.  While his high school woodshop class nurtured new interest in woodwork, it was purchasing his first camera, a Pentax, at age fifteen, which opened the doors to a new world of possibilities. 

Capturing the natural poses a woman embraces when she is comfortable in her own skin, the way sunlight streams across a female’s bare torso, and the powerful images of a dancer reflected in a mountain lake are the trademarks of Hari Hawkins’ images. His passion for woodworking is evident in the use of the exotic woods of South America and Africa, including the strong textures of Zebrawood and cocobolo, accenting the intricate designs of Hawkins' jewelry boxes, humidors and chessboards.

During his career, Hari Hawkins has worked with United Press International as a freelance photographer; photographed black athletes who participated in the Munich Olympics; and traveled to Spain, Amsterdam and France on photographic excursions.  His photography and woodworking have been featured in exhibitions throughout New Jersey and Pennsylvania including the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion and the Phillips Mill Art Gallery in New Hope. He has also been interviewed on Channel 25 for The Mill Craftsman show. Hawkins' work is part of many private collections. 

44:  Barack Obama and
the 2008 Presidential Campaign

Photography by Phil McAuliffe
January - June

Phil McAuliffe is a photojournalist based in central New Jersey.  He has been employed locally by the Princeton Packet for 14 years and since 2005 has been represented by Polaris Images in NYC, an international news photo agency.He has covered major stories such as 9-11 and its aftermath, Hurricane Katrina, the space shuttle, music and presidential politics.

In 1999,he photographed refugees from the war in Kosovo being sheltered at Ft Dix in southern New Jersey. He made two trips to Kosovo resulting in the reunification of two families who had members separated during the war. His images have appeared globally in such publications as Newsweek, Time, People, US News & World Report, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, Stern/Germany, Daily Mail/UK.

"I had been covering the 2008 Presidential campaign for Polaris Images for what seemed like years. But unlike most traveling campaign photographers, I covered all sides, the whole campaign, Obama, Hillary, McCain, Sarah Palin, the whole cast of characters. And I traveled all over the country to document this story. But my best break came in the form of the State of Pennsylvania. To everyone’s surprise it had become a battleground state during the Primaries and the general election campaign. Every week, one if not all the candidates were making appearances, in most cases, just a few miles away.

"I had always hoped to be lucky enough to have the opportunity to cover defining and historic events of our time. I don’t know if leaving a legacy of these images is a form of immortality or whether I am just addicted to experiencing these moments first hand."

Lynda Juel and Marie Sturken

November 15, 2008 - January 4, 2009

Lynda Juel was born in Niagara Falls, New York. She attended Houghton College and Northwestern University but after teaching six years of high school English, Juel began to take courses in studio arts at the University of Minnesota. Her specialty: additive sculpture and found art manipulation. Juel’s sculpture is constructed from long filaments cut from aluminum cans, then woven or wrapped into a mesh covered armature. Juel describes her work: “the colors from the cans provide an interesting palette. Juel finds that because she is able to stop and start work when time permits, the medium is appropriate to her world. Her work often focuses on women and frequently uses domestic imagery.  “Brooms and vacuums, irons, empty dresses, shoes, gloves, and children's clothes reflect the realities of ordinary life through metaphor and irony, playing on the edges between light and dark.” Her work has appeared in galleries and exhibitions in Minnesota, New Jersey, and New York.

Marie Sturken received her education from The Grand Central Art School, in New York, Princeton Graphic Workshop and the Lithography Workshop at Rutgers University. Sturken has taught basic printmaking at Princeton Art Association, Lithography and Monotype at Artworks in Trenton, multiple papermaking workshops and has presented many lectures. Her work has appeared in galleries and exhibitions in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Sturken explains, “Paper as a source material has played a fundamental role in my work, beginning with printmaking. Handmade paper is simply another medium, like watercolor or pastel, but a more pliable, flexible one, in which the medium is an integral part of the image. In recent years, my handmade papers are created using flax as a base, resulting in a very transparent and crisp paper when dry. The transformation of the raw fibers through beating, the layering of various materials, and the rhythmic, cyclical nature of papermaking, make it an attractive alternative to working with solvents and chemicals ordinarily used in printmaking. Because of its liquid qualities, I use flax pulp as a medium, like oil or watercolor, to carry the color of my palette.”

Cityscapes and Country Ceramics

September 20, 2008 - November 9, 2008

Eric Fowler and Sharon Kingsbury

The Paintingsof Eric Fowler and
the sculpture of Sharon Kingsbury

Most buildings have souls. I listen to lost buildings. I paint many older structures of urban blight. I give them a voice. Once they held a special purpose: as a local tavern, an old bungalow, a small family business, a local meeting hall, maybe an apartment house or an old hay bar. They were built for a purpose. They were alive.  Some will survive, yet most will be demolished. I love these lost souls, these old ghosts.

--Eric Fowler

An artist is always in the process of growing, creating, designing, and expressing. I have always been fascinated by the human figure. The face for portraying humor, sadness, despair, love, etc. is unparalleled, as is the figure for its grace and movement.  In my family series, I have attempted to show the closeness and love of a family.  Many times it feels as if the family is an island in the midst of chaos.  From the family series, I have done a series of communities. It takes a village to raise a child.  I moved on to movement of figures (dance) juxtaposed with each other. Where now? I have been working on a series  I call Sacred Earth. The people have gotten smaller and the mountain has gotten taller, steps added as we climb towards reconciling our lives with those of the earth.

I art therefore I am.

--Sharon Kingsbury

updated 09.17.09