What Spare Time?

Art teachers polish off their own work for a show at Ellarslie.

By: Ilene Dube

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"Snake and Turtle" by Susan Kiley


   It’s been nearly nine years since Princeton ceramic artist James Colavita, 46, left this world. Happily, his spirit seems to have made a return visit to Ellarslie, the Trenton City Museum in Cadwalader Park.
   The exhibit, Art Teachers’ Art, includes work by Anthony "Toj" Colavita, James’ younger brother, and Susan Kiley, his widow. The last time Ms. Kiley and Toj were seen at Ellarslie — at least by this writer — was at one of five James Colavita retrospectives they organized in 1998.
   Artists throughout central New Jersey still talk about Jimmy Colavita and the influence he had on them, so it is not surprising that Toj and Susan absorbed that influence, as well.
   Ms. Kiley shares her late husband’s fascination with animals — one of her pieces is titled "The Seven Sins of Don Porca"; her husband had a piece titled "Donna Porca." Toj incorporates many of the motifs used by his brother — heavenward stairways, columns and archways, moons, fire and animals. Both Ms. Kiley and Mr. Colavita work in clay. Yet despite all the similarities, both have their own style and vision.

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"Father’s Totem" by Susan Kiley


   "Sister Monica Mary, Joe Riley, Joan Kennedy — I’ve been out of high school for 35 years and I still remember my art teachers," says Ellarslie Director Brian O. Hill, who was a classmate of Jimmy, Toj and Susan at The College of New Jersey, then Trenton State College. "My art teachers gave me the ability to be creative in normal life. This exhibit is important to me because it gives credit where credit is due."
   Ms. Kiley, who was named Teacher of the Year in both 1996 and 2000 and received a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Artist/Teacher Initiative Grant in 2002, says "I’m working in the primordial mud; I stay very close to the ground." She is drawn to snakes, turtles, reptiles, insects.
   "Snake and Turtle," a snake coiled atop a turtle’s shell, was completed in 1999 and is her oldest work in the show. "I look at this as a waiting game. The snake is poisonous and the turtle is protected. The work has a story but it doesn’t have to. We’re attracted to something visually first. I tend to work in a round form.
   "I’m not prolific, I do work on the side," she continues. "Especially when teaching younger ones, it’s physically and emotionally demanding with serious hours." She says she did most of the work in this show in the past four months.
   Ms. Kiley, a Ewing resident, has taken over her husband’s studio in Hopewell. There, she found molds Mr. Colavita had used, some made from half a football, some from kumquats. She used these molds to create the body parts of insects — not any specific insects, but her own inventions in various sizes and shapes.

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"Ring Toss" by Anthony "Toj" Colavita


   "It’s an outgrowth of a lesson I taught to seventh-graders, using tessellation to teach math and art," says Ms. Kiley, who teaches at Mott Elementary School in Trenton. "The principle is, you take a former shape and cut it apart. Seventh-graders like order in their art. When kids get to 5th and 6th grade, they get nervous about what they can do, and learning tessellations enables them to do beautiful work.
   "I wanted to show movement (of the insects)," she continues. "I wanted to show them agitated, not necessarily flying, a sequence of movement." The result is "Swarm," a cluster of lady beetle-type critters with shiny hard exoskeletons that seem to be, well, swarming. One seems to have escaped and found its way to an adjoining tile work by Mr. Colavita, "My Paramour and I."
   "When I was a little kid I observed a lot," says Ms. Kiley. "I liked watching other forms of life going on. I would pick up a rock and all these ants had a whole community. By picking up that rock I destroyed their community." While working on "Swarm," Ms. Kiley says she flashed back to that childhood observation of a "sub-visual life force."
   Toj Colavita has been teaching art in Lawrence Township public schools for 29 years, most recently in Benjamin Franklin Elementary School. His work in the show includes both paintings on tile as well as ceramic work. "I’m working more painterly (in the tile work) but one of my strongest interests is clay," he says. "Hanging around incredible clay people like my brother, Susan and Michael Welliver (on the ceramics faculty at Mercer County Community College), this show gave me the chance to bring what I had and focus on new ideas."

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"Break My Bank" by Anthony "Toj" Colavita


   On a recent snowy evening at Ellarslie, he reminisced about his brother, who was one year and seven months older. "I tagged along quite a bit and picked up art," he says. While Toj was teaching in Lawrence and Jim was on the faculty at MCCC, the two earned master’s degrees at Brooklyn College at night. "He would pick me up at Lawrence High School and we’d drive to Brooklyn, then arrive back in the parking lot at 1 or 2 in the morning."
   The brothers worked on a combined master’s thesis, using puppets, street music and performance art. As the Eldridge Park Artists and Clark Kent Troupe and they performed at the Dodge Poetry Festival, among other events. Fire and animals were essential elements.
   Mr. Colavita still lives in the Eldridge Park section of Lawrence with ducks, chickens, cats, a dog named "Foundy" and Lillian, a very old goat given to him by Jim and Susan. "Saint Skippy," a tile painting, pays homage to the animal world, the central human figure surrounded by a rabbit, squirrel, peacock, goat, dove and rooster. "Saint Skippy is a made-up person," says Mr. Colavita. "My mother used to call my brother ‘Skippy.’"
   "Ring Toss" is a light-hearted ceramic piece of a head with a spike coming out onto which rings are tossed. Mr. Colavita took fragments from his brother’s pieces and used it in "Ring Toss" as a tribute to him. "A friend has an art garden cemetery of broken pieces. Jimmy had given her these fragments; that’s how I came about them."
   Another reason some of Mr. Colavita’s ceramic work bears resemblance to his brother’s is because they employ the same smoke-firing technique. The older brother, who sometimes claimed to be a pyromaniac, would create pit fires in which to fire larger pieces.
   One of Toj’s more recent works in the show is "Baked Alaska," inspired by a TV cooking show. "They heaped up egg whites and burned it, then divided it so there’s layers of ice cream. In my version, inside the baked Alaska you find this compressed head. Maybe that’s how you’d serve baked Alaska. It’s about the relationship of people to the home, and when I say home I mean family. It’s not the structure but what’s going on inside."
   In addition to Ms. Kiley and Mr. Colavita, two other art teachers are represented in the show. Aundretta Wright teaches at Holland Middle School in Trenton and is an adjunct professor at MCCC. Her subjects include larger-than-life flower portraits and buildings. She is especially fond of working in craypas. "Craypas is such a versatile medium; it allows you so much latitude," she says. "I used to do nice little colored pencil-and-ink floral pieces, but then (MCCC art professor) Mel Leipzig said, ‘What would your work look like if you let go and drew larger.’ Then I got into this thing with black paper. The colors are so stunning on black paper."
   "Leave it to an elementary school teacher to work in craypas," says Ms. Kiley with great admiration for her colleague. "Artists will sometimes use it on top of paint and call it oil pastel. She scrapes and scratches and pushes the medium."
   Bernard Moore (1944-2004) taught at Princeton High School, then at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South for 25 years, where he headed the art department. While facing a life-threatening illness, he took a sabbatical and traveled to Northern Italy to study and immerse himself in painting and art. His oil pastels of the Tuscan landscape, still lifes and pencil sketches round out the show.
   "As a teacher, my work is isolated," says Mr. Colavita. "It’s nice that Susan and I know a lot of art educators to bounce ideas off of. It’s how we keep the energy moving along."
Art Teachers’ Art featuring Anthony Colavita, Susan Kiley, Bernard Moore and Aundretta Wright is on view at Ellarslie, the Trenton City Museum, 319 E. State St., Trenton, through Feb. 27. Hours: Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m. For information, call (609) 989-3632. On the Web: www.ellarslie.org
Ellarslie will host It’s All About Chocolate, the museum’s second annual chocolate-tasting fundraiser, Feb. 11, 7-9 p.m. The event will feature chocolate truffles made with libations such as rum, Kahlua, grappa and schnapps. Stations including a chocolate and liquor bar, chocolate and coffee bar, and chocolate, wine and cheese bar, will allow guests to sample as well as watch demonstrations. Tickets cost $20, $25 at the door. To order, call (609) 989-1191.