Join us for our annual Frances Day, a community open house on Saturday, July 9. Visitors can experience multiple contemporary art exhibitions, art-making activities, tours, food, music, and more in honor of the museum’s namesake, Frances Young Tang, Skidmore College Class of 1961.

Schedule

• 1 to 4 PM: Drop-in activities include making a landscape out of felt, inspired by artist Zaria Forman, whose work is in Alumni Invitational 5; tote-bag decorating; button making; a participatory community-based publication by creating your own artist response to the exhibition Where Words Falter: Art and Empathy; sidewalk chalk drawing and bubble making (outside); and a special #FrancesDay Selfie Station for selfies and other Instagram-able photos

• 1:15 PM: Gallery talk in Alumni Invitational 5 with exhibiting artists Fitzhugh Karol ’04, Zehra Khan ’04, and Susan Meyer ’86, moderated by Malloy Curator and Assistant Director for Curatorial Affairs Rachel Seligman

• 2:15 PM: Behind-the-Scenes Collections Tour with Senior Museum Registrar Elizabeth Karp and Collections Registrar Kara Jefts

• 3 PM: Curator’s Tour of Where Words Falter: Art and Empathy with Associate Curator Rebecca McNamara and 2020-21 Charina Endowment Fund Intern Evan Little ’22

• 4 PM: Raffle winners announced

• 4:01 PM: Pony in the Pancake performs on the lawn

Refreshments served throughout the day include lemonade, water, and cookies. During the concert free empanadas and ice cream will be served, and beer and wine will be available for sale via Visa or Master Card.

All events are free and open to the public. In case of inclement weather, all activities will be held indoors.

About Frances Young Tang and Frances Day

Frances Young Tang was a businesswoman, philanthropist, and 1961 Skidmore College graduate who died in 1992. In her memory, the Tang family made a substantial donation that led to the Tang Teaching Museum becoming a reality. The museum opened in 2000 as the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery. Frances Day, which began in 2014, honors her legacy of creativity and philanthropy with a day of free activities for the whole community.

About the Gallery Talk Artists

Fitzhugh Karol ’04 makes abstract sculptures of wood and metal which evoke hills, valleys, steps, and portals—elements of real, imagined, and remembered landscapes. Whether monumental or intimate, each sculpture combines a playful vocabulary of geometric forms to draw and strengthen connections between people and the landscape.

Zehra Khan ’04 is a multidisciplinary artist whose work includes drawing, sculpture, performance, and painting—the latter often on her fellow humans. Always playful, often absurdist and provocative, Khan uses unconventional and found materials and methods to explore relationships—those between individuals as well as those between humans and the flora and fauna of the world around us.

Susan Meyer ’86 is inspired by defunct utopian communities, scholar’s rocks, and other potent elements of popular culture. From these sources, she makes sculpture, installations, and two-dimensional work that evoke a host of tenuous relationships—between the natural world and the built environment, between growth and decay, between aspiration and failure.

About Pony in the Pancake

Over the years Pony in the Pancake has amassed a large and faithful following in and around the Northeast. They have played shows to packed houses all along the East Coast and Canada. Their live sound is a psychedelic juggernaut. “Anyone who’s had the pleasure of witnessing their live show has felt the sweet spot where the propulsion of the Velvet Underground, the wide-eyed romanticism and surf twang of the Beach Boys and the elliptical grooves of Krautrock intersect,” said Jeremy Schwartz, Chronogram Magazine.