Merry Old Sole

Willie Cole’s “Black Worrier,” on view at Grounds For Sculpture, is made of women’s shoes.

Willie Cole’s artistic training began in the 1960s: with his dollar-a-week allowance, the Newark native visited S. Klein’s Department Store and bought model kits of plastic cars and superheroes.

He’d put them together according to the directions – but that was just for starters. Cole would make them his own by adding thread, beads, toothpicks, straws and that plastic apparatus that held all the parts together in the first place.

The world-renowned artist went on to study at Boston University School of Fine Arts, the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League, but the basic building blocks from his childhood creations are still evident in his constructions today, whether he’s using irons, matches, hair dryers, bicycle parts or women’s shoes.

In E Pluribus Unum, on view in the Domestic Arts Building at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton through Sept. 23, we get to see some of his recent work in plastic water bottles

ArtSpace Opens Doors

“Sisterly Bond” by Shanell. Image courtesy ArtSpace/HomeFront

Although it’s a gray and dreary day, HomeFront’s Family Preservation Center, in a former dormitory of the Marie Katzenbach School for the Deaf in West Trenton, is alive with color. Whiskey barrels painted yellow, purple, kiwi green and in polka dots overflow with fragrant flowers and herbs, and newly planted vegetables grow nearby. Young mothers stroll with their babies, and a painting of a large butterfly in the vestibule greets visitors.

Inside, the hallways are painted oranges, purples and other colors, and the walls are hung chockablock with framed art in a way that would make Dr. Albert Barnes jealous.

“We want it to be a happy place,” says Ruthann Traylor, founding director of

Princeton’s New Hospital Opens with Art

“The Fluke” by Gordon Gund at the new University Medical Center at Princeton in Plainsboro/ Photo Courtesy Princeton Healthcare Systems

If you were lying in a hospital room, what kind of art would you want to see? There are as many answers as there are patients. Now, hospitals are joining museums as places to exhibit artwork.

The Princeton area boasts two new hospitals that view art as an integral part of the healing process. Capital Health Systems opened in November, with 600 works of art by 70 arts, and next week, when the $447 million University Medical Center at Princeton opens its doors in Plainsboro, it will be greeting visitors, workers and patients with nearly 200 paintings and sculpture. Both hospitals have made a significant investment in showcasing artists from the local community.

“Most people recognize the many benefits of art as an integral part of their daily life,” says Barry Rabner, president and CEO of Princeton HealthCare System. “However, I

Old Man Willow

“Old Man Willow,” based on the character in Lord of the Rings, photographed by Frank Magalhaes.

Joyce Kilmer may never have seen a poem lovely as a tree, but Frank Magalhaes proclaims “I Am a Tree” in a series of photographic tapestries on view at Gallery 14 in Hopewell through May 27.

The Princeton resident began making tree portraits on paper more than six years ago, but to eliminate the reflection on glass over a paper print he has moved to working in bronze-tone monochromes printed on satin.

Magalhaes took the name “I Am a Tree” from a chapter title in Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, about murder, mystery and miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire. Each chapter of that metafiction presents a different point of view.

“I took ‘I Am a Tree’ because I think of trees as creatures,” says Magalhaes, who has been making photographs since his teen years in the 1950s.

Unlike typical landscapes, which may have a tree off to the side, Magalhaes keeps the

Morven in May Gets an Arts-and-Crafts Makeover

Quilt squares by Erin Wilson of Brooklyn will be at Morven in May.

May is the perfect month to throw a garden party. And if you have a sweeping front meadow like Morven Museum & Gardens, framed by a hundred-year-old wisteria and lined with historic trees, consider moving that party from the backyard to the front lawn.

Ever since Morven opened as a museum in 2005, Morven in May has been a beloved annual event, beginning with a garden party and culminating in an heirloom plant sale – all in the magnificent gardens behind the 18^th-century building. “It was both a friend and a fundraiser,” says Executive Director Clare Smith. About 175 people typically attended the party, and hundreds more attended the one-day plant sale.

“(Development Director) Barbara (Webb) saw the potential to expand this even before

Writers Block and Quark Park Return

Illia Barger’s mural “Continuum,” in progress, commemorating the Herban Garden, Writers Block and Quark Park./ Image courtesy Terra Momo Bread Company

The aroma of baking dough is wafting out the door of Witherspoon Bread Company. Illia Barger, about 20 feet up on a scissor lift, is applying paint to the bakery wall. Wearing paint-splattered coveralls and the signature headband that holds back her blond hair, the Arts Council of Princeton artist-in-residence is in week two of painting “Continuum,” a mural that relives the memories of Princeton’s beloved  public garden projects: The Herban Garden, Writers Block and Quark Park.

Those were the days – and they were not so long ago. Begun in the early 2000s, all three projects had behind them “garden artist” Peter Soderman as visionary guru,

Strutting its Splendor

Priory Court at 124 Edgerstoune Road, Princeton, brings collegiate gothic-style architecture to the Junior League of Greater Princeton Designer Showhouse.

It’s spring, and one way to take in the flowering trees strutting their splendor is to walk, bike or drive through Princeton’s magnificent neighborhoods. This sport involves gazing at stately homes and imagining what it’s like to live in one.

At Priory Court, 124 Edgerstoune, you can actually go inside until May 20, when its doors open for the Junior League of Greater Princeton’s Designer Show House & Gardens. With its leaded glass windows and arches, cloister and arboretum setting, Priory Court resembles collegiate gothic architecture, and indeed Princeton University owned the property briefly in 1970.

The dream of living in this house can become reality if you won the lottery or can

Still Singing for Whales

I visit Scott McVay in his art-filled home, nestled in the woods, to talk about his new book of poetry, Whales Sing and Other Exuberances. He and his wife Hella immediately take off talking about bats.

Excitedly, they take me to a landing between two floors to see a wall of bat photographs, including one with the winged mammal hovering over water, its tongue hanging out as if sipping from its reflection below. They drop names like noted bat ecologist Merlin Tuttle.

McVay, who served on the board of Bat Conservation International, founded by Tuttle, recounts when, in the 1980s, Austin, Texas, was trying to eradicate millions of Mexican free-tailed bats from under Congress Avenue Bridge. “Now the bats are a major

The Quinoa Quandary

In Bolivia, quinoa grows in high altitudes on arid planes. Photo by James Cole, Princeton University.

Ten years ago, few of us had heard of quinoa, let alone knew how to pronounce it (KEEN-wah). Now it’s touted as a healthful source of amino acids (proteins) and minerals, ideal for vegetarians and those on a gluten-free diet. You can buy it in yellow, red, black or tricolor at stores from Trader Joe’s to Whole Foods; order quinoa salads and quinoa burgers in restaurants; and snack on quinoa chips right out of the bag.

“It’s actually not a grain, it’s a pseudocereal,” says Princeton University senior James Cole, whose exhibition The Quinoa Quandary: A Deconstruction of a Documentary is on view

Letting Off Steam

Tea and Coffee Piazza, designed by Michael Graves in 1983

When world-renowned architect Michael Graves was growing up in Indianapolis, he would draw all the time. To spare him the life of a starving artist, his mother suggested he pursue a career in either engineering or architecture. First, she told him what an engineer does.

“I’ll be an architect,” he recounts telling her. “I didn’t know what an architect does, but I knew I didn’t want to be an engineer,” says the Princeton University Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture Emeritus.

Although he still paints prolifically, Princeton-based Graves is not only a successful architect with 350 buildings worldwide, but Michael Graves Design Group has planned