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<DOCID>L.F.Noyes_Collection.doc.txt</DOCID>
<AUTHOR>Kyle Fierstein</AUTHOR>
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Reasonably new on campus is the Arts Center located, on the north western side of campus.  You've probably already been inside it for classes or to study in peace on the window ledges, but perhaps you haven't wandered into the room across the hall from it's main entrance.  That room just so happens to be the LSSU Arts Center Gallery.  If you haven't noticed it, maybe that's because its new.

"The gallery just recently opened in July and the students and community are now becoming more aware that the gallery exists for the campus and public's cultural enjoyment." says Sharon Dorrity, the Director of Constituent Relations here at LSSU.

Despite those who pass it by without a glance, plenty of art patrons have come to look over the collection they have on display right now.  "We've had all sorts of tourists come in and look around, not just people who live on campus, from Japan and other parts of the country.  We're trying to build a community awareness of art.  We advertise for the Alberta House, which is the Sault area art gallery, and they advertise for us."

The exhibit that is on display right now is the L.F. Noyes Collection of Native American and Western Art, a thorough yet miniscule slice of the history and culture that belongs to this fat chunk of real estate lying between the Pacific and Atlantic.  

The highlight of the collection is a massive oil painting titled, "There's Always A Way Out," by David Johns.  It's a mix of dreamy geometric shapes melting into the form of a giant face that leers out over the entire room.  When you stand directly below the painting, the face stares down at you and you will feel either welcomed or afraid, ready to have a giant knuckly fist punch you square in the eye.  When the exhibit opened up, the children flocked around it and stared up, probably feeling instinctively afraid of the monstrous face that loomed above like a great wrinkley moon.  At first, I figured that the painting was a portrait of the legendary Chief Joseph, judging from the face and the title, but after asking Sharon who the portrait was of, I was a bit suprized.  She told me that originally the painting had no name.  The twisting thick orange line that extends from the shoulder of the man in the painting to the middle of where his chest would be is actually a symbol that means "there's always a way out," and the man in the painting is a Navajo Shaman, not Chief Joseph.  

Another outstanding piece is a giant oil painting with a generic name, "The Last Warrior," by Fritz Scholder.  When you walk into the room, it's on the far side of the right wall, and it's hard to miss.  It appears to be oily and chalky, messy but accurate.  Its peachy orange glow wraps tightly around your eyeballs, squeezing until you beg for mercy and have to move on with your life.  It's a feeling that I can't get enough of.  

The Hopi pieces, such as the minimalist drawings "Lizzard" and "Skunk"  by Charles Loloma, appeal to those who have a taste for post-modernism and history all at once.  The Acoma Pueblo Kachinas are the same way.  A sculpture called "Amakah Whaler" by Fritz White, is a majestic looking skeleton beast who looks as if he's about to inject some unfortunate whale with a big bronze harpoon at any second.  I was almost tempted to put my head underneath the tip of his spear to see if he would stick it into my brain and fill it with more action; more motion.

The basic feeling you get when you are among this collection is something that should belong to everyone.  Miniscule statues with grave detail and big wooden furniture sets all filled up with the spirit of the north-western tribes. Legendary characters shot entirely into one golden frame.  Thick woven blankets dyed in a hearty reference to the way these people worked and created a life out of this big piece of real estate, and everyone who lives between the Pacific and Atlantic today should experience it like this, through the art that still grows from the minds of it's original proprieters.

The L.F. Noyes Collection of Native American and Western Art will be housed in the Art Center gallery until early summer, and since it's part of the growing permenant collection of the Art Center, it will also be displayed between other exhibits that find their way there.  You can go see it for yourself Tuesday through Saturday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., and it will be open during the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra performance.  I suggest you drop in and look it over.



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