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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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Art and About

Art and About
 
Thesis exhibition is all sewn up

painting 

“The country boys will love the way you smile” by M.F.A. painting candidate Aliza Lelah is on display through May 26 as part of the “Remnants” exhibition.

By Ally Hughes 
Published: Friday, May 18, 2007

Savannah College of Art and Design Master of Fine Arts painting candidate Aliza Lelah shows more than a patchwork of pictures with her thesis exhibition “Remnants,” on display at Rosewood Contemporary Art, 113 E. Oglethorpe Ave., through May 26.

Lelah’s impressive tapestry is not confined to a brushstroke or a canvas, but is developed into figurative wall installations. By sewing bits of material together, she forms smaller-than-life faces and bodies, creating relationships that defy time and space to connect people.

“The people in my life have been an inspiration for my work as long as I can remember. I am interested in recontextualizing what is familiar to me, taking an image of my grandfather as a young boy, and placing it next to my mother as an adult,” said Lelah. “Although the people are from different eras and different countries, they now all exist within the same mental landscape.”

She composes her pieces with a needle, thread and scraps of fabric she has collected over the years.

“I have been saving scraps of fabric because it is a tangible [reminder] of memories and people,” said Lelah. “I have always painted, but I realized that paint was not memorializing the people in my life the way that cloth could.”

Lelah’s careful craftsmanship of her pieces is reminiscent of work by famed artist Chuck Close, as dots, circles and shapes make up the face as whole when the work is viewed at a distance.

“I approach my work like a painter; I cut out bits of fabric in the same shapes and sizes where I would put dabs of paint,” said Lelah.

Hand and machine stitches combine in an intimate recreation of her family.

“I sew — mostly by hand — to truly hold the person during the process. The pieces of patterned cloth and scraps of fabric emerge into a figure that contains the spirit of that person,” said Lelah. “Cloth is a material universally understood by humans because it holds so much history within the fibers.”

She earned her Bachelor of Arts in studio art from the University of Vermont in 2004, and has exhibited her work regionally, nationally and internationally.