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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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The Arts

Holy transformation



Alumna Leslie Perrino is finding success with her metals and jewelry work made of computer parts. "Computum Rosarium #2" is a sterling silver piece computer keys fashioned into a rosary.

By Judith Ott Allen, Ph.D.
Published: Friday, October 12, 2001

SCAD alumna creates rosaries out of computer parts

At the Hyde Park Community Art Fair in Chicago in June, an unusual reversal of shopping behavior occurred as husbands (rather than wives) dragged their spouses to look at the jewelry for sale in SCAD alumna Leslie Perrino’s booth. Displayed on computer keyboards were domed circular motherboard earrings and pendants, pins and mosaic rings made from old computer components.

"The display was subtle — not immediately noticeable — and caused browsers to do double-takes, smiling as the subject matter slowly soaked in," said Perrino, a first-time exhibitor. "I nearly sold out because my pieces were unique. I also made them affordable after a winter of Chicago heating bills."

Her journey to becoming an artist is as interesting as her art.

Perrino was working in Chicago as a registered nurse with a specialization in geriatrics when she decided to pursue her dream of being an artist. She enrolled in SCAD’s then-fledgling metals and jewelry program, becoming the program’s very first graduate student.

She graduated in 1997 and was able to combine her triple passions for art making, teaching and working with the elderly through a part-time position at the Evanston Art Center, just north of Chicago.

She said she now relishes her full-time position as artist in residence at the Presbyterian Home, one of the top retirement homes in the United States, overseeing the art needs of amateurs and professionals alike. "After realizing that people remember more when they are laughing, I let my natural sense of humor emerge," joked Perrino. "During a soldering demonstration, I introduced ‘Mr. Drill Press’ and wore goofy lighted goggles."

As for her inspiration for her art, Perrino grew up in Philadelphia in a strongly Catholic-Italian family. In her extended artist’s statement she confesses to being inspired by a glow-in-the-dark rosary to enter the convent until she realized that she didn’t like the sisters’ shoes.

For her M.A. degree, Perrino explored the connections between the sacred and the scientific by creating 13 rosaries made out of what she calls "computer junk:" motherboards, keyboards, Hollerith (punch) cards, resistors, capacitors, vacuum tubes, etc. "This visual research continued deeper inside the computer where a miniature city full of color shapes and forms was added to my vocabulary as a jeweler," she noted. "The matte silver and gold components worked well as parts of rosaries and electrical capacitor chips in cement grout provided the mosaic aesthetic appeal."

During her master’s degree research, Perrino said she became increasingly interested in the amazing similarities between rosaries and computers, essentially two counting devices. For example, the emergence of computer technology parallels that emergence experienced by Christianity in the middle ages. Perrino also pointed out that the computer and the rosary both transcend numbers by reflecting their user’s ideas, hopes and fears therefore sharing components of mystery, veneration and even magic.

"Both dominate our lives," Perrino wrote. "More than mere machines, we put faith in (computers) and we fear they will fail us … maybe we are ‘hardwired’ to feel the sacredness in all things."

She noted that there is even a rosary site on the Internet where a click on any bead brings up the corresponding prayer text. "Little did I know when I bought my first junk keyboard how fascinated I would become with computer ‘remains,’" she said.

The sterling silver "Computum Rosarium #2" has a medallion-style end piece embedded with the keyboard key word "enter" and a centerpiece that contains the command "pause." In "Computum Rosarium #13," cardboard punch cards rolled into aluminum tubing act as beads and the round, black balls from computer mice act as separator beads. Perrino said she sees this reuse of techno-junk as confirmation of the idea "that we are all one."

Beyond the art fair circuit, Perrino has found a growing interest in her approach to making art jewelry. Three rosaries have been accepted in the Virginia group exhibition, "Millennium Tramp Art: Picking Up After the Industrial Age" and her jewelry pieces will appear in the 2001 Shrine and Altar Show at the Dormont Gallery. Her junk computer art will appear in advertisements for a juried exhibition for artists specifically working in non-precious materials at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, N.Y., March-April 2002.

On Sept. 20, Perrino was tapped for a contribution of earrings and a matching pendant for the N.O.W. Chicago Chapter silent auction titled "Women Who Dare." Perrino also will have five rosaries appearing in a national juried exhibition titled "Barking Dogma" at the Chicago Artists Coalition, Oct. 12- Nov. 9, at the Union Street Gallery in Chicago Heights.

Perrino said she is particularly pleased to be invited to show her work along with such metals and jewelry luminaries as Ken Bova, Robert Ebendorf and Micki Lippi in an exhibition of earring designs at the Art Works Gallery in Bozeman, Mont.

"The most humorous ones are made from a compass and the mirrored side of a CD-ROM and are titled ‘Who Am I and Where Am I Going?,’" said Perrino. "One idea is to make measuring devices, to measure immeasurable things such as a fear-o-meter or joy-o-meter."

She also has designed "Tunearrings" with dials for tuning in and tuning out and "Speakerarrings" with the computer key "pause" and a door sporting the keyboard sign "enter." Like the computer keyboard components from which they are designed, Perrino’s art pieces invite the viewer to pause and enter a different state of mind.

Allen is a professor of art history.