September 10, 2004
Contact: Ray Ladd
College of Architecture and Environmental Design
805-756-7432; rladd@calpoly.edu
Cal Poly to Host Reception to Commemorate I Madonnari Italian Festival, Photography Exhibit 'Natural Light and the Italian Piazza'
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) and the American Institute of Architects, California Central Coast Chapter, is hosting a reception Friday, Sept. 17, to celebrate both the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival in downtown San Luis Obispo and the photography exhibition “Natural Light and the Italian Piazza” at the Performing Arts Center.
The public is invited to the free reception, which runs 5 to 8 p.m. in the Christopher Cohan Center. Music by members of the San Luis Obispo Symphony and refreshments will be provided, and the artists participating in the I Madonnari festival will be on hand to discuss their work.
The photography exhibit showcases the work of Cal Poly Architecture Professor Emeritus Sandra Davis Lakeman, whose photographs document the dynamics of natural light, architecture and people in Italian town plazas. More than 160 images are on display on all four levels of the Performing Arts Center. Lakeman will conduct a special tour of her exhibit. Debuting with this show is a modular exhibition structure designed by Lakeman that will be used later in other venues by the CAED.
Also at the reception, program information will be available about Italian study opportunities through Cal Poly Continuing Education and University Outreach.
Reservations are requested. Those planning to attend are asked to call 805-756-1321.
The reception is scheduled in conjunction with the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 18-19. That event will be at Mission Plaza in downtown San Luis Obispo
For more information about the exhibit and to see some of Lakeman’s images, visit the college’s Web site at http://www.caed.calpoly.edu.
Complimentary parking will be available after 5 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center parking structure and lot.
About the Exhibit “Natural Light and the Italian Piazza”
The exhibition will be open to the public during scheduled events and tours at the Performing Arts Center -- most at no charge -- through Tuesday, Nov. 30 including:.
- Oct. 13, a Cal Poly Continuing Education Program lecture and tour.
- Nov. 5 from 6 to 9 p.m. as part of Art After Dark.
- Dates yet to be announced in conjunction with the CAED’s Hearst Lecture Series and for the showing of the film "Woman's Story" by Gary Conway.
Themes of time and timelessness, permanence and impermanence run through the photographs, which were taken over a 12-year period in Siena's Piazza del Campo and other locations in Tuscany.
“To improve the quality of our lives, our sight, our photography or building designs, we must make a conscious effort to become aware of light,” Lakeman said. “For designers and architects it is important to think and to design with light foremost in their minds.” The first exhibition of the work was in the town hall of Siena in 1992.
Architecture scholar and critic Kenneth Frampton has called the images “both aesthetically beautiful and extremely instructive.”
For more information on the exhibit or to arrange private tours for groups and organizations, receptions or lectures, go to www.sandralakeman.com on the Web.
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