PULLMAN, Wash.–Longtime area art teacher Vic Moore opens the Washington State University Museum of Art’s summer exhibit series with a talk about the late Ken Cory, an exhibiting artist, and his jewelry techniques.
Moore’s talk, “Play Disguised: The Early Years,” is set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 26, at the Fine Arts Auditorium and is open to the public without charge. Moore was Cory’s art teacher throughout grade school and high school. When Cory returned to Pullman to attend WSU as a graduate student, Moore too was earning an advanced degree, and the two attended graduate school together.
According to catalog author Ben Mitchell, Moore had a “profound and enduring influence on Cory’s life and work.” Raised in Pullman, Cory combined images from popular culture with classic jewelry techniques to create works full of irreverent humor and fine craftsmanship. Cory helped propel the Northwest into the forefront of the national art jewelry movement. His early work grew out of the 1960s’ funk art scene. In the next decade, he collaborated with Les LePere as the Pencil Brothers, and their raucous enameled objects and narrative jewelry “tease their audiences with visual puns and riddles.” Working alone in the 1980s, Cory continued refining his work, incorporating traditional jewelry materials to create pins more subtle and abstract, yet still based on everyday objects.
The exhibit was organized by the Tacoma Art Museum. Guest curator Nancy Worden selected more than 100 pieces, including pins, buckles, rings, small-scale sculpture and functional objects. A catalog of the exhibit also is available.
Showing concurrently with the Cory exhibit is “Gods, Lovers and Heroes: Classical Myths from the WSU Permanent Collection,” a selection of works by 19th- and 20th-century artists. The exhibition will include Honore Daumier’s satirical “Histoire Ancienne” and Michael Spafford’s “Labors of Hercules.”
Summer exhibitions end Aug. 2. Museum hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Tuesday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. The facility will be closed July 3-5. Funding for exhibitions and programs is provided by WSU, the Friends of the Museum of Art and the WSU Summer Recreation Committee. A portion of the museum’s general operating funds for the year has been provided through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that offers general operating support to the nation’s museums.
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