Livestrong calls for complete truth from Armstrong

No county action on vote expected

First Posted: 4/8/2013 The angel doesn&#8217;t have a head, or legs either, and perhaps that&#8217;s for the best.
&#8220;He&#8217;s a creature of the air. You see him as more of a force,&#8221; Darlene Miller-Lanning, Ph.D., said, explaining how, without the distraction of appendages, you can concentrate on the struggle depicted in the University of Scranton&#8217;s eye-catching sculpture &#8220;Jacob and the Angel.&#8221;
To learn more about the campus&#8217; collection of eye-catching outdoor sculptures, you can participate in one of two walking tours, set for Wednesday and for April 28, or visit the university&#8217;s Hope Horn Gallery, where an exhibit offers insight into the creation and installation of the pieces.
&#8220;We have a photo of (Swoyersville artist) Gerhard Baut on a crane, checking St. Ignatius&#8217; face,&#8221; Miller-Lanning said, describing a finishing touch for a sculpture called &#8220;Metanoia.&#8221;
That Greek word means &#8220;transformation,&#8221; Miller-Lanning said, and &#8220;Metanoia&#8221; speaks to a change of heart experienced by the man who would become St. Ignatius and found the Jesuit order of priests that established the university.
&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of a cubist representation of St. Ignatius, who was a Spanish soldier. He was injured, and while he was recuperating he started to rethink his life. It shows him turning his sword around so it becomes a cross-like form and offering his service to God.&#8221;
Jacob&#8217;s struggle with the angel deals with changes, too, said Miller-Lanning, who is director of the Hope Horn Gallery. &#8220;In the biblical story of Jacob and the angel, he&#8217;s at a transitional point of his life, coming to terms with who he needs to be.&#8221;
When you&#8217;re a university student, Miller-Lanning said, &#8220;you have to make a lot of big decisions about what you&#8217;re going to do for the rest of your life. It&#8217;s kind of scary.&#8221; So it&#8217;s appropriate that Jacob and his transitional struggle, designed by Philadelphia artist Arlene Love, is &#8220;near a lot of dorms.&#8221;
Also fitting for a college campus is a piece called &#8220;Christ the Teacher,&#8221; which depicts Jesus standing by another person, one whose identity could be a bit mysterious.
&#8220;There are a lot of interpretations,&#8221; Miller-Lanning said, explaining the artist, Trevor Southey of San Francisco, has suggested the other figure represents &#8220;one of &#8216;the least of these,&#8217; a person who is anonymous, one of the poor or lonely or forsaken, because everyone has divinity in them and &#8216;we&#8217;re all in this together.&#8217; &#8220;
Other people see the sculpture as representing Jesus with a disciple, she said, and some see it as &#8220;an image of the resurrection, with Jesus appearing to Mary Magdalene.&#8221;
As to the gender of the person with Jesus, the director said, &#8220;I think Southey kind of left it open. It&#8217;s androgynous.&#8221;
A fourth sculpture, &#8220;Doorway to the Soul&#8221; by Lisa Fedon of Pen Argyl, is a bas-relief attached to the wall of a building. &#8220;It&#8217;s a series of panels representing the levels you might go through in a procedure of personal growth,&#8221; Miller-Lanning said.
To learn more about the artwork and how they express the ideals of the University of Scranton, you can visit &#8220;Imagination and Spirituality: Public Sculptures of The University of Scranton Commons,&#8221; which will remain on display at The Hope Horn Gallery through May 10.
The exhibit is part of the gallery&#8217;s &#8220;Landmarks and Milestones&#8221; 2012 -2013 series, celebrating significant dates and architecture in the region.

The art of transformation and more