Artist Reception for Clare Gallery’s Exhibit: “The Space Between”

Connecticut artist, Jill Vaughn, will open the Clare Gallery’s fall season with The Space Between, a mixed media exhibition focused on visualizing the environmental impact of human activity. Join us in the Franciscan Center for Urban Ministry for an Artist Reception, Sunday, September 29, 3:00-4:30 pm

We may all feel daily anxiety and wrestle with our complicity when thinking about climate change, or when witnessing immense natural disasters that seem to be happening more frequently.

To expand the conversation, and in conjunction with this exhibition, the Clare Gallery will host a virtual panel discussion on Tuesday, October 8, 7–8 p.m. (Click HERE to register for the Virtual Panel Discussion and receive the Zoom link.) Panelists will include: Jill Vaughn, artist, and Rebecca Weston, LCSW and JD, practicing clinician and Co-President of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. The panel will be moderated by Nancy Wynn, Chair of Clare Gallery. The conversation will examine various climate related themes: witnessing trauma and its processes; redefining activism; giving voice; construction and deconstruction; and creating spaciousness for love and healing.

Vaughn works with varied materials, collaging them together in exquisite, active compositions. She always knew she wanted to be an artist, and her life’s journey viewing nature has translated her “seeing” into colorful, textured, contrasting visual metaphors constructed from diverse materials. Vaughn states: “Metaphor and symbolism connected me spiritually to the environment, and collage pasted it all together.” In this exhibition, viewers are drawn to her work for its engaging beauty. Once there, the works reveal sensitivity, destruction, frustration, and questions.”

Jill Vaughn has exhibited her work throughout Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as in Wyoming. She worked as a curator, an educator, has been past president of the Essex Art Association, and was the project manager for the design and construction of the Eagle Sculpture (at the head of Main Street in Essex, CT) for the CT Audubon Society. 

Rebecca Weston, LCSW and JD, lives in the metro-New York area. In her capacity as Co-president of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, Weston organizes and provides support for climate aware mental health clinicians who seek to address climate related emotions and expand emotional capacity for climate action.