Coming to First Friday: The Hundred Dresses pop-up exhibit!
Published 07.29.2019
News
The Gallery at Penn College
The Hundred Dresses Project will be on display in the Community Arts Center lobby from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Aug. 2. This special Kids' First Friday pop-up exhibit will feature a sampling of dress prints created by area schoolchildren for the show, which ran June 4 to July 23 in The Gallery at Penn College. The exhibit is based on Eleanor Estes’ classic children’s book "The Hundred Dresses," which centers on an immigrant schoolgirl who is teased by classmates for her accent, name, clothes and family’s poverty. The story explores themes of acceptance, inclusion, art, empathy and courage. Inspired by the book, project creator and artist Crystal Cawley invited 200 artists to read the book and embellish a 14-inch-by-11-inch letterpress dress print that she had created and shared. With a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the gallery invited third, fourth and fifth grade students from Lycoming County’s eight school districts to create works of art to add to the exhibit. Art educators from six of those school districts accepted the invitation and received a copy of the book, markers and a dress print for each participating student.