SOUTH ARTS GALLERY EXHIBIT

The new fine art exhibit for South Arts Gallery is entitled ³Solstice² and

the featured artist is Jeri Corbin.  The show dates are June 7 through July

25 and  the opening reception is June 7 from 6 to 9 PM.  The Gallery is

located in the Schoolhouse Art Center, 2600 South Park Road, Bethel Park.

This show will be the first with new hours for the summer.  The Gallery will

be open on Tuesday and Friday from 1 PM to 7 PM, and Wednesday, Thursday,

and Saturday from noon to 6 PM.   For more information call Margo at

412-835-9010.

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FEATURED ARTIST:  JERI CORBIN

    Jeri Corbin is a semi-retired art therapist, having worked for the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where she¹d facilitated

psychotherapy with geriatric, schizophrenic and chronically mentally ill

patients. She has resided in the Pittsburgh area for 21 years, following

previous residency in Southern Virginia and  then, completion of the

graduate program in Art Therapy at George Washington University in

Washington, D.C.

      Jeri now divides what had, heretofore, been her ³working² hours, among

conducting a small private practice, supervising art therapists, teaching

watercolor classes for South Arts, and investing (finally!) In her own art.

Although not formally trained in the fine arts, she has consistently engaged

in some form of artistic expression. She, currently, serves on the board of

South Arts and enters her work into as many art shows as possible.

    In the mid 1970¹s, Jeri became interested in traditional Oriental

painting but is nowexperimenting with other techniques. She sees her present

work as being in a stage of transition and says, ³I don¹t know where this is

going to take me. I love working in the Oriental style but am being led to

explore western techniques of painting as well as the African and Native

American themes which are relevant to my physical and spiritual heritage.

Perhaps I will find a way to meld all four cultures. Most importantly, in

the writings of the Baha ¹i Faith, I find many references to the unity and

oneness of mankind and the importance of the arts as being vital to the

advancement of civilization. We believe the arts have a role in promoting

the spirituality of mankind and it is to this end I choose to exert myself.²

      Jeri became interested in the use of art as a therapeutic and

diagnostic tool in the late 1950¹s, but finding no such information in the

local library, attended Kent State University to become an elementary school

teacher. That career morphed into one as Social Worker, then as Employment

Counselor. It wasn¹t until 1985, at age fifty, that she attended the

graduate program which brought to realization her 25 year-old dream of being

an art therapist. The desire to serve people with a tool that would heal as

well as nurture seemed to be a calling. Jeri describes having vivid and

strong feelings that God must have put this desire into her heart for a

reason and that she would someday be called into account if she ignored it.

Jeri says, ³We feed and nurture our bodies, but woefully neglect to do the

same for that part which is truly ourselves; our spirits. Art Therapy is the

modality that reaches to the core and draws on our inner strengths. Jeri was

described by Elinor Ulman, one of the pioneers of the field of art therapy,

as having a ³therapeutic personality.²

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To schedule an interview with Jeri Corbin,  e-mail   jercor9@verizon.net

or call her at   412-766-1935.

 



For more information about the South Arts show, call Margo Barraclough at