Both exhibitions, "The Era of the Dust Bowl," in conjunction with the college's Oswego Reading Initiative, and an installation titled "Ebb & Flow," will run through Oct. 5 in the gallery in Tyler Hall. Concurrent artists' receptions, free and open to the public, will take place 5-7 p.m. Sept. 6 in Tyler Art Gallery.

     "The Era of the Dust Bowl" will display 22 limited-edition lithographs from the Grant Arnold Collection of Fine Art Prints from the 1930s, 36 images by photographers working for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and early 1940s, a black-and-white 25-minute documentary by Pare Lorentz titled "The Plow that Broke the Plains" and four posters created by graphic design students at SUNY Oswego promoting the Oswego Reading Initiative.

     The Oswego community this summer was encouraged to read "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl" by Timothy Egan, who will appear at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, in Hewitt Union ballroom at SUNY Oswego.

     Designed by Tyler Art Gallery to correspond to the ORI book's teaching-and-learning opportunities, "The Era of the Dust Bowl" exhibition also will include enlarged quotes from Egan's text mounted below the exhibition's prints.

      Student graphic artists under the supervision of Cynthia Clabough, art department chair, and Mindy Ostrow, ORI committee representative, entered a friendly competition for the exhibition's poster selections. The poster artists are Aimee Anno, Julia Baldovin, Exanne Lennon and Joshua Walrath.

'Ebb & Flow'

     Sculptors Mary Giehl and Kim Waale will transform the south wing of Tyler Art Gallery with an installation that features markedly different media and techniques.

      Giehl's crocheted creations of colored yarns enlarge microscopic water-borne organisms, while Waale's molten materials, such as glass, shrink rivers and creeks into abstract three-dimensional marks. By seeing water from microcosmic and macrocosmic points of view, gallery visitors will experience opposite poles in the ways artists can interpret a single source of inspiration.

     In addition to their gallery exhibition, the artists will conduct a student workshop, at a date to be determined, to create what they describe as "yarn-bombing/crochet graffiti" to teach simple crochet techniques. The student creations will be displayed around the SUNY Oswego campus during the fall semester.

     Tyler Art Gallery, which will produce an educational brochure for the exhibition, is open 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays when classes are in session. Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

     Parking on campus is by permit only. For information about obtaining a day-use permit for $1, visit www.oswego.edu/administration/parking.