Inspiring `Illuminations'; Four local artists; four perspectives.

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Byline: Nancy Sheehan

One person's trash is another's ... art supplies.

Head into the Krikorian Gallery at the Worcester Center for Crafts and look to the left. You'll see trash transformed by artist Lisa Barthelson into a colorful commentary on excess and the malleability of the most mundane, overlooked objects. From a distance it's exuberant abstraction. Get a little closer and it's bottle caps, drinking straws and poly-bread-bag cinchers among other recaptured, redefined refuse deftly remade into what she calls her "Family Debris Series."

Barthelson is one of four artists in a new exhibition at the Krikorian titled "Illuminations." Gallery director Candace Casey came up with the concept and challenged the artists - Carrie Crane, Nina Fletcher and Rose LeBeau as well as Barthelson - to offer their interpretations of spiritual and intellectual enlightenment.

Casey says, in her curator's statement, that the artists, whose participation she invited, exemplify her interpretation of illumination. "Each of these four women exhibit, both personally and artistically, the five qualities I strive for in all my endeavors: confidence, faith, trust, excitement and brilliance," she said.

An opening reception for the exhibition this evening at the craft center will offer an opportunity to meet the artists and compare your own ideas of illumination with theirs.

"She (Casey) asked us to go back to our studios with the concept of illuminations and create new images, new pieces," Barthelson said.

Barthelson's trash-tinged take on the topic? "I find it illuminating what's left behind," she said. "Working within my `Family Debris' series, which has been ongoing for a couple of years, I really looked at the stuff that has come into my house then trucked it over to my studio as artifacts of my family. It tells a little bit about the story of what we've done as a family, the choices we've made, how we've fit into the global community and really what we've done to generate this debris."

Her encaustic wax creations transform the chaos of trash into rich layers of color and texture.

"It illuminates the fact that Americans consume a tremendous amount of stuff without much thought," she said. "Most of this stuff would have ended up in the trash but when you look at it from a different standpoint - as a geometric form, as a color, as a shape or as a texture - you can see some of the excitement about using it as a component of a mixed media composition."

LeBeau's...