Joe Parillo, Staff Writer

The Edith Langley Barrett Art Gallery kicked off the spring semester with the opening of the new exhibit, Susan Sommer: Drawings and Paintings. They held the grand opening as a two-part event.

The Gallery will be open for students to view Sommer’s work until March 3. Its hours are 1 to 4:40 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Open house, or part one of the event, was held to give students the ability to walk through the gallery on their own time. Part two of the reception was a business etiquette reception, where students learned how to act professionally during business gatherings.

The gallery displayed the next two series in Sommer’s journey of creativity. The pieces created were based on different nature scapes. The monarch butterfly inspired her first section of the gallery. The second section is based on rhythm and sounds of nature. She gets enjoyment of using nature as an inspiration because nature is all around us.

Sommer’s love for art started at a very young age. She grew up with her parents being very supportive of her art aspiration. She also attended studio classes before attending Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia.

Sommer puts on jazz and tribal music, and opens all of the windows while she is painting to help inspire all her different types of work. She bases a lot of her work off of pixels because she does not have a television set at her home. She hopes students will enjoy her work as much as she has enjoyed creating it.

“Abstraction is a simplification of realism,” Sommer said. “These pieces tend to be academic based.”

After the open house portion of the gallery opening, the Barrett Art Gallery and Career Services worked together to host a business etiquette dinner. It gave students the opportunity to enjoy art, food and business conversation. There were interactive games that allowed those in attendance to receive prizes for themselves and/or for their organization. Students also received information packets and CDs to inform them more about the gallery and the artist. Those in attendance were satisfied and enjoyed the event as a whole.

The different art pieces were good icebreakers for students to gradually progress into business conversation. It had those in attendance think about the works of art in a new light.

“Susan Sommer blends colors,” said Gerard Serrano, a marketing intern at the gallery. “Each color she uses helps all the other colors come together.”

Parth Bagul, a gallery intern, was excited to be in the presence of the person who put her creativity in art form.

“It’s great because you get to meet the artist and talk to them to understand their work that much more,” Bagul said.