Now in the Schmucker Art Gallery: Lisa Blas: Meet Me at the Mason Dixon Kicks Off 150th Commemoration of the Civil War

By Emily Francisco

What better way to kick off the 150^th anniversary of the Civil War than with a new, Civil-War-themed exhibit in the Schmucker Art Gallery?

Titled Lisa Blas: Meet Me at the Mason Dixon, the exhibition features a variety of mediums, including photographed collages, paintings, and a unique wall installation. It opened on August 31 with a Gallery Talk featuring the artist Lisa Blas and her close friend Miguel de Baca, who is Associate Professor of Art History at Lake Forest College. The two shared their thoughts on the exhibit, discussing Blas’s interest in Civil War history in addition to the special arrangement of the pieces on display.

The name of the exhibition came from the mixed media installation piece, Meet Me at the Mason Dixon. Located on the large wall to your right when you enter the gallery, the installation is a collage of souvenirs, pamphlets, notes, and other items Blas acquired through her journey to unearth the history of the Civil War. The background on the wall is painted lavender, a color that, fittingly, combines the American flag colors of red, white, and blue. The piece also incorporates three paintings the artist did of the Union and Confederate flags.

Per Lisa Blas’s request, three full-figure portraits are displayed on the two walls adjacent to the collage piece. These portraits are unconventional by every definition of the word; the first is of John Wilkes Booth, assassin of President Lincoln; the second is of Pauline Cushman, an androgynous Union spy in the Confederate army; the third is of Emily Perez, the first African-American lieutenant to die in the Middle East. The portraits of Booth and Cushman are painted on Tyvec, a material normally used for construction. All three are gilded with metallic paints of gold and bronze.

Though the three subjects and the installation piece seem unrelated to each other, they truly are all connected in strange ways. Booth represents the Southern perspective on the war, which is so often ignored by Northern history books; Cushman, hanging next to Booth, represents the Northern perspective and tactics; and Perez represents the modern world that was allowed to be created through the Union victory. The wall installation, furthermore, incorporates all these ideas in addition to the artist’s personal journey, as shown through family documents also hanging on the wall.

Also featured as part of the exhibit are several photographs of collages Blas made inspired by the Civil War. The collages were made of old-fashioned slide labels and metallic star stickers. Each collage creates some symbolic form, such as the drum in After Johnny Shiloh, then Lincoln (Parumpumpumpum).

Lisa Blas clearly demonstrates her skill and versatility as an artist with her expert portraiture as well as her experimentation with collage and installation. The works on display especially probe the viewer to think and reflect on his/her own connection to the Civil War. On display through October 7, Lisa Blas: Meet Me at the Mason Dixon is a must-see for any true Gettysburg College student.