Collegiate Times

At an XYZ Gallery exhibit, a row of small, rectangular photographs contains a line of women with very distinct characteristics. One photograph portrays a young, somber-looking girl with pigtails and a dowdy dress. The next shows a platinum blonde wig, dark, tainted lips and a huge grin on her face. The one after that has a 1950s-style hairdo and dress.

What could all these possibly have in common? They are all of artist Emily Keown, a graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art who hails from Blacksburg.

The journey through Keown?s exhibit starts with family photographs taken by her grandfather, filtered and redeveloped by Keown. Next, there are simply hued paintings inspired from the forests in Michigan, where she worked during the fall of 2002.

In the next room is Keown?s ?on-going altar.? The name symbolizes the fact that the display will never be finished since there will always be new objects to add onto it.

As of now, the altar furnishes 110 stuffed objects knit by Keown, each portraying a phone conversation she?s had in the past two weeks. Phone calls from her mom are knit with one pattern, while ones with boys she has wanted to date are in another pattern.

On the wall behind the altar are paintings of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary and rosaries hung like necklaces with picture frames dangling from them.

?I wasn?t raised Catholic, but my father is Catholic,? Keown said. ?I?ve always loved the Virgin Mary and Jesus. The paintings here were ones given to me. The rosaries represent forgiveness, so I have people I know, people of forgiveness. It all goes with the ritual and idea of it being an altar.?

Across from the shrine are war bombs, donned with black and white knitted cozies covering them. The idea for this display was fueled by Sept. 11 and the prospects of war.

Also covered by cozies are ordinary objects dispersed throughout the gallery. Keown gathered these everyday items ? including a toaster, a cell phone and a teacup ? from various projects during college.

Cozies date back to Keown?s college days. A picture in this exhibit displays the skateboard ramp that was her first (and biggest) object to be cozied.

?My suitemates in college had this skateboard ramp they would always skate on,? she explained. ?It was incredibly noisy, so I made a deal with them. I told them if I could make a cozie for it, then they would have to stop skating on it.?

?It took me about two and a half weeks,? she said. ?They could take it on and off, but I used bra hooks to undo it. They took really good care of it. They still used the ramp occasionally, but not nearly as often.?

For her senior solo show, Keown covered a six-foot-square room entirely with cozies. Furniture, dishes, and objects ? all cozied ? surrounded visitors.

Another project in the XYZ exhibit is shelves symbolizing social classes. Each shelf has cozied objects representing the specific class on the shelf; the lower shelves portray the lower classes up to the highest shelf portraying the highest class.

Before leaving the exhibit, one last item strikes the eye. No, not the cozied boobs on the wall.

A 55-story-long drapery sheet adorns the wall, decorated with a pattern of cereal bowls and bologna sandwiches along the top of the sheet. The bottom of the drapery falls to the ground, bunching up more and more toward the end.

?When my dad was in college, he lived on three of the same exact meals every day of the year: a bowl of cereal in the morning and a bologna sandwich for lunch and dinner,? Keown said. ?This represents the exact number of bologna sandwiches and cereal he had in one year.?

Keown?s portrays her traveling, living and working experiences in her art with the paintings, collages and wood blocks scattered throughout the exhibit.

Her displays include portions of her hometown Blacksburg, Penland, N.C.;Harper?s Ferry, W.Va. and Sleeping Bear Dunes, Mich., all places where she has worked.

The grand opening party for Keown?s exhibit will be 8 to 11 p.m. tonight at the XYZ Gallery. Wine and cheese will be served. The exhibit runs through Feb. 15.

The XYZ Gallery is located on 223 N. Main St. Hours are 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday.