“Empowered Visions” presents three generous sculptural donations from artists Debra Sachs and Marilyn Keating. Debra Sachs’s sculptures, located in the Robeson Library, are formal and material investigations on traditional forms such as baskets and vessels. In “Tiered Basket” (1992), bricks are stacked in rings which grow wider with their height, and in “Achievement” (1998), cylindrical rings are stacked representing new accomplishments. Marilyn Keating’s sculpture “Doing Battle in the Kitchen” (1986), on display in the Fine Arts Building lobby, is an important piece of local feminist art history where the artist transformed common kitchenware into a suit of armor.
Debra and Marilyn met at Moore College of Art and Design in the 1970s, where they both received BFAs and are Distinguished Alumnae. They have been active as artists in the South Jersey/Philadelphia region for 50 years and have worked on numerous important community and public art projects in the region, solo and collaboratively.