Moving On Up

The works on paper in this exhibition represent “my desire and hope for a place called ‘home,’” says Jeanette Cole, a professor in the art department at UMass. The collection, she says, is based on imagery from a West African robe given to her father by his co-workers after 15 years of missionary and literacy work, which was then inherited by her when he passed away. Cole traced the seams holding the strip-woven fabric together, then used those drawings to form the structure of these paintings. “I discovered, embedded in them, a ‘Jacob’s ladder,’” she says. “In the Old Testament, Jacob laid his head on a stone and dreamt he saw angels climbing up and down, and he was promised that the land beneath him would be his home. The desire to belong to somewhere, to a place, motivates this work.”

Jeanette Cole — Cat’s Cradle: Feb. 26 through March 27. Free. Hampden Gallery, Fine Arts Center, 131 Southwest Circle, UMass Amherst. (413) 545-0680, fac.umass.edu.

— Hunter Styles