PJ Rogers/Wendy Partridge/Ohio Collage Society Opening Reception

Artists Archives of the Western Reserve

• Favorite
• 
• 
• 
• 

• Date Thursday, October 09, 2025
• Time 5:30PM - 8:00PM
• Location 1834 E 123rd St Cleveland, OH 44106-1910
• Learn More

Founded in 1996 by notable Cleveland sculptor David E. Davis and eight other prominent Ohio artists, including Shirley Aley Campbell and Patricia Zinsmeister Parker, the Artists Archives of the Western Reserve (AAWR) emerged from a shared vision. Recognizing the risk... more

AAWR invites you to join us for the combined Opening Receptions of three concurrent exhibitions, on Thursday, October 9, 2025 from 5:30 – 8 pm!

Archived Artists PJ Rogers (1925 – 2014), and Wendy Partridge open their Inaugural Solo Exhibitions, while the Ohio Collage Society will hold their 19th Annual Member’s Show.

Throughout her career, P.J. (Phyllis Jean) Rogers (1925-2014) quietly but fearlessly explored distinct media, arduous techniques, and challenging processes. Trained as a painter and sculptor as a graduate student at the University of Buffalo, Rogers began her career in Akron, Ohio in the 1950’s as an acclaimed portrait artist. Propelled by curiosity rather than dissatisfaction, she segued into printmaking after studying the collection at Chicago’s Frumking Gallery. Her penchant for self-actualization as an artist soon precipitated a fascination with aquatint, attracted by its potential lucidity and inherent contrast in values. She acknowledged her compatibility with the medium as she wrote, ,”…I seek the Life that is beneath but parallel to the superficial. I am interested in transparency, meaning the stripping away of the superficial to understand the core – the gradual breakdown of forms and feelings – to understand – absorbed into blackness (the mass of all particles) and reflected back as the cycle begins anew.”

Wendy Partridge “(Is) …a letterpress printer who makes books and broadsides.

My work uses wood and lead type set by hand. This is a slow, painstaking process where concrete type gives weight to the text and careful layout reinforces meaning. By contrast, the imagery consists of pressure prints, collagraphs, and monoprints. With these processes I am not in command of the outcome, and surprises happen when one image is layered over another.

Many of my pieces are about specific times and locations: the total eclipse of 2024, hundreds of thousands of black birds gathering in winter, or spending a day as a child with my father who was researching his dissertation. These pieces explore what gives a place meaning and resonance. Other pieces (2 Sides of X, Manifestos from the Insect Apocalypse, Assembly Required) come from playing with words and structures.

The text in these works is mine except in two broadsides that were commissioned collaborations with poets. All of my work since 2004 was printed at Zygote Press, an artist community that inspires, supports, and sustains me.”

Ohio Collage Society was initiated as an affiliate of National Collage Society in 2007 by Gretchen Bierbaum the president and founder of National Collage Society. They have 45 members whose work is diverse in both form and concept.

Ohio Collage Society is an organization that provides opportunities for artists to exhibit, create together, discuss and critique their work. Their membership is open to all so a portion of their mission is to educate and promote the medium of collage for local communities.

The Opening Reception will be in-person in the Galleries at AAWR

Free and Open to the Public