“Artour O’ Quick”
Artist: Ruta Marino
Sponsor: The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University

In the Artists words:

I started with the rich, royal purple that is used throughout the Quick Center, and made that the ground color for the Quick Center's squirrel. I wanted to make the comparison between the natural beauty of Olean's native black squirrel - not to mention its rarity - with Saint Bonaventure University's incredible art collection, which is just as much a valuable local resource for area residents. I printed color images from the collection, not only the paintings, but the beautiful Chinese ceramic vases, and Center staff and volunteers painstakingly cut out the images. Then I used them to create a collage of swirling masses of color and pattern - many from nature - which really started to give the squirrel a unique personality.

When it came to the issue of naming him, Joe LoSchiavo (Executive Director) and I bounced around a lot of ideas, some of them sophisticated and some just plain silly. I wanted to have the word "art" in the name and suggested Arturo. Well, then it was Joe who suggested the unusual spelling of "Artour," since our squirrel is really a "tour o' the Quick" in himself. And, yes, we know its hokey, but we love him!"

Bio:
Ruta Marino was the curator of the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure University for 3 1/2 years.

Her most memorable exhibit at QCA has to be the Glorious Lessons exhibit. It started as an exhibit of Fordham University Library's collection of documents and drawings from the Revolutionary War. Ruta thought the exhibit needed artifacts to bring the documents to life. She arranged numerous loans with a number of other institutions and private collectors making the exhibition a more complete look at the time period and the major participants in the Revolution. The exhibition was enormously popular with visitors, both school children and adults, and The Quick Center had a very successful outreach program in area schools.

Ruta creates art quilts that combine her art history background with humor and usually with images of food. She has recently returned full-time to Cleveland, Ohio where she assists in her husband's business, a retail gourmet food store where the inspirations are endless for her long-standing theme for art - food.