Celebrating a half-century of poetry, photos and short stories

The University of Cincinnati Blue Ash College Art Gallery is pleased to present its first exhibition of the 2019-2020 academic year, Fifty Years of Blue Ash Review.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first publication of the Blue Ash Review in 1969, the exhibition commemorates the founding of the literary and arts journal at UC Blue Ash College. It is free and open to the public.

As the college marks this milestone, the 2019 publication of the Blue Ash Review will be online, beginning the journal’s trajectory toward the next 50 years.

“The calculated expansion of the journal, under Rhonda Pettit (professor of English at UC Blue Ash) as editor, to include both literary and visual arts has brought with it enormous benefits and opportunities for students to see their creative work in a new, more complex context,” said H. Michael Sanders, department chair of Electronic Media at UC Blue Ash and co-curator of the exhibition.

Fifty Years of Blue Ash Review will be showing in the UC Blue Ash Art Gallery through Sept. 27. The show features work from the various incarnations of the Blue Ash Review including: a collection of the covers of all 40 published volumes, original cover artwork and photographs, a collection of poetry published in the journal, and a room full of visual art pulled from the pages of the magazine.

The exhibition was curated and organized by H. Michael Sanders with the assistance of gallery director John Wolfer, assistant curator Nicole Trimble, and video specialist William Boyle. Blue Ash Review editor Rhonda Pettit and Blue Ash Review Online editor Claudia Skutar were also consultants on the exhibition project.

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. A closing reception will be held from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26. Both the gallery and reception are free and open to the public.

More information about the Fifty Years of Blue Ash Review exhibition is available on the UC Blue Ash College Art Gallery webpage.

Featured image: Rhonda Pettit and H. Michael Sanders inside the Blue Ash Art Gallery.