Written by David Hall<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A collection of work that spans time and genre and includes greats like Andy Warhol surrounded a crowd of trustees of the college and their friends and family who in kind surrounded alumna Joanne Cassullo as she announced a $1 million donation to RC\u2019s fine arts program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The crowd gasped and burst into applause as Cassullo made clear her intention at a dinner opening on the one weekend a semester in which the board gathers to make decisions about the college\u2019s future.<\/span>\u00a0Cassullo and Olin Gallery director Talia Logan had been planning the announcement for some time, but wanted it to remain a secret until last Thursday\u2019s announcement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The money will go to bringing artists to campus, underwriting Logan\u2019s efforts as director and providing funding for student internships in positions that otherwise would not pay.<\/p>\n \u201cTalia\u2019s and my shared vision [is] to make Roanoke College an origin of thinking about the role that art can play in today\u2019s society for our students,\u201d said Cassullo, \u201c…and it is my hope that Roanoke College students may become as inspired as I was when they, too, set out to make their mark in the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The dinner followed a dedication ceremony for the \u201cTree of 40 Fruit,\u201d a live installation outside Olin Hall by artist Sam Van Aiken.<\/span>\u00a0Van Aiken has become known for these trees that quite literally bear 40 different kinds of stone fruit when they reach maturity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Bringing the tree to RC was Cassullo\u2019s doing as well. As a board member since the late 1990\u2019s, Cassullo has worked tirelessly to bring great art to the campus. Her accomplishments on campus range from the color photographs on display in the Colket Center donated by photographer John Margolies to building the college\u2019s permanent collection, the highlights of which are on display currently in the Olin Hall gallery. Her most recent endeavor is the 14-ft \u201cRooney Topiary,\u201d which draws attention from all who walk by it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n An alumna of 1978, Cassullo has spent most of her adult life working in the contemporary world via her involvement with the Whitney Museum of American Art, Creative Time, an opportunity she says she wants to put back into her alma mater.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMy years at RC were so rich with rewarding experiences and the love that I still feel for my friends,\u201d said Cassullo. \u201cThis gift was given to honor that, and at the same time, with the hope that I am leading by example.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by David Hall A collection of work that spans time and genre and includes greats like Andy Warhol surrounded a crowd of trustees of the college and their friends and family who in kind surrounded alumna Joanne Cassullo as she announced a $1 million donation to RC\u2019s fine arts program.\u00a0 The crowd gasped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brackety-ack.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}