POUGHKEEPSIE, NY.- Noted artist Charles Simonds will speak about his work at Vassar College on Wednesday, February 4. The lecture, free and open to the public and, will begin at 5:00pm in Taylor Hall, room 203.

Simonds, an art major at the University of California at Berkeley, began working in clay after discovering a clay pit that had once provided raw material for some of Manhattan's older buildings. He creates architectural miniature sculptures with tiny bricks – landforms with small chambers and towers or abstract organic shapes – which are in turn habitats for an imaginary race Simonds terms “Little People.” In the early 1970s, Simonds began to place his works on the streets of New York City, along curbs or within masonry of buildings.

Hi career has focused on creating these sites as museum installations or temporary public works on the streets of New York's Lower East Side, Venice, Berlin, Dublin, and Shanghai. He has also created large public installations at various sites, including Lewiston's Artpark.

This lecture, sponsored by the Departments of Art and Psychology, is presented under the auspices of the Agnes Rindge Claflin Lecture Series. Past speakers in the annual Claflin Lecture series include New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl; architect David Childs; art historians Thomas Crow, Stephen Murray, and Yoshiaki Shimizu; and artists Ellen Altfest, Marc Handleman, Joan Jonas, Ellen King, Karyn Olivier, Erica Svec, and Craig Taylor.

People with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370. Directions to the Vassar campus are available at www.vassar.edu/directions.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.