Part of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture lecture series KINGSTON, R.I. — March 15, 2001 — The University of Rhode Island’s spring Community Planning and Landscape Architecture lecture series continues on March 22 with a discussion of “Public Art in the Landscape” by noted sculptors Jonathan Bonner of Providence and Mimi Sammis of Narragansett. Sponsored by the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture, the lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. in the White Hall auditorium on the Kingston Campus. It is free and open to the public. Educated at the Philadelphia College of Art and at the Rhode Island School of Design, Bonner has had more than 40 solo shows and is represented in many public and private collections throughout the United States. He sculpts in various materials including stone, wood, and steel. He is best known for his work that explores the membranous nature of sheet cooper. Bonner, who is currently working on large-scale sculptures for a Boston park and for Fidelity Management’s Cumberland, R. I. headquarters, has numerous public and private site-specific commissions. Locally, his work can be seen at Rhode Island College, the AS220 Building and the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University. His work also appears at the Newport Art Museum. Examples of his work can be viewed at www, jonathanbonner.com. Sammis’ bronze sculptures are said to reflect the “divinity of life.” Educated at Yale University and the Rhode Island School of Design, her works are represented in more than 400 public and private collections in America and Europe. She began sculpting angels in 1981 after many years of painting, and a cover story about angels in Time Magazine in 1994 served to spur her quest for peace and its expression in her art. Agnes Gund, president of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, said “Sammis’ sculpture embraces a form of peace, the inherent goodness and readiness of love and acceptance in humankind. Mimi’s art makes us all wish for a continuation of the UN’s mission of peace in every nook and cranny of this world.” Sammis’ 22-foot sculpture “Dance of Peace” is currently on display at the Courthouse Center for the Arts in West Kingston, while her newest touring collection, “One Thousand Years of Peace,” was exhibited at the United Nations in New York City and at the Hague Appeal for Peace in the Netherlands. The third event in the lecture series will be held on Thursday, April 5 and will feature landscape architect Leslie Sauer, principal of Andropogon Associates, a design and planning firm with a national reputation in ecological restoration, speaking on “Sustainable Watershed Management.” For more information about the lecture series, call the URI Department of Community Planning and Landscape Architecture at 874-2249 or email Professor Will Green at wagre@uri.edu. For Information: Will Green, 874-2142, Todd McLeish, 874-7892, Jan Sawyer, 874-2116