“CELL”: The Arts Council of Princeton will show mixed media works by Heather Cox as part of “Making Do,” a group show excavating the beauty of everyday objects. The exhibition will be on view April 27 through May 24, with a gallery opening on May 3 from 5 to 7 p.m.

The Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) will show “Making Do,” an exhibition of mixed media work, in the Arts Council’s Taplin Gallery April 27 through May 24. A free gallery opening will be held on Friday, May 3 from 5 to 7 p.m. This group show features the work of Karla Carballar, Heather Cox, Shannon Curry Hartmann, Mollie Murphy, Rachel Perry, and Emna Zghal.

To “make do” is an idiom. Grammatically, it is a phrase. It means to work with what one has on hand or to persevere through difficult circumstances. Each artist in this show makes work that exemplifies this term. Some of the group has always worked in this way: gleaning the metaphor from the world, finding meaning in everyday objects, and excavating the strange beauty they perceive in the cast-offs in the street, field, and forage. Others found their way to this kind of work during the pandemic: forced into isolation, they questioned, examined, played with, and discovered new and fruitful ways of working.

Ultimately, though, the way in which each of the artists collects, destroys, re-enlivens, manipulates, and rearranges the materials and objects they work with comes from a common place: they are not depicting these materials; rather, the artists are using the materials and objects to make the work itself. They are making do with what they have or find around themselves: newspapers, fruit stickers, fiddling objects, snapshots, staples, tangerine peels, grape stems, and much more.

There is so much in all this work that expresses the ethos of “making do.” The emphasis is on “Making”: making objects, making structures, making sense, meaning, and metaphor, and “Do”: collaging, manipulating, sewing, stapling, and cutting.

But in the end, it is a collection of curious, strange, and often beautiful artworks that function in the way art often will: to provoke the viewer to reconsider the daily world.

The Arts Council of Princeton is at 102 Witherspoon Street. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Free and open to the public. For more information, visit artscouncilofprinceton.org.