Hagen and Newberry at Schmidt Dean Gallery

When I first encountered Susan Hagen's wood carvings, I think was she doing a series based on the Stations of the Cross— very idiosyncratic interpretations that I found quite likeable, although I wondered if any church would display them. Now she's back with what she calls, "Teenager Project." This venture consists of 12 painted linden wood figures, each a little over a foot high, dealing with all the varieties of teen life from the heartbreakingly idealistic to the mindlessly flirty.

Each figure radiates personality, and there isn't a dull one in the bunch. My personal favorite is Justine, with her eyes closed— is she meditating or asleep? But all are quite engaging. Hagen extends the range of the series with an accompanying group of 16 conte and ink wash drawings, most of which appeared to me to depict different teenagers than those of the carvings.

Tina Newberry's group of 12 small oil paintings is a bit more challenging. In these equally idiosyncratic works, the artist seems to use herself as a means of exploring America's colonial past.

Beyond the scraps of uniforms, the powdered wigs, the antique weapons and the long-stemmed clay pipes, Newberry seems to be gaming history, trying to fit herself into it. Now she a gentleman farmer posing in his country home, now she's a colonial officer, yet all the while she's in the midst of a modern world where she sits before a computer and the History Channel plays on her TV set. But Newberry is most affecting when she's herself, looking beyond the costumes, as in her self-portrait, Fading Beauty. She may refer to herself in one of her paintings as General Wannabe, but she seems like the real deal to me.