This coming week brings two wonderful opportunities to learn about art from Art Department alumnae who have been invited back to campus!

On Tuesday, February 14, alumna Melissa Whitwam (Studio Art, Fibers) has been invited back by Art Department Prof. Julia Karll (also an alumna of the Fibers program at Truman) to conduct a workshop on shibori and natural indigo dyeing.  The workshop will run from 1:30 – 4:20 p.m., with an open potluck from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m., both in the Fibers Studio.  Spots in the workshop are open first to Fibers I students, and then to other Art Department students after that.  Sign up on Prof. Karll's door (OP 2235). 

From Prof. Karll about the workshop:  'Melissa will present her work completed during graduate school and beyond, demonstrate various shibori techniques, explain the natural Indigo dye bath and its upkeep (it's alive!), and participants will have plenty of time to try out the many methods of pattern creation through mechanical resist. We'll be utlizing the book, "Shibori: The Inventive Art of Japanese Shaped Resist Dyeing", by Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada.'

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Then, on Wednesday, February 15 (5:30 p.m., OP 2210), alumna Allison Meadows (Art History) will give a talk entitled “Remembering” Identity: Oral history in the twentieth and twenty-first-century museum" as part of the Folklore Minor Colloquium on campus.  The description of her talk follows here:

Oral history has the ability to both engage the museum audience and connect institutions to the communities they represent. This talk will introduce the use of oral history in museum practice more generally, and then focus on the importance of oral history to twenty-first-century cultural and anthropological institutions, Native American communities, and the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

Allison Meadows earned a B.A. in Art History from Truman State University in 2008 and attended the University of Oxford the following year for a M.Sc. in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnology. Her masters thesis was titled “Authentic Indian Souvenir.” An Investigation into the Issues of Museum Store Product Development and American Indian Material Culture.

While on campus, Ms. Meadows will also be working with Dr. Orel's ART 428 Special Topics in Art History:  Museums and Collecting course.  For more on the great things students in that course have been up to, stay tuned to this blog!

If you are an Art Department alum and would like to let us know what you've been doing, please e-mail us at art@truman.edu