Author: Art Department
Art Exhibits and Receptions This Week
The last week of classes is always busy, but it is good to get out and enjoy looking at some art. Fortunately, there are lots of opportunities this time of year.
One of the pieces from Darrell Williams’ BFA exhibition, up in the gallery from November 30th to December 4th.
Darrell Williams’ B.F.A. thesis show will take place in the gallery November 30 to December 4. His show includes six large (4 x 6 foot) works painted in acrylic using airbrush. Each presents an interpretation of a specific verse of the Bible dealing with the subject of spiritual warfare. Please join us for a reception Tuesday evening December 1 at 6:00 pm.
Accompanying this BFA show, the “Strong Foundation” show in the side gallery will present faculty selections from this fall’s art student proficiency examinations.
Elsewhere on campus. students from the Visual Communications 4 class are exhibiting in the SUB Activities Room from Wednesday night, December 2nd, to Thursday night, December 3rd. The exhibit also will have a reception, on Thursday, December 3rd, at 7pm.
The Visual Communications 4 class has been looking how Truman State University has been branded and deciding how they as students think it could be enhanced. Each student was given a department at random to design for as well. The results of their work will be on display at the SUB this week.
All these exhibits will highlight student work and give you a chance to talk with the artists. Please come out and enjoy the art on campus.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Truman State University is on break during the week of Thanksgiving. We wish you the happiest of holidays. Travel safely, wherever you go, enjoy time with friends and family, and take care not to eat too much! We look forward to seeing you back here on November 30th.
Faculty Support Undergraduate Research Nationally
Truman State University sends over twenty students a year to the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (NCUR,) a group that usually includes at least a couple of Art majors. The Art faculty are also very involved with NCUR’s parent organization, the Council on Undergraduate Research, helping to spread the knowledge of the importance of undergraduate research and creative activity to students’ growth as thinkers, scholars, and contributing members of society in a wide variety of ways.
Three members of the faculty serve as councilors in the Division of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Sara Orel is finishing up her term as chair of the Division and member of the Executive Board of the organization. Dr. Julia DeLancey is an active member of the International Committee, which is working to set up the first international congress focusing on undergraduate research in Qatar in the next few years. Professor Wynne Wilbur has just returned from an institute dedicated to Creative Inquiry in the Arts and Humanities in Greensboro, NC. This past summer all three attended the national business meeting in Norman, OK, along with several other Truman State faculty.
Although the CUR business meeting was very busy, there was an opportunity to take a short break. Here Dr. Julia DeLancey takes advantage of a moment between sessions at the Oklahoma Memorial Union (University of Oklahoma, Norman) to check her email.
Art History Alumna Speaks on her Work in Venice
Alumna Leslie Contarini (BA Art History, 2005) visited campus November 2-3 and spoke to the Renaissance Art class about her work with Save Venice, Inc., an organization devoted to the restoration and conservation of works of art in the Italian city. After Leslie graduated she went to the University of Warwick, where she earned her MA in the History of Art, a program that included a semester in Venice. When she completed her degree, she returned to take a position with Save Venice, and has lived and worked there since.
Leslie Contarini speaking to ART 324: Renaissance Art, November 2015.
Leslie presented the work of the organization to preserve the spectacular paintings in Venice, including those in their original location in churches across the city as well as some in the Academia, the main Art Museum.
While at Truman Leslie also was able to visit with current Art History majors, including members of the Art History Society, an organization Leslie was active in while a student here.
Art History students with visiting alumna. From left: Kathryn Hodge, Carrie Whitson, Leslie Contarini (BA, 2005), and Lena Leuci.
Ceramic Artist to Visit Art Department
Kansas City ceramic artist Chandra DeBuse will be demonstrating and lecturing on her work Monday, November 9th. On her Facebook site she writes about her work: “My functional pottery incorporates narrative imagery, pattern and form to amuse and delight the user, imparting a sense of play.” Her ceramic work is on display in the University Gallery until Thanksgiving.
All Chandra DuBuse’ demonstrations will be in the Ceramics studio (OP 1260) from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. The lecture will be at 4:00 in OP 2210 (all November 9th). Everything is free and open to the public.
OP Output Center Now Online
Over the summer the Visual Communications faculty oversaw the renovation of the former Design Studio to house a new student-run inkjet printing service. The OP Output Center is sponsored by the Visual Communications program and the Art Department and is housed in Ophelia Parrish 1250.
The facility offers a large format (44”) lamination service. It houses two medium format (24”), photo-quality, EPSON Stylus Pro Roll-feed, Inkjet printers, one large format (44”) Hewlett-Packard Roll-feed printer, two medium format (17” and 24”) sheet-fed inkjet printers and two MakerBot Mini 3D printers (shown at left).
The Output Center serves the entire campus community as well as providing printing resources for the Visual Communications, Studio Art and Art History programs. OP Output Center offers student workers experiential opportunities to develop and refine project management, digital/technical and customer service skill sets.
Information and online submission forms can be at www.opoutput.truman.edu.
Happy Halloween!
Taylor (Klein) Worley (BA Art History, 2009) as Max, from Where the Wild Things Are.
Art students celebrate Halloween enthusiastically because of all its creative potential (not to mention a bit of candy to enjoy). Those who overlapped at Truman with Taylor (Klein) Worley from 2005 to 2009 will remember her elaborate and convincing costumes. After she graduated with her Art History BA, Taylor completed her Master of Library Science at Emporia State University in 2012. She is now a Youth Services Librarian at Springfield Public Library in the Oregon Willamette Valley. She still enjoys going all out for Halloween, this year by entertaining children and parents alike with her convincing Max (Where the Wild Things Are) costume. She is pictured here at her library’s annual “Little Monster’s Bash!” event. Youth Librarianship lends itself creativity in many ways, but dressing up as beloved characters is one of Taylor’s favorites!Taylor (and we) wish you the Happiest of Halloweens! If you are an alum and have news (or Halloween pictures) to share, please write to us at art@truman.edu We’d love to hear from you.
Undergraduate Research in Egypt
Matt Treasure repairs an early 5th/late 4th century BCE Phoenician Torpedo Jar found at Mendes, Egypt.
Senior Art History major Matt Treasure has recently been awarded a Grant-in-Aid of Scholarship from Truman’s Office of Student Research. He will use these funds to travel to Egypt in December where he will photograph and sketch the wall reliefs and architraves at the Temple of Esna. This is part of the research for his senior thesis in Art History.
Last summer Matt participated in an archaeological field school at the ancient city of Mendes located in the north-central Egyptian Delta. Members of the Mendes Expedition repaired broken pottery, documented, identified, and sketched lithics, small finds, and bones, and excavated two locations inside the ancient city’s walls.
Members of the team also had the opportunity to visit various museums, temples, pyramids, and archaeological sites throughout Egypt. Some of the highlights of the Mendes study tour were pyramids at Giza, Saqqara, and Dahshur, temples at Karnak, Luxor, Dendera, Philae, Kom Ombo, Abydos, and Edfu, and archaeological sites from Aswan to Alexandria.
Members of the Mendes Expedition at the Avenue of Sphinxes just outside the Karnak Temple Complex. Matt is on the left of the lower row.
Alumni News
We were thrilled to see that the research of Art Department alumnus Dr. John Garton (BA: Art History and Studio Art, 1997) has been getting a lot of circulation recently in the Boston area. While Dr. Garton’s Ph.D. and current research continue his Senior Thesis focus at Truman on painting in Renaissance Venice, he maintains an active secondary specialization in Latin American art, especially art of the pre-Columbian period. Most recently his interdisciplinary, collaborative research on Olmec sculpture has resulted in a short piece in the Boston Globe and a video feature which will be displayed in the galleries of the Worcester Art Museum and can be viewed on line. Dr. Garton is Associate Professor of Art History at Clark University in Massachusetts. Congratulations!
Grant Kniffen (BSE: Art, 1984) stopped by when he was in town this September, when he told Bob Jones, Professor of Art, that he retired in 2013 after teaching 27 years at Parkway North High School in Saint Louis, Missouri. In 1995, Grant was selected Secondary Art Teacher of the Year by the Missouri Art Education Association. He was Parkway School District’s High School Teacher of the Year during the 1996-1997 school year. You can see his work in a variety of mediums on his website.
If you are an alum and have news to share, please write to us at art@truman.edu! We’d love to hear from you.