Photo Credit: Tim Barcus (Campus Photographer)
Congratulations graduates! We had a wonderful commencement ceremony on Saturday and it was great to celebrate all the graduating Art majors (including the four Vis Comm students pictured above). Best wishes to each and all and please do stay in touch! (art@truman.edu)
The twenty-fifth annual Student Research Conference will take place at Truman State University on Tuesday, April 17. On that day, classes are cancelled so that the entire university can participate in and attend presentations (in a wide variety of formats) of research conducted by students at Truman. The conference includes spoken presentations, poster presentations, exhibitions, and performances, and also includes a campus-wide lunchtime lecture as well. For more information on the Conference, a full schedule, and more please visit the conference website.
Nine Art Department majors will be presenting their work at the conference. Congratulations to everyone, students and mentors alike!
The following three students will exhibit their work on the South Atrium gallery space in OP; their artwork will be on display from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday; these students will also be present in the Atrium space from 1:00 – 2:15 p.m. to answer questions about their work. Click on the title for more information.
Exploration and Alteration of Wheel-Thrown Ceramic Forms
Rose E. Runser
Elements
Claudia E. Convers
Photographic Printmaking Process
Michael K. Sistek
In addition, four senior Art History majors will present aspects of their year-long Senior Thesis research on Tuesday morning in OP 2210 from 8:00 – 9:15 a.m.
The Modern Muse: Women in the Work of Gustav Klimt
Amy M. Hall
Couture: Elsa Schiaparelli’s Surrealist Object
Mary M. Sauerwein
Frida Kahlo: Mexicanidad y Mujeres
Rebecca A. Pursley
Beyond the Outside: Inside Henry Darger's Legacy
Victoria L. Smith
Two additional students will present work as part of other sessions:
Photo Manipulation
Kristine Campbell, 9:45 OP 2210
Effect of Working with Clay on Mood States and Stress Levels in College Students
Claire M. Schueler, 8:30 a.m. MG1090
Also of interest may be presentations in a session on Disability and the Arts, to be held in OP 2210 from 1:00 – 2:15 p.m.
And, also of interest, will be a reception for the Cabinet of Curiosities at the Ruth W. Towne Museum and Visitors Center at 2:30 p.m.
And finally, the University Art Gallery will host an exhibition of work by students in partial completion of the requirements for the BA Art degree. The opening reception will be at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday in the University Art Gallery.
We hope to see you at some or all of these events!
On Wednesday, April 18th, we have a visiting speaker who will talk about Egyptian Archaeology and Museum Studies. Dr. Aidan Dodson, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology & Anthropology at the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) and Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Egypt Exploration Society (London), received his B.A. from the University of Liverpool, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Cambridge University. Dr. Dodson was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2003, is the author of some fifteen books, of which eight are in the Truman library. His latest book is Afterglow: Egypt from the end of the New Kingdom to the Saite Renaissance, due to be published by American University in Cairo Press in the spring of 2012. He is also a contributing editor of Kmt: a Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. This is his fourth visit to Truman and his talks are always entertaining and reflect new and interesting developments in the field.
Dr. Dodson will be speaking on “Collecting Ancient Egypt” at 6 p.m., April 18th, in OP 2210.
We recently heard from alumna Ruby Jenkins (Art History, 2011) who also sent us the great picture above. Ruby is working this year for Travel for Teens (www.travelforteens.com) traveling all over the United States doing camp fairs, school visits, and home visits talking to people about Travel for Teens; this summer, she will return to the work she has done for the past few years leading trips abroad for teens from the States. The picture above shows Ruby (in yellow) at the top of Giotto's bell tower in Florence, looking towards Brunelleschi's famous dome for Florence's cathedral. Great news and happy trails!
The Cabinet of Curiosities in the Ruth Warner Towne Visitors Center.
Dr. Sara Orel is teaching a new course this semester in Museum Studies. The class is designed to provide students with an introduction to both the practical and theoretical sides of the field. In addition to classroom activities, they have worked with the local Adair County Historical Society to write grant proposals, with the University Gallery to take down an exhibit and hang the next one, and with the E.M. Violette Museum to help organize the storage space. The first project for the semester was to collect objects for and install a “Cabinet of Curiosities,” a sample of the collections we have at Truman State University, both in departments and faculty personal collections. Rich individuals and families of the Renaissance and later would have a display case or even a room filled with a wide variety of natural and man-made “curiosities” to show their education and sophistication, and these collections eventually developed into some of the world’s great museums. At Truman, we included geological and biological specimens, intriguing tools, scientific and musical instruments, art objects (including reproductions), and a wide variety of fascinating artifacts to reproduce one of these old-style collections.
The official “opening” for the exhibit will be during the Student Research Conference on April 17th, but if you wander by the Ruth Warner Towne Visitors Center now, you can see the case on display.
Objects in the Cabinet of Curiosities include handmade screwdrivers, an alligator purse, nineteenth-century dancing slippers, Coptic dolls from Egypt, and fragments of the Berlin Wall.
Art History majors Danielle Bell (freshman), Rebecca Pursley (senior), and April Johnston (sophomore) examine some of the stuffed animals loaned by the Biology Department to the display.
The Art Department at Truman now has the newest chapter of Kappa Pi International Honorary Art Fraternity. Truman's chapter–the Theta Eta Chapter of Kappa Pi–will be officially installed at some point during the Spring 2012 Semester when the President of Kappa Pi will visit Truman's campus to conduct the Chapter installation and Charter Member induction (specific date and further information forthcoming). Truman's chapter of Kappa Pi is the direct result of a student initiative and petition effort lead by current art majors Emily VanGelder, Andy Doering, and Andrea Linskey.
Kappa Pi is a 100-year old honorary art fraternity that through the "artistic interests and influence of its members, upholds the highest ideals of a liberal education; [and] provides a means whereby students with artistic commitment meet for the purpose of informal study and communication…to raise the standards of productive artistic work among students…" (from the Kappa Pi Constitution). Among the goals of Theta Eta chapter will be the promotion of the visual arts on the Truman campus and within the broader community and the enrichment of the creative environment within the Art Department. Membership in Kappa Pi is a recognition of excellence in and dedication to the visual arts. All art majors — studio, visual communications and art history — will be eligible for membership once the chapter is officially installed.
We just received this update from alumna Taylor (Klein) Worley (BA, Art History, 2009) on the great things she's been up to:
I am currently in my 4th of 6 semesters with Emporia State University pursuing a Masters in Library Science and Information Technology as well as a Certificate in Archival Studies. I am currently interning with Operation Breakthrough, an non-profit organization formed in 1969 by two Catholic Sisters through St. Vincent’s Catholic School. The organization takes care of over 500 needy children daily from the metropolitan Kansas City Missouri area. They focus on early education and after school programs as well as providing necessary health services for the children and their families. They operate through both public and private funding but are not affiliated with any specific organization. My role is to work with two other students and take approximately 40 years of photographs, slides, negatives, and documents and create a workable collection for authors, journalists, and the employees of Operation Breakthrough to use. A large part of my role is to weed out the unnecessary items from the collection, develop a working finding aid, and to select and implement the necessary software (databases, finding aids, websites, etc.) to keep the archive running in the future. As far as career plans I am looking to work with a museum, historical organization, or special collections department in an academic library. I am looking to stay west of the Mississippi, though those plans are up in the air right now. I am also considering future graduate studies in Art History or Preservation as well as a dual JD/PhD in Library Science to pursue Law Librarianship.
Congratulations, Taylor!
If you are an alum and have news for us, please drop us an e-mail at art@truman.edu OR fill out this form.
The website researched, written, and designed by Truman State University Art Department students has been featured on the Missouri Department of State's Missouri Digital Heritage website. Congratulations to all the students (now alumni) who were involved in that project!
For more on the original project, please click here.
Photo Credit: Sara Orel
Allison Meadows (BA in Art History, Truman State University, 2008; MSc in Material Anthropology and Museum Ethnology, Oxford University, 2009) returned to campus last week as a guest speaker for the Folklore Colloquium. In addition to her talk she also presented to several classes about her research on material covered by NAGPRA (the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) and her work as a Curatorial Assistant at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Allison talked with several students about how to identify and take advantage of opportunities for training in Museum Studies, including how to choose and apply for internships and jobs, what different types of training are needed for different types of jobs, and what academic and co-curricular activities might offer to someone interested in museums as a career path.
Allison Meadows speaks to/with students in ART 428: Museums and Collections about training and careers in Museum Studies, on Valentine's Day 2012. Photo Credit: Sara Orel
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