Congratulations to Art History alumna Jaime Chambers who just let us know that she has been accepted to be a Peace Corps volunteer. Jaime just found out that she will be working as a secondary-level teacher of English in the Republic of Malawi in southeastern Africa. Congratulations, Jaime!
If you are an alum and have news for us, we'd love to hear from you! Please drop us an e-mail at art@truman.edu.
Photo Credit: Nick Cloud
We just recently heard from and received this picture from Art Department alumna Jasmine (Fry) Cloud (BA Art History 2005). She had this to say about her time at Truman State University:
"As for Truman, how I loved it! I graduated in 2005 with the last name Fry. When I began graduate school, I found that Truman had prepared me exceptionally well for further study, which I didn't quite realize while I was a student there. The guidance of the art history faculty prepared me both for coursework and for the writing of a Masters thesis, and now a Ph.D. dissertation. The engagement in the classroom which Truman professors encouraged also put me ahead of many of my peers for graduate seminars. I believe that much of my success in graduate school can be attributed directly to the preparation which I received at Truman."
Jasmine earned an MA in Art History, in the Italian Renaissance, from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a currently PhD candidate at Temple University also in Italian Renaissance art. Last spring, she was offered two prestigious research grants in Art History: the Samuel H. Kress Foundation's History of Art: Institutional Fellowship that includes residency at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and a Fulbright doctoral research fellowship to Italy. Unable by fellowship guidelines to accept both, she ultimately chose to take up the Kress Foundation residency in Rome; she, her husband, and their two cats moved to Rome this past fall and are settling in and working well!
Her dissertation's title is "Renovation in the Campo Vaccino: The Churches on the Roman Forum from Clement VIII to Alexander VII." Here is a brief description of her project: "The study considers the historical resonance of the site for the post-Trent Catholic Church as manifested through a series of renovations of the churches of the Forum. It also considers the site as part of the greater environment of Rome. Several popes of the seventeenth century revitalized the city through urbanistic projects and reclaimed areas of the disabitato, of which the Forum is an example, for the modern city of Rome."
Two of Jasmine's articles will be published sometime in the coming year:
“From Cattle Market to Public Promenade: Remaking the Forum in the Seventeenth Century.” In Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day, eds. Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne. Ashgate, forthcoming 2012.
“A Shifting Sense of the Past: The Changing Interpretation of the Byzantine Spolia at the Basilica of San Marco.” In Venice in the Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Patricia Fortini Brown, eds. Blake De Maria and Mary Frank. Five Continents/Abrams, forthcoming August 2012.
If you are an alum of the Art Department and have news to share with us, please e-mail us at art@truman.edu!
Good news for all majors in the Art Department! The Art faculty have been working for over a year to fix some issues related to what have been referred to as "internal minors" (that is, students focusing on one area in Art–e.g. Vis Comm or Studio–wanting to minor in another area in Art). Previously, this has not been possible. However, we are pleased to announce that those issues have been addressed, so that it is now possible for the following combinations to occur:
BA: Art History majors may minor in a Studio Art specialty by fulfilling the requirements for the Art Studio minor. **However, only six hours of credit many be counted in both the major and the minor.
BFA: Studio Art and Visual Communications and BA: Art majors may minor in Art History by fulfilling the requirements for the Art History minor. **However, only six hours of credit may be counted in both the major and the minor.
The Photography minor is the only Studio Art minor currently possible for BA: Art and BFA: Studio and Visual Communications majors.
As a note, at present there is no Visual Communications minor.
Finals week started this morning, with final exams, projects, and other work going on throughout the Department. Finals will continue through Friday afternoon, with the traditional Wednesday Reading Day to give everyone a one-day breather. Good luck to everyone, students, staff, and faculty alike, in this busy week!
Photo Credit: print by Danielle Pahls; photo by Aaron Fine.
Lots going on in this last week of classes!
All Art History majors are required–sometime during their time at Truman–to complete some sort of art historical experience outside of the classroom. This might be an internship, study abroad, a workshop, or lots of other possibilities. Students then share their experiences with the campus community; on Monday, December 5 at 7:00 p.m. in OP 2210 the Art History Society (the club for students interested in Art History) will be hosting a series of presentations by students who completed their experience in Summer 2011. Please join us to learn more from Amy Hall, April Johnston, Allie Straussner, and Elmer Stunkel about internships at both the DUMBO Arts Center in Brooklyn, New York and at the St. Louis Art Museum (with Truman Art History alum Dr. Mike Murawski), and study exchange in the Czech Republic!
Everyone is also invited to the University Art Gallery on Tuesday, December 6th at 6:00 p.m. for the opening of the exhibition of work by students planning to graduate with a BA: Art or BFA: Studio Art degree. The exhibition will be up through Friday, December 9 and will feature work by Sarah Harford, Sierra McCown, Danielle Pahls, Amanda Rispoli, and Sammy Wheeler. As always, the exhibition is free and open to the public, and (again, as always) refreshments will be served at the opening. More information on Gallery events can be found at http://tsugallery.org.
Hope you can join us to support and congratulate these students!
Photo Credit: Sara Orel
Last year for Thanksgiving break we featured a picture of luxurious ceramic serving vessels; this year, again thinking of feasting and celebration, and again from Dr. Sara Orel, a picture from one of her study abroad trips to Cairo in Egypt. The picture, taken after a huge feast on a boat sailing along the Nile, shows a then-Truman student (now alumna) dancing with two of the trip's taxi drivers.
For more on Dr. Orel's work in Egyptology and travels to Egypt, see this week's great feature on her in Truman's award-winning student newspaper, The Index.
For now, have a happy Thanksgiving and visit us again here at the Art blog after Thanksgiving break for news about Gallery openings, etc.
Ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom mastaba (tomb) from Saqqara showing food offerings being brought to the tomb owner; the basket includes figs. Photo Credit: Sara Orel
Hearty congratulations to Art Department aluma Heidi (Willhauck) Cook (BA: Art History, 2007). Heidi recently let us know that she had received her MA in the History of Art and Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh. Her masters thesis was entitled: "Peasants and Politics: Croatian Ethnography and Nationalism in the Work of Maksimilijan Vanka".
Heidi has been accepted into the PhD program at the University of Pittsburgh, also in the History of Art and Architecture where she will be working on a dissertation on Modern central European art and design. Her university website reports that "her current research focuses on the social and political significance of depictions of folk culture in early twentieth century Central and Eastern Europe. More broadly, her work analyzes visual constructions of nationalism." (http://www.haa.pitt.edu/person/heidi-cook)
Congratulations, Heidi!
If you are an alum and have news to send us, we'd love to hear from you! Just e-mail art@truman.edu.
Lots and lots of great things have been going on in the Department and the University in the last few weeks: talks on what it means to be a public institution and a liberal arts institution, faculty research presentations, and many other good events.
Next week Monday the University Art Gallery is hosting "Talking 'Bout a Revolution: a discussion of posters of social protest". The event is co-sponsored by the Departments of Art, Biology, and Society & Environment so thanks to that interdisciplinary group for good support. Here's what the Gallery says about the event: "Your experiences with the artworks on display in "Up Against the Wall: Posters of Social Protest" will be central to this open-ended discussion".
This exciting discussion will take place on Monday, November 14 beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the University Art Gallery (OP 1114). Hope to see you there! As always, more information about gallery events is available at http://tsugallery.org.
Two new exhibitions open in the Gallery on Tuesday, October 18:
Up Against the Wall: Posters of Social Protest, organized by the University of Texas at El Paso
This exhibition features the work of thirteen international graphic designers who have made work in response to issues of social justice.
Deanna Dikeman: New Work from the Art Omi Residency
Deanna Dikeman is a Kansas City-based photographer who recently won the Art Omi Residency at the the Omi International Art Center in upstate New York; the exhibition in Truman's Gallery features work produced during this residency. Her work is in the collections of museums including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
The opening reception will be Tuesday, October 18 at 6:00 p.m. Hope to see you there! And for more about these shows, and related programming, check out the Gallery blog.
Congratulations to Valerie Lazalier (Art History, 2011) who just let us know that she has been accepted into the masters program in the History of Art at Indiana University. This fall, Valerie began the masters program in Library and Information Science, also at Indiana University, so she will be working towards degrees in both Library and Information Science and the History of Art.
In addition, Valerie was selected to work as a part-time registrar's assistant in the Registrar's Office of the Indiana University Art Museum. She sent this picture of her in front of the museum building which was designed by the renowned contemporary architect I.M. Pei (who also designed additions for the National Gallery in Washington D.C. and the Louvre in Paris).