Matt Derezinski, Winter's Night, 2010
Congratulations to Prof. Derezinski (Visual Communications)! He just had photographs juried into an exhibition in Mexico entitled "Crossing Identities". The show, organized by International ArtExpo and curated by Italian artist Luca Curci, focuses on works that explore the fluidity of identity in contemporary society. Congratulations!
All day on both Thursday, December 8 and Friday, December 9 the Clay People (the club for students interested in ceramics) will be holding a sale of some of their pieces (Atrium Lobby, Ophelia Parrish, just opposite the Severns Theatre). It's a great chance to support Art students, to do some holiday or home shopping, and to get some new, beautiful, hand-made things. Proceeds for the sale will support travel to the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference in Seattle this academic year.
Photo credit: Wynne Wilbur
Congratulations to Art (Studio: Ceramics) faculty member Prof. Wynne Wilbur who was just awarded a competitive sabbatical leave for the 2012-13 academic year! Prof. Wilbur applied to have leave for the year to travel to The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, and then to return to the States where she will plan, design, and create a new body of ceramic artwork based on her experience in Asia. Located in the eastern portion of China, Jingdezhen has been known as a center for ceramic production, in particular porcelain, for almost 2,000 years.
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
Welcome back to everyone after Thanksgiving Break! Sara Orel sent this picture of our department chair with Spike, the Truman mascot, taken on the most recent visit day on campus. A good, goofy start to the last couple of weeks of classes!
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.
Students and faculty at the Great Wall in China. All Photos: Ping Xu.
This past summer, Art Department faculty member Prof. Ping Xu (Visual Communication), together with Prof. Julie Minn (Classical and Modern Languages, Chinese), took a group of c. eighteen Truman State University students to China for seven weeks; seven of the students were Visual Communications majors. Students were in both Beijing and Shanghai.
While in Shanghai, the Vis Comm majors conducted a five-week internship at the top-ten ranked advertising agency, TBWA.
Students also visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and Pingyao, a 3000-year old ancient town in Shanxi province in addition to many other sites; they also saw the famous ancient terra cotta warriors of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.
Students and faculty at the Forbidden City, Beijing.