Photographs from Professor Lindsey Dunnagan’s summer study abroad course in Spain. Ten students went to paint “en plein air” in May of 2018, and had a wonderful time making art. And doing a few other things!
(For a larger image, double click below and you will be able to look more closely at what the students did and produced on their adventure)
In April, during the last full month of the (academic) year, art students Jennifer Reagan, Nick Phan, Claire Nipper, Morgan Price, Morgan White, Greta Dellinger, Cassie Koelling, and Madi Pearson all went on a trip with Professor Laura Bigger, our printmaking instructor.
Students are doing exciting things over the summer. Here are just a few of them. Check back over the summer for pictures and updates from students and faculty, who are traveling all over the U.S. and around the world, and having adventures as they go.
Lisa Simms writes: “I will be the assistant supervisor in the summer program called the C.A.R.E. art gallery where I will be helping young high school artists hone their craft and work on different art mediums and techniques each week!” This gallery is in Columbia, just down the road from Truman.
Another student has gone a bit further for her professional experience this summer:
Corin Hoke will be interning at the Benjamin Franklin House in London from June 17-August 15. She does not have an official title but will be helping lead tours, completing a special project of her choice, and possibly editing a book of the home’s architecture and writing articles.
Over spring break, Emma Shouse (senior Art History major) sent us the following message:
“I will be working towards a Masters of Arts in Fashion Studies at The New School: Parsons Paris in Paris, France. It is a two year program that looks at fashion through an interdisciplinary lens (art history, anthropology, sociology, film studies, design, fashion theory, etc.), which allows for students to find their niche while still having to push themselves to analyze fashion in new ways. Students get access to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris Fashion Week, and numerous other design houses and museums around Paris. Each student is required to complete an internship, and many find placements in design houses, museums, fashion magazines, and retail headquarters… I could not be more thrilled with this program!”
Congratulations, Emma! We look forward to hearing from you next year (send pictures)!
Emma traveled to Iran last summer to study traditional and contemporary Iranian art. Here she is in Esfahan.
Emma Shouse at Persepolis (the City of the Persians), Iran.
As part of their Art History program, majors do a significant activity that takes them outside of the classroom. We have students who do internships and excavations and study abroad. Emma Shouse traveled to Iran last summer. Here is a short report from her on what she experienced:
This summer, I went on a two week trip with Intrepid Tours to Iran. I was the youngest out of 11 people on the tour, not including our fabulous tour guide Nadia, and was the only American. We traveled around the center of the country, hitting a lot of the more historical cities, and also spent one night in a mountain village with a nomad family. While this was not an academic trip, my goal was to visit as many mosques as possible and use my experience to enhance my research of Persian mosaics.
Some of the famous sights we visited include: the Tehran Bazaar, Imam Khomeini’s Shrine, the Necropolis, Persepolis, the Zoroastrian Tower of Silence and Chak Chak Temple, Sheikh Lotfollah and Shah mosques of Esfahan, the tomb of Hafez, and Nasir ol Molk Mosque in Shiraz. As their tourism industry is still in its infancy, there were some moments where we were the only tourists in sight.
I was aware that the version of Iran shown by the American media is not an accurate portrayal of the thoughts and feelings of average Iranians, but I was absolutely blown away by the hospitality and kindness shown to me. Almost every day I had girls around my age ask
to take selfies with me, and some were kind enough to give me their phone numbers just in case I had any emergencies while in Iran. It was quite the celebrity treatment. We were offered food and gifts, and almost everyone had something to say about the upcoming presidential election once they found out I was American. There was not a single moment where I felt unsafe, and being American, the Iranian government was more worried about my safety than I was (one problem including an American would have the potential to destroy their entire tourism industry). If given the chance, I would go back in a heartbeat.
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.
