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The Center for Visual Arts and the Atelier InSite at Clemson University welcomes Mary Beebe from the celebrated Stuart Collection at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) located in San Diego, C.A. for a guest lecture entitled, “The Stuart Collection: Making Art Happen on Campus” on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 6-7 p.m. in 1-100 Lee Hall.

Mary Beebe has been the director of the renowned public art collection known as the Stuart Collection at the University of California, San Diego, for over three decades. The Stuart Collection is a garden of sculptures set around the 1,200 acre campus at the UCSD in which the commissioned artists use specific sites on the campus to install their work. Beebe will discuss within her lecture the process of selecting and producing 18 installations by internationally known artists on the campus of the University of California, San Diego.

The collection has received considerable national and international recognition. It received two awards from the San Diego Chapter of the American Institute of Architects; one award for the collection as a whole and another award for Alexis Smith’s Snake Path. It has been featured on CBS’s Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and received a National Honors Award from the American Institute of Architects (A.I.A.). A book documenting the first 20 years of the collection entitled, Landmarks: Sculpture Commissions for the Stuart Collection at the University of California, San Diego was published in 2001 by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.  Beebe was personally awarded the Public Art Network Award from Americans for the Arts in 2011.

Beebe’s guest lecture and visit is significant to Clemson University as the institution begins to accelerate its own public art program called Atelier InSite. More than a decade ago university funds were set aside in support of the Art Partnership Program, a collaborative effort among the Office of the President, the Department of Art and other academic units on campus. The program solicits and commissions the creation of site-specific works of art, which are permanently featured at various campus locations.

Clemson’s design guidelines for current and future campus projects stipulate, “All capital development projects that are anticipated to exceed two million dollars will consider the benefits of public art and will apply 1/2 of 1 percent of the construction budget for such work.” Recently, the Clemson University Administrative Council voted to make the public art provision a University policy.

Atelier InSite is a new paradigm for the implementation of public artwork on university campuses that capitalizes on a cross-disciplinary and inclusive approach that is predominantly student driven. Students in this creative inquiry program engage in direct, hands on processes to determine the artwork placed around campus. They also conduct research on the nature of public art as well as investigate the design build process, conduct site analysis, and identify site locations for artwork on the Clemson University campus.

Read a recent Clemson University press release regarding the Atelier InSite public art program.

Admission to the “The Stuart Collection: Making Art Happen on Campus” guest lecture on Tuesday, Sept. 24, 6-7 p.m.  in 1-100 Lee Hall is free.

Contact: David Detrich, 864-656-3890, ddavid@clemson.edu

Media Contact: Meredith Mims McTigue, 864-656-3883, mmims@clemson.edu

by Jackie Kuntz Published in The Tiger Newspaper

I sat in the Lee Gallery watching as visitors approached the work of Dana Saulnier.  Each was curious, some almost uncomfortable, as they appeared to struggle with their emotions. The images may have appeared dangerous which elicited feelings of vulnerability.  While the textured ridges on the painting’s surface tempt a closer examination, the viewers keep their distance, held their breath, waiting for this writhing, carnal mass to come tumbling out of the frame.

Dana Saulnier lives and works in rural Ohio.  The influence of his environment–its deep colors, elemental texture, and pulsating passing of time in nature–swell and seep from the canvas.  Every fiery hue of red, every sappy deep green, references the organic while subtle flesh tones peek from beneath the buildup of texture; the gestural hand of the artist is the work’s dominant trait. Though the color scheme seems to most reference the romantic palette of the Hudson River Valley landscapes, the application of paint and expressively bold strokes almost answer to Goya influences.  This is just one of the many paradoxes this body of work manifests. Is the subject matter visceral or landscape oriented? Is it a depiction of some tragic decomposition or something full of life? Is it confrontational and threatening or the culmination and destruction of something that can no longer bear its own weight? Upon closer examination, one might be able to make out a hand, a storm, a cup, a sail, or arguably a human spine, but the overall aesthetic is abstracted grandeur.

An interview with the artist cast light on the subject nature of this ten year visual thesis, “The ‘night paintings’ began with my attempt to structure, within painting, the personal loss experienced as one that I love slipped away into an illness that erased memory, thereby collapsing the relation we had and sending it into darkness.” This is no thematic simplicity of cause and effect. So much is embedded into the reference of time and mass and loss; both figure and ground are established and paramount–the earnest conversation between the two is left up to the viewer to grasp and unravel.  The work “impels presence” though referencing the inevitably ephemeral through its undeniably “carnal” imagery. The flesh tones, their warmth, its weight, become an abstracted tumbling and struggling heap of life that rises and falls like the breath in one’s chest.  The painting possess no deliberate context: the arbitrary scenery, lost for placement or time, becomes the perfect stage for this cyclic struggle. The braided forms mushroom and build without rational or regard to stability before folding in on themselves in a cataclysmic implosion. The grief of the artist’s loss weighs heavy in the air. A raw human reverence is shared.

The show will be open until September 25^t.  An informative lecture by the visiting artist will be held on September 16^th in Room 100 Lee Hall from 5:30-6:30 p.m.  This guest lecture will be followed by a reception for the artist in the Lee Gallery and light refreshments will be served.

by Joshua Kelly Published in The Tiger Newspaper

If you woke up this morning and thought to yourself something along the lines of “Well, I really like watching football but my girlfriend wishes that I was a bit more cultured and liked artsy stuff…” then I just might be able to help you out. David Armistead, a Master of Fine Arts in the Visual Arts candidate, is a painter whose subject matter isn’t typical of “fine art” but perhaps should be.

If you conduct a rudimentary survey of the great master painters you will find that many have engaged with subject matter that was politically relevant and culturally dominate for their times. Armistead follows these guidelines as well; dealing with the idea of the contemporary cultural hero and ideas of a glamorous life that comes with the territory, the body of work he is producing for his thesis show focuses on the true American pastime – football.

“Growing up in the south, and as a southern male being a larger guy, there was always expectations for me to play football,” Armistead said, “However, I was always interested in the arts, so I just started to meld those two together.”

Although he has found some resistance to this approach, as football is not typical subject matter of gallery-minded artists, he is not alone in the art world discussing this topic. (Matthew Barney and Catherine Opie are two other artists which have dealt with football as subject matter.) It might even be apt to consider him slightly ahead of the curve in the art world for identifying and highlighting the cultural impact that football (and other mainstream sports) has not just on culture but on the relevance/survivability of fringe aspects of culture. When asked why he chose to go against the mainstream of the art world Armistead replied: “I think that art is a reflection of culture. I think that is always the way that it has been and that’s the way it should be; in order for me to be honest to myself (as an artist) I’m going to focus on cultures that I am a part of [which is football].”

“The goal of my work is to push the importance of sports,” according to Armistead. By pointing out just how much of a political player that sports franchises can be (at a professional and sometimes collegiate level) his work advances past a simple rendering of team colors or significant sports locations. In the modern economic world, success of a sports team translates to economic growth of the host city or town. In turn, this grants more political force and influence to the city, but also the team/coaches/owners that run the economic powerhouse. In a very real way, football is shaping a large portion of our cultural values and we are aware of only the obvious influences.

Formally Armistead’s work is complex and relies on precise application of colors. To him, this reflects the precision that is required to succeed on the field. “I like to draw comparisons. [Football] is a lot more complex than people think it is; there are a lot of factors and it starts to function like theater.”

Armistead’s thesis show, “Command Shift” will be on display in the Lee Gallery from November 4^th-11^th (he will be showing with fellow M.F.A. candidate Katy Butler) and is open to both sports fans and non-sports fans alike. Although the ideal audience loves (and understands) the power structures behind American football, Armistead’s work is accessible to patrons of sports and non-sports backgrounds alike. His methods and techniques highlight the intrinsic ideas of discipline, conditioning, and repetition that make an athlete successful on the field and show that the same mindset can be applied to anything else in life. Finally it is socially acceptable to admit that you like looking at pigments on canvas and watching people beat the tar out of each other. It is a good time to be an artist and a football fan.

GET READY: National Arts in Education Week, September 8-14, 2013!

by Joshua Kelly Published in The Tiger Newspaper

Welcome back students! I am sure that you have been busy all summer visiting museums and becoming more cultured as any great patron of the arts would, and now that school is back in session you are certainly worried about where your next fix of cultural commentary and aesthetic appreciation will come from. Well don’t worry too much – I am back this semester with your weekly fix of art news to keep you up and informed on all of the cultural happenings around campus.

This week I sat down with current Masters of Fine Arts in visual arts (M.F.A.) candidate David Gerhard, who is a printmaking concentration, and talked with him a little about his upcoming MFA thesis show in the fall and the work that he has been making over the course of the past two and a half years here at Clemson.

Printmaking is perhaps one of the most varied disciplines within the art community due to the fact that there is a multitude of different ways to make a print. Be it carving an image into a block of wood or plate of metal, rolling it up with ink and then running it through a press to transfer the image onto paper, or using a large mesh screen to print ink, sand, and carborundum (man-made stardust) onto a gallery floor, the process of printmaking in some form dates back to at least the 5^th century in Asia.

Because the process of printmaking involves making a matrix on a medium such as a wood block or metal plate which can be repeatedly inked and printed, it is thought of by some in the art world as a process which is very archival and permanent. Not only is the process (usually) used to create art and artifacts meant to last forever, but the means to make those objects are also preserved and can be reused, at least in most cases. However, this is not always the direction that contemporary artists and printmakers are taking with the medium.

M.F.A. student David Gerhard is a fine example of a contemporary artist that is exploring both the permanent and temporary natures of the medium. According to Gerhard, “Printmakers are kind of all over the place on that [issue]. There are printmakers that only make things that are archival, ink on paper that are framed…and there are some people that pay attention to the process of [printmaking] as a metaphor for something else, and so they are not always interested in that (archival nature of printmaking).”  His history with the process is more traditional, although in his artistic bodies of work he engages more with what he considers the “metaphors inherent in making a repetition [of form] from one source.” 

Gerhard was raised with a combination of eastern and western philosophies and religions, an unusual background that he certainly makes use of in his work. Along with this he explores the temporary transcendent nature of the act of play as well as the roll that family plays in one’s life in much of his art. His latest installation piece, which was up in the Acorn Gallery in Lee Hall at the start of this semester, explored this transcendent nature of play by combining the eastern religious symbol of a mandala (which represents universal balance) with objects which evoke the idea of children playing in the sand. It was a work inspired by a time he took his two year old son, a source of inspiration for much of the work he has made during his time here at Clemson, to the beach. “My work has been bouncing between almost a spiritual exploration of my life,” Gerhard said; “relating to my relationships with my family, to a mixed cultural heritage, and how to pass that onto the next generation or how that may get translated or mistranslated doing that.”

Gerhard’s M.F.A. thesis show “Being There” will be on display in the Lee Gallery from November 15-22. This show will also feature work by Alyssa Reiser Prince and Aubree Ross, both current M.F.A. candidates as well. His body of work for the show will more strongly feature his exploration of process and engagement with contemporary printmaking; much of his work deals with ideas surrounding the preservation of information in the digital age on the surface and sub-textually engages ideas of how people love each other and how we show that love by the artifacts that we keep.

Clemson University Assistant Professor of Art, Kathleen Thum, is exhibiting her drawings as a part of a three-person exhibition at  ROY G BIV Gallery, Columbus, Ohio.  ROY G BIV Gallery is a nonprofit art gallery located in the historic Short North neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1989, ROY G BIV is known for presenting innovative contemporary art by emerging artists from around the world.

The exhibition will be on display from August 3, 2013 to August 31, 2013.

Kathleen Thum’s Artist Statement:

My drawings and paintings are based on various human physiological and psychological systems, which I depict through rendering abstract networks of forms, shapes, lines, marks and color. Like our internal anatomy, the structures in my works are linear, flowing, clustered, open, dense, intertwined, interpreting gravity, weight and tensions. The drawings and paintings evolve intuitively as I use color and layering to playfully create new imagery based on the fascinating and humorous inter-workings of our body functions and emotions. I often look at medical illustrations and diagrams, industrial factories and landscapes, and building systems to spark my imagination for marks and forms to use in my drawings and paintings. I observe and am fascinated with heating and cooling systems: plumbing pipes, ducts and valves in buildings and construction. These external networks performing similar functions as in our interior bodies. My interests lie in capturing the shifting of scale and function between exterior, macro, man-made formations and interior, micro, biomorphic configurations.

Located in the Short North Arts District of Columbus OH for 20 years, ROY G BIV is the longest running gallery in the neighborhood. The gallery is located on the corner of Starr and High.

997 North High Street
Columbus Ohio 43201
614.297.7694

Open

3-6 WED to FRI
1-5 SAT
AND BY APPOINTMENT

Published: August 2, 2013

CLEMSON – Clemson University’s Center for Visual Arts will have a presence in the new Village of West Greenville, located along Pendleton Street in downtown Greenville.

The CVA-Greenville will allow for undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and alumni to have hands-on experiences in developing, curating, installing and exhibiting art. The center will engage local, regional, national and international artists and will give Upstate residents an opportunity to both see and “do” art.

“Our presence in Greenville was a natural evolution because we’re already there in so many ways,” said the university’s art department chair, Greg Shelnutt. “The first person to graduate with an M.F.A from our department, Jeanet Dreskin, lives in Greenville and is a very active member of the community. We have a number of other alumni with studios in Greenville, and we have alumni on the faculty at several public and private schools in the area. Clemson is already present in that community, so I see this center as a natural outgrowth of that. It’s a homecoming, to a certain degree.”

Shelnutt said the center is a mutually beneficial partnership for Clemson and Greenville.

“This is a chance to become a part of the fabric of the community. Artists want to give back; we want to share what we do. Artists want to expand upon the cultural heritage of a community, using art to tell the stories of life in that community, ” he said. “We get so much out of our interaction with the public, and this will give our students a chance to jumpstart their art careers.”

Greenville Vice Mayor Pro Tem Lillian Flemming said, “By expanding its Greenville presence to include a visual arts center in the Village of West Greenville, Clemson University is not only complimenting the already vibrant West Greenville area as an arts destination, but also creating a unique opportunity to build connections between the school and local businesses, the creative community and the surrounding neighborhoods. We look forward to having Clemson as a community partner and to the positive impact that the visual arts center will have on this area’s continued rebirth.”

The center’s first exhibit, featuring works from Clemson alumni, will open Thursday, Sept. 5. The exhibit, “Sourcing New Mentors: Clemson Art Alumni Educating the Upstate” will feature artists who are working as educators in the Upstate. During the exhibit, some of the participating artists will further develop works on display to showcase the creative process.

Once the heart of the local textile industry, West Greenville has reinvented itself as an art destination. The Village of West Greenville is home to more than 30 artisans – including potters, sculptors, photographers and painters – as well as local businesses and restaurants.

The Center for Visual Arts-Greenville is a satellite of the Center for Visual Arts at Clemson University, which serves as the umbrella for all visual art activities at the university. Though there is not a physical building for this center, the majority of the activities for the Center of Visual Arts are generated out of Lee Hall on the Clemson University campus.

Click here to read more about this effort and to view a video featuring Art Department Chair, Greg Shelnutt.

Contacts

Greg Shelnutt

gshelnu@clemson.edu

864-656-3881

Meredith Mims McTigue

Media Contact

mmims@clemson.edu

864-656-3883

Todd A. McDonald was invited as an expert to share insight on the upcoming “Arts in the Carolinas” episode of the Carolina Business Review television show.

The episode explores the importance of the arts in education, how the arts are used as a catalyst for business recruitment and how the arts support STEM education. The episode also addresses the state of public funding for the arts.

McDonald is an art department faculty member and represents the department as well as the Center for Visual Arts at Clemson University. He is joined by an esteemed panel of experts: John Boyer, Bechtler Museum of Modern Art; Carlos Evans, Spoleto Festival USA; Todd A. McDonald, Clemson University; Dr. Lawrence J. Wheeler, North Carolina Museum of Art.

The “Arts in the Carolinas” episode can we viewed Thursday, July 11 at 9:30 p.m. on ETV South Carolina Channel, Wednesday, July 17 at 5 p.m. on ETV World, Friday, July 19 at 6 p.m. on ETV World and Sunday, August 4 at 1 p.m. on ETV.

Did you miss the episode on TV? Not to worry. You can watch it online.

For more information about the Center for Visual Arts at Clemson University, please visit: www.clemson.edu/cva.

About the Center for Visual Arts

The Center for Visual Arts (CVA) at Clemson University is where students, visitors and scholars explore contemporary perspectives in art and culture through research, outreach programming and studio practice. With a mission to engage and render visible the creative process, the CVA is a dynamic intellectual and physical environment where art is created, exhibited and interpreted. It educates through academic research and practice with art at its core, drawing upon varied disciplines to examine critically cultural issues and artistic concerns.

The CVA serves as the umbrella for visual arts activities at Clemson University. There is not a physical building for this center as of yet. The majority of activities for the CVA are generated out of Lee Hall.

About Carolina Business Review

For over 20 years, the Carolina Business Review has been a way to initiate dialogue for public policy challenges. Carolina Business Review has become the most widely watched source for business and public policy issues across the Region. Carolina Business Review is made possible by partnerships with UNCTV, ETV and PBS Charlotte and regional Public Broadcasting organizations to produce a weekly, 30-minute dialogue that can been seen on 22 PBS affiliates throughout North and South Carolina.

Laken Bridges in the Book Arts studio at Penland

Last week, Art Department Marketing and Public Relations Director, Meredith Mims McTigue, and I drive north past Asheville, NC from Clemson, then turned onto 19 East and up the winding mountain roads to Penland.  Our mission: to visit with Laken Bridges, Clemson University Art Department MFA Candidate. Laken was at Penland thanks for the vision of Penlands’ donors and their on-going commitment to support the Higher Education Partner’s Scholarship program.  These scholarships are provided in partnership with up to 30 colleges and universities who match Penland’s contribution of the cost of providing full scholarships for a two-week summer session at Penland. The college or university partner selects students, who must be first-time students at Penland to be eligible.

Laken was studying with University of Georgia Visiting Assistant Professor, Eileen Wallace, taking her “Books with Substance” class.  Wallace, the former co-director of Paper and Book Intensive and the curator for Masters: Book Arts for Lark Books, graciously accommodated our intrusion into her workshop.

In looking over Laken’s prolific output, one could readily see books that fulfilled the course’s mandate to create “one-of-a-kind or very-limited-edition artist’s books that display a cohesive integration of structure and content.”

In-progress book by Laken Bridges.

All told, it was an very inspiring way to spend an afternoon, dining at The Pines, having conversation with intellectually engaged and creative people who understand the power of the hand, heart and mind to foster creativity.

The Penland School of Crafts is a national center for craft education dedicated to helping people live creative lives. Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Penland offers one-, two-, and eight-week workshops in books & paper, clay, drawing, glass, iron, metals, photography, printmaking and letterpress, textiles, and wood.  For more information, go to: http://penland.org.

Laken Bridges will be entering her second year as a graduate student with an emphasis in printmaking studying with Professor Sydney Cross.  To learn more about graduate studies in Art Clemson University  or to schedule a campus visit, email the Art Department graduate coordinator, David Detrich, at ddavid@clemson.edu or call (864) 656-3890.

This submission is a repost from the blog of Clemson University Art Department Chair, Greg Shelnutt  http://cuartopportunities.blogspot.com/2013/06/wonderful-visit-to-penland-school-of.html

We congratulate Emily Korth for making the President’s List at Clemson University. See article below:

Emily Elizabeth Korth (BFA in Art, ceramics emphasis, 2013) of Newtown has been named to the President’s List at Clemson University for the spring 2013 semester. To be named to the President’s List, a student must achieve a 4.0 (all As) grade-point average.

Ranked No. 25 among national public universities, Clemson University is a major, land-grant, science- and engineering-oriented research university that maintains a strong commitment to teaching and student success. Clemson is an inclusive, student-centered community characterized by high academic standards, a culture of collaboration, school spirit, and a competitive drive to excel.