Art show not just for majors

the following was posted by Leah Garavelli, April 1st, 2009, for Ouachita’s online student newspaper, The Signal.

Ouachita’s Art Department is organizing its first Juried Art Show which will be on display April 20-24 in the Hammons Gallery of Mabee Fine Arts Center.

Students can submit their paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures, graphic designs and photography to Donnie Copeland, assistant professor of visual arts, or David Bieloh, chair and associate professor of visual arts, by April 2 for a chance to be in the show.

Sarah Altman at work.

Carey Roberson, associate professor of art at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, will judge the artwork on April 3 and decide which pieces make it into the show. He also will choose a best in show and first, second and third place winners in three categories: studio art, photography and graphic design.

click here for the full story

Ouachita’s Hammons Gallery to host exhibit by ceramicist Ken Shipley

by Donnie Copeland, Assistant Professor of Visual Art

Ouachita Baptist University’s Hammons Gallery is pleased to announce its second exhibit of 2009 presented by ceramicist Ken Shipley of Clarksville, Tenn.

The exhibit, which will be open Feb. 4-25, will open with a reception to be held in the gallery at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 4. The artist will present a demonstration in room 204 of Moses-Provine Hall at 3 p.m. following the reception.

“Autrey” by Ken Shipley, porcelain and high fire reduction fired, approx. 8" X 7", permanent collection of The Shanghai Museum of Art, Shanghai, China.

 Shipley is an associate professor of art at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. His professional experience includes set, lighting and sound design in theatrical and musical settings in addition to his work as a production potter and seven years of teaching at the university level.

Shipley has exhibited nationally and internationally. His recent international exhibits include selected work exhibited in Vallauris, France, as well as the Celadon Art Gallery in London, England, which has been ongoing for the past two years. Additionally, in the fall of 2006 he was included in “The International Top 10 Teapot Masters Exhibition” in Shanghai, China, which then re-opened for permanent display at Fudan University in Shanghai. Recent exhibits in the United States include showings in Clarksville and Nashville, Tenn., and Statesboro, Ga.

Shipley, who has worked in ceramics for 30 years, began his career as an apprentice to both Charles Counts in Rising Fawn, Ga., and Bill Ashley in Chattanooga, Tenn. His work covers many aspects of ceramics, from production pottery to large, one-of-a-kind vessel pieces, both wheel thrown and hand built. The artist also uses a variety of firing processes including high fire reduction, salt/soda, wood fire and electric kilns to produce his work.

For more information, call (870) 245-5559 or visit the artist’s website at http://www.shipleypottery.com.

Warhol exhibit turns heads, changes minds

the following was posted  by Annette Whitehead, December 28th, 2008, for Ouachita’s online student newspaper, The Signal.

I’ve never been a big fan of Andy Warhol. I never really saw the point in portraying a person’s face in the brightest colors available, or recreating boxes from a store shelf, or even flat-colored soup cans. But as an artist, I study art movements for reference, and I see exhibits for the personal look of art.

As I walked into the Warhol exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center, I was not surprised to be greeted with huge, fluorescent images of Marilyn Monroe. Her face was on several walls, all bright, but all different. They were much larger than I expected, given that the size referenced in a book gives no justice to an art piece in person. I was able to get close and examine each individual screen print, and read the artist’s explanation for producing these works. I was intrigued.

Continuing through the exhibit, there were several prints that I’ve never seen, and I was happy to see some early works that included sketches. Seeing work from before an artist became famous helps aspiring artists see where it all began.

After looking at a particularly interesting piece about string, I saw a rather large, silver Mylar balloon floating to seemingly nowhere. It had escaped from its room… click here for the complete story.

Ouachita’s Hammons Gallery to host Kell Black and Barry Jones exhibit

the following is by Brooke Showalter, OBU Assistant Director of Communications

Ouachita Baptist University’s Hammons Gallery will host Kell Black and Barry Jones in a guest exhibit from Jan. 12-28. The multimedia art exhibit will feature aspects of Black and Jones’ “Please Call Stella” piece.

The artists will hold a closing reception and artists’ talk on Jan. 28 in Hammons Gallery, which is located in Ouachita’s Mabee Fine Arts Center. The reception will also include a live audio visual performance by Black and Jones. The time of the reception is to be announced.

“This is a unique exhibition because it involves video, music, typography and sound—something new for the department—very post-modern and very experimental,” said David Bieloh, associate professor of graphic design and chair of the department of visual art at Ouachita. “To my knowledge,” he continued, “this would be a unique exhibition not only for OBU, but for the area in general.”

“Please Call Stella” was inspired by the speech accent archives compiled by Dr. Steven H. Weinberger of George Mason University. Weinberger and his team recorded thousands of native and non-native English speakers reading a short narrative paragraph that contains all of the sounds in the English language, beginning with the words “Please call Stella.”

The scene is set,” explain Black and Jones in their artist statement, “for a story that never progresses but is stuck forever in time, endlessly repeated by people from all over the world.”

click here for the complete story

David Cateforis Lectures at Arkansas Arts Center on Warhol

Thursday night, November 20, Advanced Painting and a few friends had the opportunity to view the Andy Warhol: 15 Weeks of Fame exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center.  David Cateforis, associate professor at the University of Kansas, lectured on Warhol’s life and work which was enjoyable and very informative.  He gave a thorough look into the context of Warhol’s work in relation to the work of other artists at the time and discussed how Pop Art came to be at all.  One of my favorite bits he gave us was a look at how Warhol’s influence might be playing itself out in the work of living artists at the moment which included a slide of Ai Weiwei’s Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo.  A wonderful piece, it remained with us and became the point of conversation on the way home.

Ai Weiwei, Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 10" X 11" X 11", painted Han Dynasty urn, 1994

 

Warhol’s, Green Coca-Cola Bottles, 1962

Arkadelphia to Memphis

Friday, the 7th of November, we decided to head to Memphis to appreciate what was going on in the galleries.  We took a list of places that interested us in some way, printed maps to each and hit the road with a little bit of optimism to go.  Arriving just before sunset we arrived at the Power House Memphis (pictured above) which has a show paying homage to Memphis native and photographer, William Eggleston.  The architecture of this place was austere and beautiful all at once.  We were off to a good start.  The area south of downtown along Main St. was really enjoyable with shops and restaurants and other galleries.  A lot has been invested in the area in terms of real estate and housing.  From there we headed north and to east Memphis passing Beale St along the way.  

The Powerhouse made us feel small.

We also did a whirlwind tour of 4 other galleries, all enjoyable:  Marshall Arts, Material, L Ross Gallery, and the David Lusk Gallery.  An interesting connection between Material, L Ross and David Lusk was that the shows all exhibited acrylic paintings which were vastly different from each other.  The spaces themselves, the galleries that is, were all just as unique in aesthetic and feel as well.  

“Woman Searching”, acrylic on canvas, 30″X40″, 2007-2008, by Carl Moore. His work was shown at the L Ross Gallery. You can see more of his work at http://www.cemooreart.com/index.html. He is also a designer.

 

“Hidden River #5″, acrylic, oil stick on canvas, 66 x 84″, 2008 by Robert Rector at David Lusk.

 

A painting by Lewis Feibelman at Material, 2553 Broad Avenue, Memphis, TN.  See more about the show by clicking here.

One of my favorites of the evening was Marshall Arts. Pictured left is Bobby Spillman’ “Gimme Shelter,” oil on canvas.  See more of his work at the L Ross Gallery.

In all, Memphis was energetic and very much worth the visit.  This was only a visit to the galleries and didn’t include the museums or the multitude of other possible venues to visit.  I definitely look forward to our next visit.

Rondall Reynoso’s “Mixing Metaphors”

New 5 euro coinage

Matthew Dent’s new coinage for the UK was pretty great, but this Dutch commemorative coin is a fully contemporary chunk of wow.

On the front, the names of famous Dutch architects form an image of the queen while some Dutch architecture books on the back form an outline of The Netherlands. The design was done using free software running on Ubuntu/Debian. (design observer via www.kottke.org)

click here for more

Last Chance for Delta Exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center

This year’s 51st Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Arts Center will close November 16.  The exhibit surveys the recent activity of artists throughout the Mississippi Delta region, basically all the states sharing a border with Arkansas.  The show is always exciting and typically includes a wide variety of media.  This year is no different with drawings, prints, photographs, neon, collage, basketry, embroidery floss among other mixed media and found objects, crocheting, a variety of painting and small to modestly sized sculpture.

 

The work of Memphis artist, Niki Johnson, is rather compelling since it is the only cross-stitched work framed in pie pans dealing with such timely subject matter as the election in the exhibit.  There are many other works to see and,  if you go, don’t miss Neal Harrington’s wood cut, Neptune’s Dilemma, and Meredith Beau’s photo, CONSUME!

above: Niki Johnson, The Great American Bake-Off, embroidery floss and bake-ware, three 9” rounds, 2008, detail below.

Lance Letscher

While in Houston I was able to visit the McMurtey Gallery and see Lance Letscher’s new work.  Letscher works in a variety of media, “including book bindings, old ledgers and journals, and miscellaneous paper ephemera” which he collects at junk and thrift stores.  His works typically combine shapes cut from the gathered material to create nonrepresentational canvases of complex pattern.  He is well known for a series of collages made up of a repeated and layered pinwheel pattern.

To my surprise this exhibit contained a few of the nonrepresentational works but were mostly pictorial.  The subject matter dealt mostly with imaginative landscapes of factory yards with silos and railroads.  There were then a few smaller pieces dealing with interiors, a drawing of a table with chairs drawn with the most careful and fine line and a drawing of a staircase and then a collage of the same (pictured).  While not what I was expecting, I found these new works, especially these I have mentioned, to be every bit as enjoyable and delightful as any I have seen.

above: Staircase (left) and Blue Staircase (right). Both by Lance Letscher and 2008.  Staircase is graphite on paper and is 9 1/8″ x 13 1/2″. Blue Staircase is collage on masonite and is 17 1/2 ” x 9 7/8″.

Click the links below to view more of his work.

Conduit Gallery, Dallas

McMurtey Gallery, Houston