Art Insights is a weekly presentation by artists from across the nation and around the world. The new season of presentations will start September 3, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. Check our website for the latest information at www.suu.edu/arts
A New Kiln Completed for Ceramics ProgramWith the help of visiting artist and master kiln builder Ted Neal, from Ball State University, Muncie, IN, Professor Susan Harris and a varying crew of 10 students and visitors from other Utah institutions built SUU’s second wood-fired high temperature kiln on campus behind the ceramics lab during May. Using 1,272 recycled hard bricks (each brick required chipping and grinding to remove mortar) from the old kiln, several pallets of new brick and over a ton of cinder block, the catenary arch style kiln was completed in just over a week.
An ancient labor-intensive process, wood firing is currently undergoing a worldwide renaissance among ceramic studio artists. It is considered the single best method by which a student may learn the art of firing. Because the actual firings may take in excess of thirty hours of continual stoking to reach optimum temperature, this process requires a cooperative team effort from participants. “The qualities unique to wood-fired ceramics result from a complex drama involving human intentions, material properties and a factor best known as ‘the life of the fire’.”*
* Jack Troy, Wood-fired Stoneware and Porcelain, Chilton, Radnor, PA, 1995, p. 1
Professor Arlene V. Braithwaite was named "Utah Higher Education Art Educator of the Year for 2009". This recognition is for outstanding service in art education at the college/university level. The Utah Art Education Association, the state’s professional association for art teachers, presents this award annually. Arlene Braithwaite was also invited to Zion National Park to participate in "In the Footsteps of Thomas Moran Paint Out", April 20 - 24, 2009. During the week, twenty artists from across the country painted at locations where Moran sketched over one hundred years ago. Moran's paintings were instrumental in selling Congress on the idea of a National Park system. The culmination of the paint out was an art auction held at the Zion Lodge. Arlene's painting, "Sunrise at Watchman" garnered the highest bid.
Professor Susan Harris presented her ceramic work in two invitational exhibitions: “20 Below - 22 Above” at Minnesota State University Moorhead Center for the Arts Gallery from January 26 - February 11, 2009 and “Dichotomy” at the Atrium Gallery of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, February 9 - March 16, 2009. In May 2009, Susan and her students completed building a new wood-fired kiln (see above).
Professor Brian Hoover participated in a juried exhibition titled “Expressions West” at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon April 24 - June 27, 2009. Brian took “First Place” in the juried show. In April 2009, his artwork was selected to appear in “Western Humanities Review” a literary magazine/book that the University of Utah's English Department publishes quarterly. In addition, he was asked to participate during summer 2009 in a group exhibition of artists who deal with surrealism at the Contemporary Design and Art Gallery of Salt Lake. Currently he is preparing for a solo exhibition August 2009 at the Canyon Community Center, in Springdale, Utah.
Professor Andrew Marvick presented “Something Incomprehensible: Modernism and the Real in the Landscapes of Fernand Khnopff,” April 2009 at The Symbolist Movement: Its Origins and Its Consequences conference held at Allerton Park and the University of Illinois, in Springfield. Furthermore, he has been invited to mount a solo exhibit of his painting entitled A Modernism of Nostalgia at Casper College in Casper, Wyoming in March 2010.
Professor Jeremias Paul was listed as a featured contender this summer on the blog of New York notable Jen Bekman Gallery in their "Hey, Hot Shot!" competition.
Professor Kyle Petersen’s photograph “Plastic Fist” was part of a group exhibition entitled “Something About Nothing” at the Wayne and Geraldine Kuhn Fine Arts Gallery at Ohio State University’s Marion campus in Marion Ohio. The exhibition ran April 6 - May 5, 2009.
Artist in Residence Ben Sowards was the keynote speaker at the February Utah Art Educators Association (UAEA) Conference held in St. George, Utah. At that conference he taught two workshops, one entitled “Building Character: Creating Extraordinary Characters from Ordinary Descriptions” and “Spin it: Collaborative Animation for the Entire Class.” Recently he completed the official portrait of Professor Jim Bowns who was inducted into the Southern Utah University Hall of Honor. Currently, Ben is illustrating three books. First, a children’s picture book by New York Times bestselling author Jason F. Wright, Penny’s Christmas Jars Miracle as well as a children’s picture book by author Gale Sears titled Christmas for a Dollar. Finally, he is illustrating the last in the five-part award winning young adult fantasy series Leven Thumps written by Obert Skye.
Junior photography major Megan Anderson (’10) was a finalist for the Best of College Photography Annual 2008 and will have one of her photographs published in the 2008 annual.
Quinn Bell (’08) is doing freelance graphic design work in the Denver, Colorado area.
Stephen JoneJeff Case (‘05) is an Assistant Professor of Visual Arts/Digital Media at Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont.
Scott Chandler (‘09) will be working on his MFA in photography at the Savannah School of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia beginning fall 2009.
Photography minor Danelle Cheney (‘11) received an internship with the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery to create a high-resolution photographic archive of the gallery's permanent collection this summer.
As part of her internship for the art history major, Adrienne Gastrich (‘10) will be working at the Cincinnati Museum of Art summer 2009.
Photography major Jacki Stoddard (’10) received two separate internships for summer 2009. One with Draper-based photographer Candace Alldredge and the other with the ad agency “Think Tank” in Salt Lake City.
Photography major Katie Wimer ('11) received an internship summer 2009 with Minneapolis-based photographer Scott Streble.
(Photos: Top: Art and Design student painting in class. Bottom: Sculpture studentworking in class. Both photos by Scott Chandler)