Faculty coordinator Professor Pete Schulte said, “From traditional works on paper and canvas to experiments in video and performance, the 2013 BFA Juried Exhibition seeks to give students the chance to exhibit their work while still in school, rather than at the end of their tenure. This cross section of work also provides viewers with a unique opportunity to take the pulse of a variety of contemporary art practices, as well as that of some of the most creative students at The University of Alabama.”

All UA undergraduate art majors who passed the review for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree were eligible to enter the competition, juried by the department faculty. Exhibitors in the juried show are Bachelor of Fine Arts majors Elizabeth Alexander, Ben Bailey, Emee Barrow, Yimin Li, Michael Meads, Eric Nubbe, Greg Randall, Carmen Rice, Kristen Tcherneshoff, Rachel Wakefield, Joi West, and Kacie Willings.

For more information about the BFA degree and our other degree programs in the Department of Art and Art History, click here,  or contact the department at (205)348-5967. For more information about gallery hours, call (205) 464-0054.

I enrolled at The University of Alabama in 1972. I chose the school because there was only one school in Alabama that taught photography in the art department. Jim Barnes was my first teacher, however he resigned shortly thereafter. Gay was hired as his replacement. To me, it was as if what Jim Barnes started, Gay continued and ultimately perfected.

     One of the most memorable experiences from my years as a student was the day I walked into the classroom and Walker Evans was there, sitting on the old couch. Next to him, seated on the dusty side chair was William Christenberry. Christenberry had invited Evans to tour the campus before returning to some of the sites of his historic photo series from Hale County. The experience of meeting and talking with Evans changed my life. I credit Gay with making that interaction possible. After meeting Evans, Gay was invited by him to work with him and his students at Yale. This, too, is a testament to her brilliance as an artist and teacher.

     As a teacher, Gay was exceptional at cutting to the truth and sharing insights that challenged her students. She used absolute honesty when talking about a student’s work. She not only taught the craft of photography, but also pushed her students to develop the intent and meaning behind their work. In critique, students discovered more about themselves as people through the process of examining their art. Besides teaching us the dynamics and history of photography as an art form, she also gave us a lot of confidence and challenged us in unique ways.

   Gay gave me the education and the experience to become the teacher I am today. In many ways, I owe my career to her. After graduating from The University of Alabama, I was an artist-in-residence with the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) for five years. After some time, Gay was the one who challenged me to become a teacher. I applied to Pratt Institute and was accepted. I was so afraid that I would be looked at as ignorant and inadequate and someone who knew nothing about art or photography. However, not only was I prepared, but I was offered a graduate assistantship. Some years later, when I was living in Paris, Gay somehow was able to send word to me about a job opening at University of North Alabama. On her recommendation I was offered the position. Twenty-five years later, I am still teaching there.

     I believe it was a great stroke of luck, genius and incredible foresight on the part of The University of Alabama to hire Gay. In many ways she is responsible for bringing art photography to Alabama and raising the profile of photography as an art form throughout the South. She is the “Mother of Alabama Art Photography.”

— WAYNE SIDES, BS, New College,1975

Digital Media and Photography Professor Chris Jordan initiated the project with his spring 2013 class: “Each student adopted a particular photo-related piece from the PRJ collection. After researching as much as they could about their work, they created multiple creative responses to it. They used the Jones Collection work as a creative springboard. In the show we will display the original PRJ art works alongside the students’ responses.”

Students in Advanced Digital Photography are Elizabeth E. Bragg, Natalie A. Culberson, Richard A. Hill, Sara M. Johnson, Stephanie A. Mitchell, Heather A. Orlando, Mary C. Taylor, Joi B. West, Kayla A. White, Turner E. Woods.

Visit our website for more information and updates: http://art.ua.edu/site/galleries/woods-hall-gallery/ and “Like” us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sellagranata.

The Sella-Granata Art Gallery is located in 109 Woods Hall, on The University of Alabama campus, and open during the school year. Hours are Mon.- Fri., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. except school holidays. For information about visitor parking, please click here.

This third biennial exhibition features the work of ten Department of Art and Art History undergraduate studio program students who have been awarded Windgate Fellowship support to create a new art work for this exhibition. Awardees are Elizabeth Alexander, Emee Barrow, Morgan Deems, Kayla Huguley, Heather Orlando, Greg Randall, Lori Taylor, Kristen Tcherneshoff,  Shannon Thacker, and Joi West.

Department faculty members use a jury process to select students to conduct research and produce a new body of art work specifically for this show. The fellowship funding supports both research and production costs.

A broad range of studio media is represented in the exhibit including painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography and glass. Some artists have worked collaboratively and several have combined media processes in their work. Funding support for the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art comes from the Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences at The University of Alabama. For further information, contact the gallery at 348-1891. Past Windgate Exhibitions: photosets on Flickr.

2011 Windgate Fellows Exhibition February 24 – March 25, 2011

The work of Windgate Fellowship winners Amanda Barnes, Tanya McDavid, Harrison G. Prince, Meredith Randall, Joseph Robertson, and Kayleigh Walder will be on display.

This second biennial exhibition features the work of these six Department of Art and Art History undergraduate studio art majors who have been awarded Windgate Fellowship support for the academic year 2010-2011. Department faculty members use a jury process to select students to conduct research and produce a new body of art work specifically for this show. Participating students are actively involved with the exhibit’s organization and production. The Windgate Fellowship provides funding support dedicated to both research and production costs. The exhibition will be the centerpiece event for the 2011 Arty Party, a College of Arts and Sciences fundraiser organized by its Leadership Board.

Home | Sarah Moody Gallery of Art 

This inaugural exhibition event will feature the work of Art Department students who have been awarded Windgate Fellowship support to pursue their studies in studio art media areas of Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking and Ceramics. Students will participate in the selection and preparation of works for the exhibit, and in the installation design. View photos of the installation here.

3D Printing by students in Engineering and Arts & Sciences

The University of Alabama’s College of Arts & Sciences and College of Engineering are working together to create collaborative workspaces in the curriculum. These classes combine perspectives, as dynamic conversations break down traditional stereotypes.  The selected works on display for Kentuck’s March 7 Art Night represent various products influenced by this collaborative approach to the building of objects.

3D Printing, or Rapid Prototyping, has taken a significant new role on The University of Alabama campus.  Both Rodgers Library and the new Engineering 3D Printing Lab provide students and faculty with access and support for various printers.  This technology creates new ways to approach artistic design, and we are excited to share it as part of Art Night!

There’s a LOT going on at March Art Night at Kentuck!

Kentuck’s opening exhibits for March Art Night include “The HELMET Project” by Gary Chapman, “Mastering Pen and Ink” by Barry Wysinger, The featured Clay Place artist will be Fred Mitchell, and In the Courtyard of Wonders, there will be fresh cob oven pizza and live music by GOLIGHTLY. Also in the courtyard, there will be a special metalcasting workshop (https://www.facebook.com/events/485635371472813/) from 5-8 p.m. Participants can make aluminum bowls or platters ($45) or tiles ($15) with metalworkers from Tannehill. Contact Kentuck for more information.

Anne Herbert, “The Place Where Things Fall Apart,” 2013, acrylic on muslin, 51″ X 65″

Tuscaloosa, AL — The Department of Art and Art History is proud to present graduate students Anne Herbert and Darius Hill in a joint exhibition of their art work in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. There will be a reception for the exhibition Thursday, March 7, from 5 – 7 p.m. in the gallery. The public is cordially invited to attend.  Visit our website for more information and updates: http://art.ua.edu/site/galleries/woods-hall-gallery/.

AN AMALGAM – While the works of Herbert and Hill reveal very different conceptual approaches and media, both artists engage with ideas of time. Darius Hill reinvestigates images and ideas from the past to understand his present. Anne Herbert’s paintings depict fleeting moments in her attempt to bring awareness to the present moment. Herbert details her exploration: “I often set up scenarios where there is something to look beyond or one place spilling out of another. When the painted spaces begin to break down and invade each other not only is an emphasis put on the nuance of a moment, but also fragility is revealed which gives the paintings a precariousness, and the spaces maintain a kind of discomfort.”

Darius Hill, “Funkadelic Relic,” 2012, H 8′

While Herbert explores moments of recognition, and an unfolding experience, Hill turns and re-turns popular culture images into iconic symbols. He describes his process: “The deeper I dig into my experience, the more I rediscover the very things I thought I was leaving behind…While creating the armature for “Funkadelic Relic”, an 8-foot high Afro-Comb sculpture, it was obvious to me that it resembled a rough version of some gothic structure from the past. I’m not frustrated by this, as it reminds me of how things are connected and how artists should always put themselves in the position to facilitate connections.”

ABOUT THE ARTISTS – A third-year MFA candidate preparing to graduate in May, Herbert has held a teaching assistantship for three years in the UA Department of Art and Art History. She received the BFA in painting from the University of Montevallo. Originally from Auburn, Alabama, Herbert lives in Tuscaloosa with her husband and their daughter.
Darius Hill is chair of the Visual Arts Department of the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham. He holds a BFA in printmaking from the Atlanta College of Art. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the southeast including New Vision Gallery, Atlanta, GA; the University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL; and the Crossroads Initiative, New Orleans, LA. He has been juried into exhibitions including the Red Clay Survey, Huntsville; and the Energen Exhibition, Birmingham. Hill’s work is in many museum, corporate, and private collections throughout the U.S. He has earned several honors and awards including Operation New Birmingham Best in Show Award at the Magic City Art Connection and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. Hill was one of 13 Alabama printmakers selected to work with the University of Montevallo’s Big Print project. Work generated from that project traveled to major museums throughout the state of Alabama.
The exhibition AMALGAM is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Arts degree for Darius Hill, and in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree for Anne Herbert. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA Department of Art and Art History, visit this link: http://art.ua.edu/site/programs/graduate/.
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For more information about the exhibition:
Rachel Dobson, Visual Resources Curator, 348-1893, rdobson@bama.ua.edu.

For information about the artists and their work:
Anne Herbert: anne@anneherbertpaintings.com, anneherbertpaintings.com
Darius Hill dhill@bham.rr.com

Curator Lee Shook and Johnny Williams, Raudelunas member and founder of Alabama Art Casting, hang art work in the Ferguson Gallery.

January 7 – February 2, 2013
February 2 – Closing reception, 5–7 p.m. at the UA Ferguson Center Art Gallery followed immediately by a concert at the  Ferguson Center Theatre from 7:30– 9 p.m.

Gallery Hours: Monday – Saturday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.

“Raudelunas was the single largest influence on my early career. My long-term participation with the international surrealist movement stems from my work with the group.”
–Janice Hathaway, BFA 1973, MFA 1975

The 1970s were revolutionarily creative years all over the world and The University of Alabama campus was no exception. UA students demonstrated against the war and for women’s rights, civil liberties generally, and the environment. They also expressed themselves artistically with outdoor music concerts, improvisational events and other often spontaneous happenings.  In the mid ‘70s, some UA students got together to make improvisational and avant-garde music, art and performance, and called themselves the Raudelunas, (pronounced ra-DELL-uh-nus), an Armenian word referring to the moon and its mythical powers.

In 1974, the Raudelunas art collective put on the ‘Pataphysical Revue exhibition-performance in the Ferguson Center’s original art gallery (located where the Alabama Credit Union is now).

Now, that revolutionary moment in time will be recreated for a few weeks where it originally took place: the Ferguson Student Center. The Raudelunas Exposition 2013, organized and curated by Lee Shook, Jr., will feature a retrospective of visual art and archival materials from the Raudelunas group’s activities in the 1970s including group drawings, paintings, assemblages, sculptures, manifestos, posters, records and photographs.

UA alumni and Raudelunas members Janice Hathaway and Craig Nutt mount and label archival materials for the Raudelunas Exposition opening Monday, January 7.

Shook writes that the performers-exhibitors will include “the humorously dark satire of Dada-inspired big band leader Reverend Fred Lane [a.k.a. Tim Reed], the wild and free improv excursions of the Blue Denim Deals Without The Arms and TransMuseq and the Surrealist-inspired artwork of Craig Nutt, Janice Hathaway, and Fletcher Hayes – among many, many others.”

The Raudelunas Exposition will culminate in a one-night-only reunion concert on Saturday, February 2, at the Ferguson Center Theatre, part of the Sonic Frontiers concert series at The University of Alabama. The concert will feature internationally-acclaimed violist LaDonna Smith, guitarist Davey Williams and harpist/composer Anne LeBaron, and sculptor Craig Nutt on the “Folgerphone,” along with several surprise guests. Documentary filmmaker Skizz Cyzyk will video the closing reception and concert.

The concert will also feature two short films. Rare footage of the Raudelunas members performing in a mid-1970s UA homecoming parade will follow the Alabama debut of the trailer for Icepick To The Moon, a feature-length documentary about the Reverend Fred Lane and Raudelunas by Skizz Cyzyk.

Several of these students were art majors/grad students or were closely tied to the art department: LaDonna Smith – now an internationally acclaimed improv violist – and sculptor Craig Nutt – who has worked for several years with Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) — took many courses in the department. Janice Hathaway and Fletcher Paul Hayes earned BFAs and master’s degrees in studio art. The participants mentioned here, and most of the rest of the group continue to be working artists, musicians, and creative people today.

Raudelunas member and department of art and art history alumnus Fletcher Paul Hayes (BFA 1973, MA 1974) created an illuminated red and white Plexiglas Raudelunas sign that towered over the original exhibition. For the retrospective exhibition, Hayes writes that he contributed two art works: a mixed-media sculpture titled “Souvenir of Florida,” which was in the original exhibition at Ferguson Center, and a print of his painting titled “Lake Spirit,” in which fellow Raudelunasmember and high school friend Anne LeBaron “sits atop the dam at Lake Lurleen, casting a web across the entire landscape.”

Hayes remembers how he first got involved in the group, with LeBaron, who was a music student. He met Craig Nutt (UA religious studies major), the late Lanny Hatcher and Roger Hagerty: “they were hilarious and friendly and we all seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I was intrigued with their crazy inventions, such as the ‘Folgerphone,’ which was a saxophone fashioned out of copper tubing and a Folger’s coffee can. They were multi-talented musicians and artists, and even though at the time I wasn’t familiar with the improvisational jazz music that they liked, they invited me to sit in on their jam sessions a couple of times, where I would toot on a harmonica or bang on a tambourine.”

Hayes recalls: “My role in Raudelunas included participation in the 1974 art exhibition at Ferguson Center. I [also] marched with the Raudelunas Marching Vegetable Band in the Homecoming parade: I wore a banana costume which I created out of corrugated cardboard, and filmed the event in Super-8 (silent) movie film.”

The Sonic Frontiers concert series is made possible by support from The University of Alabama’s New College, the UA College of Arts and Sciences, The UA School of Music, and Creative Campus.

For more information about the exhibition and performance, contact Lee Shook, theaudiovore77@gmail.com, or go to the Ferguson Center Art Gallery webpage: http://ferguson.ua.edu/artgallery.cfm.

If you are a University of Alabama art or art history alumnus/a and would like to be on our mailing list for alumni news and department history, email Rachel Dobson rdobson@bama.ua.edu.

More Press: 
http://weldbham.com/blog/2013/01/07/keeping-bama-weird/
http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/01/raudelunas_retrospective_start.html
http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20130107/NEWS/130109857/1007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 18, 2012

WHAT:   REFLECT: Carolyn Kerr & Sloan Saunders BFA Exhibition (Part 1)
WHEN:   November 1 – 16, with a reception on November 1, ART NIGHT, 6-9 p.m.
WHERE: Harrison Galleries, 2315 University Boulevard, Tuscaloosa
Please call (205) 464-0054 for more information about exhibition times.

The University of Alabama department of art and art history is pleased to announce an exhibition of work by two Bachelor of Fine Arts majors in studio art. “Reflect,” an exhibition of digital works and ceramics by Carolyn Kerr and Sloan Saunders, will be held in the Harrison Galleries in downtown Tuscaloosa November 1-16. The gallery, located at 2315 University Boulevard, is open by appointment. Please call (205) 464-0054 for more information about exhibition times. An opening reception will be held ART NIGHT, Thursday, November 1, from 6-9 p.m.  The public is invited to attend and meet the artists. There will be a second show on December 7 at the L & N Station in downtown Tuscaloosa, which will be a one-night-only event.
Facebook Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/102408629920575/

As seniors nearing their end of their college years (both graduate in December), age has made Carolyn Kerr and Sloan Saunders more introspective, and their exhibition theme conveys that thoughtfulness. Saunders, a sculpture major originally from Greenwood, MS, writes that the title reminds her to “reflect within yourself, reflect on the things around you.” Besides reflective surfaces like water and windows, Kerr, whose concentration is in sculpture and digital media, plays with reflections and points-of-view; her work is “about reflecting on things that surround us [and] reflecting on ourselves as human beings.” Saunders also reflects on her relationship to her art professors. “The teachers here are more than just professors. They become family and you strive not to let them down.”

Saunders says that she has wanted to be an artist since she was three years old. “Art has always been my life.” For a while in college, she did not think she should major in art: “I didn’t want my life ‘job’ to be my passion…so I went to my second passion: science, [especially] chemistry and mineralogy.” She plans to go to graduate school in sculpture, but she also wants to be a gemologist. “Gems and minerals are another passion and I would love to work with jewelry. But I have a long list of things I hope my art will let me do, from teaching to therapy to creating.”

Kerr, who grew up in Gadsden, AL, came to art from interior design after several events in her life made her question the choices she was making for her future. She briefly turned to social work, but when she took ceramics, she “realized that there was nothing I wanted to do more than create things.” She feels that with sculpture, her “options are limitless and it is more than just making a 3D form. It’s about problem solving. It’s about coming up with a design and figuring out how to execute it properly, which for me often involves a great deal of experimenting. I feel if you can create something out of nothing than you can do anything you set your mind to. Sculpture has boosted the confidence I have in myself and  has honestly changed my life in the best way possible.”

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The BFA degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art.  For more information about our BFA degree program and other degree programs at The University of Alabama, go to http://art.ua.edu/site/programs/undergraduate/studio-art/.

A group of bamboo sculptures are now being constructed in the new bamboo park in development adjacent to Kentuck Park in Northport. Signs of Life is the work of local artist Claire Lewis Evans as part of her graduate research in The University of Alabama’s department of art and art history. The installation is a collaboration with Black Belt Bamboost, a community-based project designed to raise awareness about bamboo’s potential benefits for Alabama.

Black Belt Bamboost’s current initiative is the construction of a bamboo park on a small section of a 200-acre site given to its parent organization, the Friends of Historic Northport, for the establishment of the Van de Graaff Arboretum and Historic Bridge Park. The bamboo park will showcase the many varieties of bamboo, a fast-growing and prolific plant with numerous industrial and agricultural uses. In addition to its educational mission, the park is also envisioned as a site for community events, public art, and cultural performances. It was in this context that Black Belt Bamboost’s Jamie Cicatiello contacted Lewis Evans to discuss sculpture for the park.

“It was exactly the sort of situation I was looking for as an artist working in West Alabama,” Lewis Evans says. “There is much to be said for showing in galleries, but I want to reach people who don’t usually seek out art. There’s so much smart, interesting art being created in this city, but you have to know where to look to find it. So part of this is just me saying, hey, look, everybody: we have good things going on!”

Because the park is still under development, Lewis Evans had near carte blanche in designing a temporary sculpture installation to inaugurate the public art component of the park plan. “I have placed pieces large and small at the UA Arboretum, but this is like having an entire stage on which to create a vision.”

Lewis Evans’ initial idea was to install a casting, but Black Belt Bamboost’s Marcy Koontz encouraged her to try working with bamboo. Lewis Bamboo Nursery (another Black Belt Bamboost partner) supplied samples and Lewis Evans was soon hooked.

“Bamboo turned out to be the perfect medium to achieve the types of marks that have been developing in my work over the past year. I’ve been drawing and dancing and sculpting with line, exploring gesture and the way forms move, interact with gravity, and occupy space.

“I’m interested in all this as forms of intelligent, nonverbal expression. There’s something very raw and basic about an emphatic gesture—it’s just there, the essential thing in itself, present without a lot of mental gymnastics making it work.

“I’m sure that won’t make sense to a lot of people, but then, life often doesn’t make sense either. Yet here we all are, most of us trying to make, find, or otherwise cultivate meaning in our lives. That process is where the meaning happens. That’s what making sculpture is about to me. It’s a way of creating and understanding the world.“

Lewis Evans will be creating Signs of Life in Black Belt Bamboost’s bamboo park on weekends through November 11, the date set to celebrate its completion. As her first outdoor work made of bamboo, she’s not sure how long it will remain on site.

“That’s part of the research. It’s all a big experiment. The one thing I can say for sure is that it’s temporary. Get it while the getting is good, because it won’t be around forever. Among other things, Black Belt Bamboost has big plans for the site. I’m just glad my part of it has worked out so well thus far.”

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For more information, contact Claire Lewis Evans
www.clairelewisevans.com | www.blackbeltbamboost.org