2017 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition, April 17-30 Harrison Galleries, 2315 University Boulevard, Tuscaloosa Opening Reception: Friday, April 21, 6-9 p.m. The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased announce the student exhibitors who have been selected for the 2017 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition at Harrison Galleries in Tuscaloosa, April 17-30. Julia Courtney, Margaret Alice Ermert, Jennifer Gault, Jordan Hadley, Kalypso Homan, Rachel Jones, Samantha Joslin, Jonathan Lanier, Margie Powers, Richard Oliver Reed, Jamie Reschke, Caroline Rothschild, Ivey Scott and Dana Tokarzewski will all have art works on display at the downtown gallery. The public is invited to attend the reception for the artists, Friday, April 21, 6-9 pm. Check out photos of the exhibition on Flickr and on Facebook. Assistant Professor Pete Schulte, who coordinates the annual exhibition, describes the range of work that will be on display: “From works on paper and canvas to experiments in digital animation, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics, the 2017 Annual BFA Juried Exhibition represents a broad cross-section of creative production from students in the BFA program at The University of Alabama. This annual event provides the viewing public with a unique opportunity to see firsthand a variety of contemporary art practices, as well as the work of some most dynamic and creative students the university has to offer.” The exhibition, which runs from April 17-30, features Bachelor of Fine Arts candidates whose work has been selected by UA studio faculty jurors. All UA undergraduate art majors who passed the review for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree were eligible to enter the competition. Harrison Galleries is located at 2315 University Boulevard in downtown Tuscaloosa and is open Monday through Friday, 12 noon to 5:00 pm, and by appointment: (205) 464-0054. The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. The annual juried event seeks to give BFA students the chance to compete and exhibit their work while still in school, rather than at the end of their tenure, providing art students more opportunities to exhibit and participate in art events before graduation. For more information about the BFA degree and other degree programs in the Department of Art and Art History, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
Kentuck Artists Exhibit Work at UA Gallery
The works of eight Kentuck studio artists will be displayed through Thursday, May 25, at The University of Alabama Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa. The gallery will hold a reception for the exhibit, “Collaborate, an Exhibit Featuring Kentuck Artists,” Friday, May 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public. There will be approximately 60 works featured in a variety of mediums, from painting and sculpture to weavings and home furnishings. The eight artists include: Steve Davis Davis of Sunheart Metalworks is a self-taught metalsmith, who brings to life ferrous and non-ferrous metals using a variety of contemporary and traditional techniques. Sunheart commissions include Westervelt Gardens, Children’s Hands On Museum, the UA Arboretum and downtown Northport streetscape projects. Sydney Gruber Gruber was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. She began as an alchemy artist who restored gently used furnishings to give them new life. Her specialty is in revitalizing and rejuvenating the mundane with vibrant swirls and patterns of paint. Kerry Kennedy Kennedy’s first love is pottery and sculptural ceramics. She received the MFA from UA in ceramics and has thrown pottery for over 10 years and makes primarily functional pieces. She is deeply interested in works that fuse thrown forms with organic aesthetics. Lorrie Lane Lane is an improvisational realist painter whose subjects include flowers, birds’ nests, garden landscapes and portraits. She has participated in shows such as Artsclamation!, The Brentwood Show, and the Huntsville Art Museum Galas, and she also has had solo exhibits in Nashville, Tennessee, and upstate New York. Lane was born in upstate New York and graduated from Smith College. Daniel Livingston Livingston specializes in raku and has won multiple awards at festivals across the country. His work is represented in private and corporate collections throughout the United States, England, France, Japan and New Zealand. He received the BFA and MFA from UA and is a former instructor of ceramics there. Terrell Taylor Taylor was born in Union, Mississippi, and grew up in various states throughout the South. Terrell has a background in art and anthropology, and her works, which vary from prints, paintings, sculptures and more, are often inspired by Southern life. She received the MA in art from UA. Jessica Tuggle and Andrea Moen Tuggle and Moen are weavers with Weaving Alabama. Together they use three floor-looms at the shop to create hundreds of yards of handwoven fabric. The UA Gallery offers a year-round schedule of exhibitions of artistic works, artifacts and textiles and other media from permanent collections held by UA as well as works by faculty, students and guest artists and designers. The gallery is at 620 Greensboro Ave. in downtown Tuscaloosa and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and until 8 p.m. on the first Fridays of the month. For more information, phone the gallery at 205/345-3038 or 205/342-2060. The gallery is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Truman, Rhodes and Goldwater scholarships. Contact Info: Karen Kennedy, kfkennedy@ua.edu, 205-345-3038, The University of Alabama Gallery, 620 Greensboro Ave, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Alumna Remembers Renowned Art Professors
Vicki Lowe (MA 1971) remembers it wasn’t easy convincing her parents to let her study art at The University of Alabama. “By junior year I was totally committed to art but my parents were certain I would not find gainful employment, so they lobbied heavily for me to teach English.” Lowe accrued enough art credits for the major, but majored in Education. “I never officially changed my major.” Last year, a 40-year retrospective of Lowe’s art toured the Midwest and the Southeast with stops at the Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia, and the Hardin Cultural Arts Center in Gadsden. Lowe credits two renowned and beloved professors of painting at UA, Howard Goodson and Melville Price, for much of her success. Because of their teaching, she decided to study art at the graduate level and eventually went on to a long career as an artist and educator. New Yorker Melville Price was one of the youngest members of the first generation of abstract expressionist painters and a close friend of painters Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and others. Price joined the art department at UA in 1958 to teach painting until he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1970. While Lowe was in school from 1965 to 1971, Howard Goodson, his wife Willita (BFA 1949) and their sons became her “adopted family” in Tuscaloosa. A native of Vernon, Alabama, Goodson came to UA as an undergraduate, did graduate work at Columbia University and then returned to Tuscaloosa to teach until his untimely death in 1975 at the age of 55. Melville Price and Howard Goodson both mentored Lowe throughout her years at UA. “During my junior year, Price and Goodson were my go-to professors for all things art. By senior year, they became even more influential in my artistic development.” “[The Goodsons were] supportive of my art and provided an intellectual and emotional home away from home while I was in school and after.” After her professors’ deaths, “both their widows (Barbara Gillette Price [BFA 1966, MA 1968] and Willita Goodson Zoellner) remained strong influences and were supportive of me in various ways.” Barbara Price invited Lowe and two other former Price students to visit her in Washington, DC. “She introduced us to a big city art scene. She actually inspired each us to move to DC after school.” It was there that Lowe met two more UA art alumni, William Christenberry and Ed McGowin (MA 1964). Lowe emphasizes that Goodson and Price had very different teaching styles, but says they had strengths that benefited their students. Both allowed students to make their own way in painting. During this time, Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann was an influential artist and teacher and Goodson and Price both used Hofmann’s “method of eliciting creative expression from the students,” Lowe said. “[Hofmann] helped students to find their own individual voices. Above all, in my mind, he did not teach his students to paint like him,” Lowe said. “That inspires a deeper creative confidence in the student. [Like Hofmann], both Goodson and Price, in differing ways, encouraged individual voices and new directions [in their students]. They each had a wide knowledge of art history and current trends and offered their students plenty of references to explore. Neither expected their students to emulate their styles.” Both teachers, Lowe felt, were comfortable with their own artistic styles and conveyed that in teaching. “Rather than negatively criticizing a student’s work, they could find a successful element in the work and encourage exploration of it. The usual white-knuckle critique became a positive learning experience.” By her junior year, although she was still an art minor, Lowe said she began to “feel a sense of confidence in her work. Later, when Art Oakes joined the faculty, I added sculpture to my list of interests. He was the same kind of open-minded and inspiring teacher as Goodson and Price.” “Another important ingredient,” Lowe added, was that several of her classmates “were quite close and freely shared all kinds of ideas in class and at the Little Bo [a snack bar in Woods Hall]. National and regional politics had been and were continuing to be volatile. This was a time that inspired independent spirits among students at Alabama and at colleges everywhere.” Image captions and credits: top to bottom (1): Victoria Lowe,“Stream, Silver,” 2014, eight panels, 13 x 13 inches each, spray enamel and pencil on paper. Image courtesy of the artist. (2) Professors Howard Goodson and (3) Melville Price with their paintings during a March 23,1960, photo shoot for a faculty exhibition. Image courtesy of the Crimson White. (4) Installation view of Lowe’s “Stream, Silver,” Hardin Center for Cultural Arts, Gadsden, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist. [LpeSp17]
UA Alumna Sculpts Memorial to Slave Ship Survivor
“The story of Africatown is one that all Alabamians should know. It is an amazing story of survival in the face of adversity,” April Livingston said when asked about why she feels her recent sculpting and casting project is so important. In February, MFA alumna April Livingston’s cast iron bust of the Africatown hero, Cudjoe Lewis, was unveiled in the courtyard of Union Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile. The sculpture is a memorial to Lewis and to the survivors of the last slave ship in the US. Livingston, who has been working on the bust, and accompanying plaques for more than a year, says she feels this is a way to educate more people about the survivors of the slave ship Clotilde and Lewis’ history. Cudjoe Kazoola Lewis (ca. 1840-1935) was the longest living survivor of the Clotilde, the last recorded slave ship to dock in the United States. Lewis was part of a group of approximately 112 Africans captured and taken as slaves on the Clotilde about 1859. The ship sailed from the Dahomey Kingdom (the area of present-day Benin and Togo) in West Africa and arrived in Mobile, Alabama, on July 8, 1860 – illegally – 52 years after the US abolished international slave trade. Lewis helped found the settlement now known as Africatown, just north of Mobile. He served as a community leader, church sexton and historian for the survivors of the Clotilde. An earlier commemorative bust of Lewis was stolen several years ago and needed replacing. Last spring, April Livingston heard about the church’s need and looked into their story. She decided she wanted to help replace the sculpture and talked with church leaders. “Then I went to the congregation and got their permission.” She volunteered to take on the project, donating all her labor along with raising money for materials through an online GoFundMe campaign. The money raised covered materials and tools as well as travel for the casting trip to Indiana. The funds also covered a base and a bronze plaque with Lewis’ history. With the church’s blessing, Livingston immediately began work. “I would sculpt the bust in the day and handle emails and the GoFundMe [work] in the evening,” she explained. Then preparations for the casting began in earnest. “When the bust was sculpted, I took the model to Fairhope Foundry and got my friend [and founder] Corey Swindle to make the [wax] molds.” Meanwhile, Livingston packed for the trip to Indiana where the casting would take place. She planned to make two busts, so they made two wax molds. “I took them to Indiana in coolers with ice-packs inside.” Besides the original bust for the church, a second bust will become part of the permanent collection at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Costs of similar projects can run into the tens of thousands of dollars but Livingston and the organizers came up with a no-frills budget of $5000 to cover the basics and all of the labor was donated. The sandcasting at Sculpture Trails Museum and Foundry in Solsberry, Indiana, went smoothly, Livingston said. “I let [the molds] cool for a day and broke them out the next evening. It was amazing to see how well they both came out.” When she returned, there were a few more details to finish. She worked with one of the church members to construct “an un-steal-able base for the work” and a local sign company made plaque listing all the donors. At the dedication in February, church members, many of whom are descendants of Cudjoe Lewis, presented Livingston with a plaque and flowers in thanks for her work. And she was able to meet more descendants of Cudjoe Lewis who came to the ceremony. “It was something to see so many who had his face. I really know that face.” When asked if this experience has changed her art, Livingston replied, “It has made me more aware of local history and has given me more motivation to use art to educate.” Mobile native April Livingston received the MFA in sculpture from UA in 2011. She is a working artist, activist and studio art and art history instructor at the University of Mobile. Livingston’s website is http://aprillivingston.com/home.html. Image credits, from the top: (1) April Livingston with bust of Cudjoe Lewis at its unveiling, Union Missionary Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala. February 12, 2017. Photo courtesy of Olivia Partin. (2) Livingston (center) with Union Missionary Baptist Church members. Photo courtesy of Andrew Tumminia. (3) Clay model of Cudjoe Lewis by April Livingston, early stage. Photo courtesy of the artist. (4) Bust of Cudjoe Lewis, cast iron, just after casting, 2016. Photo courtesy of the artist. (5) Livingston with bust of Cudjoe Lewis at its unveiling, Union Missionary Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala. February 12, 2017. Photo courtesy of Gary L. Hadaway. [LpSp17]
UA Art Student Creates Moments in Painting and Sculpture
APR 7-16 First Friday reception, Moment | Momento: Jamie Reschke BFA Exhibition, Harrison Galleries, 6-9 pm Harrison Galleries will host an exhibition by University of Alabama BFA major Jamie Reschke, April 7 through April 16 in downtown Tuscaloosa. Moment | Momento opens with a reception on First Friday, April 7 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. In this exhibition, Reschke intends to capture an ephemeral moment of experience, creating a "momento," the Italian word for "moment," for the future, in her two- and three-dimensional art. "My sculptures are figurative glimpses of vulnerability cast into bronze...I use the figure to capture unseen moments I have experienced and overcome." Art-making also becomes an activity connecting her to others as she incorporates the images of people she meets in her travels into her work, in both painting and sculpture. About working on this exhibition in her last year at UA, Reschke said, "This whole process has taught me a lot about myself, my abilities and the value of the important moments we experience in our lives. Through this body of work, I hope the viewer experiences their own moment with my art." Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jamie Reschke transferred to The University of Alabama from Huntingdon College in the fall of 2015. She is a candidate for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2017; her major concentration is painting and her secondary concentration is sculpture. She has participated in numerous regional art exhibitions including Annual West Alabama Juried Shows in Tuscaloosa in 2015 and 2016 and Annual BFA Juried Exhibitions at UA in 2015 and 2016. She curated the exhibition, Intimacy: Enrico Berni, at the Ganzo Cultural and Gastronomic Association at Apicius International School of Hospitality in Florence, Italy; and co-curated the UA student sculpture exhibition, QUICKTURNAROUND, at the UA Gallery in Tuscaloosa. Reschke has had internships at the Florence University of the Arts (Florence, Italy) and the Montgomery (Ala.) Museum of Fine Arts. She was awarded the Ann D. Lary Scholarship, the Windgate Charitable Foundation Endowed Studio Arts Scholarship. She received the David Larson Student Award at the 49th Annual Montgomery Art Guild Regions Bank Exhibition. After graduation, Reschke hopes to earn a master's degree in art history and continue in museum studies. Harrison Galleries is located at 2315 University Boulevard in downtown Tuscaloosa and is open Monday through Friday, 12 noon to 5:00 pm, and by appointment. Please call (205) 464-0054 to check for updates to the exhibition schedule. The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. For more information about the BFA degree and our other degree programs in the UA Department of Art and Art History, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
UA Students Create Digital Media in Two Venues
The public is invited to experience two digital media events created by students of UA Assistant Professor Jane Cassidy this week! An exhibition in Ferguson Student Center Art Gallery opens with a reception on Wednesday, April 5, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m., and runs through April 15, 2017. The exhibit includes print works as well as gifs, stop-motion animation, video and other formats. Then, during First Friday on April 7, everyone is invited to experience "video reality" in downtown Tuscaloosa! Digital media students have made new work in response to the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at The University of Alabama and it will be projected on two downtown Tuscaloosa galleries. The Jones Projection will happen between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. One projection will be on the side of Grace Aberdean Habitat Alchemy, on 9th Street between 21st and 22nd avenues (2424 9th Street). The other projection will be in the alley behind Harrison Galleries, approached from 23rd Avenue. Digital Media is a studio concentration in the undergraduate program of The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History that focuses on new media and digital art. Courses explore digital media as the primary tool, medium and an environment for art and design. For more information, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/digital-media/.
Students Create Outdoor Projections for First Friday
The public is invited to have an immersive video experience during April First Friday in downtown Tuscaloosa! UA digital media students have made new work in response to the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at The University of Alabama. On April 7 (First Friday), near two downtown Tuscaloosa galleries, The Jones Projection will be projected onto two buildings between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. One projection will be on the side of Grace Aberdean Habitat Alchemy, on 9th Street between 21st and 22nd avenues (2424 9th Street). The other projection will be in the alley behind Harrison Galleries, approached from 23rd Avenue.
Graduate Students Exhibit MFA Thesis Research at the SMGA
The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present the Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibitions of Kelsey Windham and Celestia Morgan, April 21-May 26, 2017, in the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art. Windham’s exhibition, Walked and Waited, and Morgan’s exhibition, Red Line, will open with a reception on Friday, April 21 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Celestia Morgan pursues research in racially-based housing discrimination in her native Birmingham. The residue of redlining continues to haunt the city’s black neighborhoods. Morgan traces the data of mapping with her photography: “My personal history and geographical location have heavily influenced my current body of work. My relationship to Birmingham, Alabama, is a very personal one, for both my family and me. It’s the place where my grandparents raised their children, my parents raised me, and now where my husband and I are raising our two children. My work explores the racial histories of Birmingham from the development of interstate 20/59 to the historical residential security maps created by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) during the 1930s on residential mortgages.” Morgan's work is also currently on exhibit at the Mobile Mobile Museum of Art in Alabama Contemporary Photography. She received the BFA in photography from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the associate degree in elementary education from Lawson State Community College. Kelsey Windham translates her observations and responses to the outdoors into paintings and poetry. Commenting on her work, “I am drawn to the solitude that can be experienced outside. There is a spirituality to stillness and an intimacy to painting landscapes.” Windham earned the Bachelors of Fine Arts degree with an emphasis in drawing from Memphis College of Art in 2011. In 2010 she was awarded the Hohenberg Fellowship to study painting in Umbria, Italy and participated in a group show there. Windham was listed among Southern Living’s The Daily South’s “Southern Artists to Follow on Instagram Now” in 2016. This exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA department of art and art history, visit this link: http://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/art-requirements/. Admission to the gallery is free. Hours are Monday through Friday 9:00 – 4:30 p.m., Thursday evenings: 5:00 – 8:00 p.m. The gallery is located at 103 Garland Hall in the heart of the UA campus on Woods Quad. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/. Parking is free on campus in a legal space after business hours. Contact the gallery at (205) 348-1891 or go to http://art.ua.edu/gallery/smga/.
UA Students and Faculty Participate in National Ceramics Conference
In March, UA ceramics faculty, student and alumna participated in the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in Portland, Oregon. MFA candidate Sydney Ewerth presented art works and a lecture. Assistant Professor Matt Mitros, instructor Wade MacDonald, Ewerth and recent MFA graduate Virginia Eckinger presented art works in a conference exhibition. Graduate students Amy Smoot and Patrick Hoban also attended the national conference. Sydney Ewerth presented the lecture, "Artifacts of Identity." Using didactic qualitative research methods, she argued that the interrelationship of clay, mapping, chance, shadows, and memory are significant in the creation of a work. Ewerth explained, "By using supporting theories on memory and semiotics, my hope is to explore how the identity of the clay object changes through iterations of itself." In addition, Ewerth's art work was chosen for NCECA’s annual National Student Juried Exhibition (NSJE), which showcases the work of current graduate, undergraduate, and post-baccalaureate students across the United States. Assistant Professor Matt Mitros co-organized an exhibition, Tactic, that includes ceramic work by Eckinger, MacDonald (pictured here) and other artists, The exhibition represents "a growing shift in material sensibility," using other materials, technology and processes in the way they have traditionally used. The exhibition was supported with funds from The University of Alabama College of Arts and Sciences.