Mark Barry received his MFA in painting in 2014. Before he came to UA, he had a career in advertising and graphic design. Now he teaches in the UA College of Communications. We asked him to tell us a bit about his history and about what he is doing now. I graduated from Sam Houston State University with a BFA in Advertising and Graphic Design. Somehow, I was lucky enough to land a gig as a summer intern in the Houston office of J. Walter Thompson. Just over a year later, I was an Art Director in their New York office. After a few years there, my wife and I moved to Salt Lake City, where I bounced around a few places before opening up my own agency, Subata Corp. Six years later I was considering graduate school. When I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2011, I decided it was the right time. Again, luck was on my side and I was accepted to the MFA program in studio art at The University of Alabama. For the past few years you’ve been teaching, first as a GTA and then as an adjunct instructor in Art and Art History, then you were hired as full time instructor in the Advertising and Public Relations Department in the College of Communications. Recently you’ve been made Director of the Creative Specialization in Advertising program for A+PR. Will you describe a little more about that? Yes. While in grad school, I fell in love with teaching, but I was also missing advertising. So when a position for a full-time instructor in A+PR opened up I applied. I’ve been full-time with A+PR for three years. And yes, I’ve recently become the Director of Minerva, the Advertising Creative Specialization. It’s an undergraduate specialization focused on developing Art Directors and Copywriters for the creative advertising industry. Admission is through a competitive creative application process that happens during the second half of the Spring semesters. Upon acceptance into the program, students then take specialized courses within A+PR such as Concepting, Art Direction and Copywriting seminars, and portfolio development classes. The program began just three years ago but is already off to a great start. Our students have won multiple awards for their creativity and we were ranked 12th among creative advertising programs by The One Club in New York in a recent international survey. Are you helping students emphasize the creative side of advertising projects? Yes, we’re focused on the creative side of the ad business. Generally speaking, a passion for some sort of creative endeavor outside of advertising is a common and celebrated theme among many of the students in Minerva. However, I personally believe the most important personality trait of student that wants to thrive in the program is a strong work ethic. Hard work beats talent almost every time. Earlier, you said you fell in love with teaching… Actually, teaching was never even on my radar before graduate school. It really was a bit of a surprise. Watching light bulbs turn on over a student’s head is a really wonderful thing. And being in a position to help flip the switch is pretty exciting to me. You’ve been in consulting for a long time. Do you think consulting skills can lead to or work hand in hand with teaching skills? Actually, I haven’t considered this until just now, but I suppose consulting as a creative has given me some of the basic teaching fundamentals. Because much of what we do is so unexpected—after all, that’s a fundamental element to real creativity—there is often a lot of client education that has to happen in order for the best work to ever see the light of day. Clients often know what they want or think they need, but the job of a creative is to discover unexpected and engaging answers to what is usually a relatively mundane business challenge. In that regard, perhaps there is a link between how I approach my creative consulting projects and how I teach. How did graduate school make a difference for you? I think the biggest thing graduate school taught me was to consider why I make the creative decisions I do. It’s so easy to just keep moving forward that I never really took time to think about the process itself as being part of the finished result. Graduate school helped me slow down, which may seem like a bad thing in a deadline driven industry like advertising. But it really has improved my overall abilities as a creative thinker and maker. Sometimes the good stuff just needs to marinate a bit. How will you be teaching your students what they need to know? My classes are all about the work. The word “work” in that last sentence refers to both the product produced as well as the time and effort required to produce it. I expect a lot from the students and they usually step up and deliver. Of course they do, right? Because as creatives, the work is the best part. It’s a blast. The alternative is switch their majors to accounting. My art making practice has taught me the awesome power of failure. I encourage failure. Not laziness, but a giant fireball of effort and exploration. Is there any advice you would give to prospective students? To anyone considering the arts, my advice would be: of course, you should do it. Creativity, whether for personal or professional reasons adds value to the world. Without it, we’re all stuck. Alumni, we'd love to hear from you. Send your news to rachel.dobson@ua.edu or go to this page: https://art.ua.edu/alumni/.
Making Light Art in the Aran Islands
During a summer 2017 art residency at Áras Éanna on Inis Oírr, the smallest of the Aran Islands off the coast of County Galway, Ireland, Assistant Professor Jane Cassidy learned that sometimes making art takes - not just a village - but an entire island. Along with working on her own art projects that involve light, Cassidy took an interesting side trip that led off on a rewarding adventure. “The people of Inis Oírr are immensely steeped in their language, their history, culture and music," Cassidy said, "When some locals got wind that I made light art, they asked if would I light up their castle, which of course, I was overjoyed at the stellar suggestion!” So, a side project of Cassidy’s work during her residency was projection mapping of her own images onto one of the island’s most distinctive landmarks and highest points – 600-year-old O'Brien's Castle, which is surrounded by a stone-age fort. This involved scanning the surface of the building with special software, then applying designs and animations made especially for the castle. Then, late one night, she gathered up her equipment – a MacBook Pro and projector – and invited some of her new friends from the island to hike up to the point to test the projections on the ruin’s irregular stone surface. There are only 260 people who live year-round on Inis Oírr and Cassidy said many of them responded: "People started coming up the hill from the village and a car drove over from the other side of the island to see what the craic was. We were getting phone calls and great feedback from the people a mile away telling me what colors were working well, what patterns they could see and, 'is that a rocket?!'" After the positive reception, Cassidy promised to return to the island in December, for the Winter Solstice, to again project on the castle. On this occasion, she worked with the local secondary school to make a new projection. She asked the students (ages 11 to 18) to draw multi-colored mandalas inspired by the sun. Then she animated the designs, interspersed them with her own animations, and prepared them for projecting. Despite intense fog during the day, all the islanders encouraged Cassidy to go ahead with the projection that night. After sunset on the longest night of the year (4:20 p.m.), Cassidy projected the colorful designs high up on the castle's rough-hewn stones. Despite some wild Atlantic rain whipping at them and with the help of the residency director, a farmer, a fisherman and other friends, the projection mapping was a huge success. Cassidy said, “On an island so small, it became a community project – if it wasn’t for all the participation of the locals, it would never have come to pass.” To read more about Assistant Professor Cassidy's art, go to her website. For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History programs, visit this page: https://art.ua.edu/academics/.
Artist Wendy White to Speak at UA
Tuscaloosa. — Artist Wendy White will give a public lecture on Tuesday, February 27, 2018, at 6:30 p.m. in Gallalee Hall Room 227, on UA campus. Wendy White’s work has been described as “most preoccupied with the lifespan of seemingly dissonant places, people, and things, all of which are bound by the same sense of impermanence and eventual decay.” The themes of White’s work include athletes and athletics, machismo culture, domesticity, branding and pop culture, which she expresses with photographic images, layered fields of paint, cutout shapes, letters, text and spray-painted graffiti. Wendy White lives and works in New York City. She holds a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Her exhibitions include The Art Show: Art of the New Millenium in Taguchi Art Collection, Museum of Modern Art, Gunma, Japan; Futbol: The Beautiful Game, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014); Taguchi Hiroshi Art Collection: A Walk around the Contemporary Art World after Paradigm Shift, Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu, Japan (2015); So Athletic, Kunstverein Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin (2012); Informal Relations, Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2011); Hue & Cry, Sotheby's S|2, New York, N.Y. (2012); Idealizing the Imaginary: Invention and Illusion in Contemporary Painting, Oakland University, Mich. (2012); Third Thoughts, CCA Andratx, Mallorca, Spain (2010); and Borderland Abstraction, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, Neb. (2010). She has had solo exhibitions at Leo Koenig Inc., New York, N.Y.; Jablonka Maruani Mercier, Brussels, Belgium; Van Horn, Düsseldorf, Germany, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago; Cabinet, Milan; Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris; and Galeria Moriarty, Madrid. White is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts painting fellowship in 2012 and a George Segal painting grant in 2008. Her work was featured in Phaidon’s anthology Vitamin P2: New Perspectives in Painting and will be included in the forthcoming group show entitled The World’s Game: Fútbol and Contemporary Art, curated by Franklin Sirmans, at Perez Art Museum, Miami. Her website is here: http://www.wendywhite.net/. Image Credit: Wendy White, Janet Guthrie, 2017, acrylic and inkjet on three canvases, Dibond, 72 1/4 x 60 1/4 inches. Image courtesy of the artist. Wendy White’s lecture is part of the Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series, sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History, the Visiting Artist and Scholar Committee, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Continuing Studies at The University of Alabama. To see our past and future visiting artists and scholars, click here. Gallalee Hall, 174 6th Ave., Tuscaloosa, is a little over five-minute walk from the Campus Drive Parking Deck and Bus Hub on Hackberry Lane. 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. For more information on this or the other speakers in our upcoming Visiting Artist and Scholar Series, contact Rachel Dobson (rachel.dobson@ua.edu) or Pete Schulte (pschulte@ua.edu).
That #FridayFeeling with Art@Alabama!
Students, faculty and staff in the department of art and art history braved 70-degree breezes on the first day of February to perform for the College of Arts and Science's social media videographer. Peering down from our familiar brick and wrought-iron environs of the second floor of Woods Hall, we waved and bobbed and charged for the camera until Web Editorial Specialist Franklin Kennamer got a shot he liked. The Department of Art & Art History has that A&S #fridayfeeling Check out all of the First Friday events today, including the Community Arts Conversation at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center at 5pm! ? A post shared by University of Alabama A&S (@ua_as) on Feb 2, 2018 at 6:30am PST The video, featuring enthusiastic studio artists and art historians, was made into an animated gif for posting on Instagram and Facebook to drum up excitement for “That A&S Friday Feeling,” a social media campaign by the UA College of Arts and Sciences. For more information about The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History degree programs, go to our website.
Graduate Studio Artists Present Master’s Exhibitions
The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present the master of arts exhibitions of graduate students Amy Smoot and John Klosterman, Feb. 8-22, 2018, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. The public is cordially invited to attend a reception for the artists Thursday, Feb. 15 from 4 to 6 p.m. Through his art work, John Klosterman searches for answers to our most basic questions about life, such as Why are we like we are? And, Will we change as we grow? He uses imagery to represent his influences and experiences – the elements in life that have helped shape him – in his prints. Klosterman gives an example: “The varying use of rope or knots are metaphors for my relationships. The rope, much like family, can be strained or broken. On the other hand, rope can also be taken care of and used to tie a knot that cannot be undone. I aim to interpret the relationships I have had with these different figures or issues by use of the rope.” Schematic drawings or plans also serve as metaphors in his art. He explains, “Schematics also reappear throughout the work as they represent a path forward, as well as the path I’ve taken so far. Do our ever-evolving interpretations of these memories affect the schematics that we have laid out for ourselves going forward?” John Klosterman is a graduate student in printmaking and holds an assistantship in studio art. Growing up in Daphne, Ala., he developed a fondness for machines and the tinkering that came along with them. Klosterman says that his love of tinkering "now takes on a two-dimensional form as he transfers ink to paper. Instead of the turn of a wrench," he notes, "it is now the carving of a block with a gouge. Layers of each print, much like parts of a car, are assembled in a manner that creates a functioning vehicle for the message of each piece." Klosterman received the BFA from the University of South Alabama in 2015, with a major in printmaking and a minor in interdisciplinary studies. His work was included in the Hot-N-Ready Print Portfolio Exchange, which traveled to Wichita State University (Kansas), Westminster College (New Wilmington, Pa.) and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. His work will also be included in the upcoming invitational exhibition, Nine, at Eichold Gallery at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala. He participated in the department's 2017 Graduate Student Show and spoke about his work process in a video here. Ceramic artist Amy Smoot explores what she describes as "insignificant moments of discomfort" that may "implode in a moment's notice" in our everyday lives. She says, "The focus of my work lies with the everyday insecurities that we experience as we move through the world. What seems to lie dormant can suddenly bubble to the surface and alter how you react to what or who is around you. How do I and others compensate for these insecurities? How does this build-up of worry impact our emotional health? What does it do to a person when they constantly doubt themselves? How can we grow to accept the things we cannot change?" Amy Smoot is a graduate student in ceramics. She has taught Figure Modeling and assists Ceramics I, III and IV. She participated in the department's 2017 Graduate Student Show and spoke about her work process in a video here. Smoot received the BFA in ceramics from the University of West Georgia where she was a studio assistant in ceramics and a student research assistant. She was one of three artists selected for Air Air in 2017, an artist residency where artists make art on airplanes. In the spring of 2017, she gave a 19th-century ceramics presentation at historic Lyon Hall in Demopolis, Ala. and led a "Fifty-minute Heads" workshop at the 2017 Georgia High School Clay Symposium (at UWG). In 2016-2017, she received a UA Graduate Council Fellowship. She currently serves as president of Crimson Clay. Image credit (top): John Klosterman, Self Portrait, monoprint, screen print and photo transfer, 15 x 22 inches, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist. Image credit (bottom): Amy Smoot, Touch, ceramics, 14.5 x 6 x 12 inches, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program in the UA Department of Art and Art History. For more information about our graduate programs, visit this page: http://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/. Woods Quad and Woods Hall is a five-minute walk from the Campus Drive Parking Deck and Bus Hub on Hackberry Lane. Information about visitor parking is available here: http://bamaparking.ua.edu/visitor-information/.
Art Professor’s Work Receives Juror’s Award
Associate professor of art Chris Jordan received the juror’s award for his image, Emptying, in the upcoming exhibition Myths, Legends and Dreams at the Vermont Photoplace Gallery in Middlebury, Vt. The exhibition dates are March 7 – March 31, 2018. The call for entries for the juried exhibition sought photographic works that would bring the viewer into the artist's "world of fantasy and reflection." The exhibition was developed around the idea that "Photography has the ability to make visible scenes that never did or never could exist, thus providing artists with the ability to fabricate stories, create legends, and delve into self-reflection." The juror, Amy Holmes George, is executive director of the Texas Photographic Society and a fine art photographer based near Dallas, Texas. She has held teaching appointments at Collin College, Baylor University, University of North Texas and Stephen F. Austin State University, and exhibited widely throughout the United States and Italy, England, France and China. Her work has been featured in over 100 exhibitions and is housed in several permanent collections, including The Getty, The Kinsey Institute and the Fratelli Alinari Museum. In Chris Jordan’s landscape photography, he creates imagery of both real and imaginary places. He specializes in both analog and digital processes, finding resonance in how creativity unfolds through technology. Jordan has exhibited throughout the Northeast and his work is held in numerous private collections. View Jordan's work and the other images in the exhibition here: https://photoplacegallery.com/myths-legends-dreams/. For more information about The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History degree programs, go to our website.
A New Year, A New “Phase” in Art and Music
Phase has been rescheduled with a new date and time. This Wednesday evening, January 31, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., experience a multi-sensory art and music performance, Phase, at Sassafras Park in Tuscaloosa. Two UA art alumni, sculptor and UA instructor Jamey Grimes and artist Malcolm Smith will create site-specific installations in the park. Sound Art will be presented by the group Tohu Va (Michael Harp and Aaron Dues). Phase is a semi-monthly community art event sponsored by Sassafras Center for Arts and Environment. The event was postponed due to rain on Sunday; weather conditions are expected to be much better on Wednesday, and Jamey Grimes says, "Phase now coincides with the full moon!" Sassafras Center for Arts and Environment is located at 3228 Loop Road in Tuscaloosa. For more information and weather updates, go to the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2008995622680943/
Art Alumnus Exhibits “Strange Worlds”
Alex Green, a recent BFA alumnus in the department of art and art history, will exhibit his digital media work at the Sella-Granata Art Gallery, Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, 2018. Everyone is cordially invited to the closing reception on Thursday, Feb. 1 from 4-6 pm. Titled Strange Worlds, Alex Green presents a series of images of surreal landscapes he created using grocery store foods, like fruit, vegetables and spices. Green writes in his project statement that he used "items such as paprika, cinnamon, and cabbage [to] express ideas of etherealness and planetary life. These foreign landscapes bring to the forefront questions of what exactly are we consuming from within the food industry. Has the age of genetically modified produce and biotechnology created a new landscape from within the supermarket that our earth is not naturally capable of producing on its own?" In 2017, Green received the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree cum laude in studio art with a concentration in digital media and photography. A northwest Alabama native, he incorporates video, animation, photography, graphic design and drawing in his art work. His art website is here. For more information about the BFA degree and the 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.
Art History Professor Wins Book Award
Associate Professor of Art History Lucy Curzon's new book, Mass-Observation and Visual Culture: Depicting Everyday Lives in Britain, has been awarded the Historians of British Artist Book Award for Exemplary Scholarship on the Period after 1800. The prize committee found Curzon's book, published by Routledge in 2017, "theoretically sophisticated and convincingly argued, a timely and important volume on the anthropological research group Mass-Observation and its attitudes towards visual culture." It is the first full-length study of the art produced under the auspices of the group. The committee praised Curzon for her in-depth research in an "understudied" area of British art and culture. "The social research organization known as Mass-Observation was founded in 1937 to document everyday life. Due to the diverse nature of interests and projects undertaken by the group, they remain under-studied in an art historical context. Lucy Curzon corrects this oversight, providing an account of the movement in relation to visual culture, a timely and important theme. She brings an art historian’s interpretive skill to the sociological and visual culture project of Mass-Observation, examining the use of painting, collage, photography, and visual media within their word, providing an account of the important role of these visual elements in Mass-Observations project to understand national identity in the 1930s. In so doing, Curzon provides an important model of compatibility of art history and visual culture as related, fields of inquiry." Curzon's research focuses on issues of identity politics as they concern the production of visual culture in twentieth-century Britain. She has previously published work on LGBTQ+ portraiture, as well as articles or chapters on the Ashington Group and Humphrey Spender’s photographs of Blackpool in the 1930s. She regularly presents her work at national and international conferences. To read more about Dr. Curzon and her new book, go here. Since 1997, Historians of British Art (HBA) has awarded three prizes each year for books on British art in the following categories: pre-1800, post-1800 and multi-authored book. HBA is an affiliate society of the College Art Association and was formed to promote scholarship and other professional endeavors related to British art and architecture. For more information about The University of Alabama’s Department of Art and Art History degree programs, go to our website.