Cast bronze sculptures by students of Professor Craig Wedderspoon were unveiled in downtown Monroeville, Ala., in April, as part of the Literary Capital Sculpture Trail. Monroeville, the birthplace of author Harper Lee, and the home of the Alabama Writers Symposium for the past two decades, has been designated the Literary Capital of Alabama. The sculpture trail, made up of 14 cast bronze works, celebrates ten writers who have put Monroeville on the literary map, including Harper Lee, Truman Capote, journalist Cynthia Tucker, and novelist Mark Childress. Although not an official Bicentennial event, the sculpture trail and its unveiling was planned to coincide with the 200th anniversary celebrations. The artists were studio art major Hunter Abdo, senior anthropology major Alysa Boyd, sophomore studio art major Zane Boyd, senior BFA major in sculpture and anthropology major Amber Daum, graduate student in creative writing and geography Josh Dugat, Jenn Gault (BFA 2018), special student Jim Harrison III, senior art history major and studio art minor Morgan Harrison, Pat Hoban (MFA 2019), senior studio art major Jonathan Lanier, senior studio art major Hannah Lincoln, BFA major in sculpture Ringo Lisko and senior studio art major Alyson Smith. For a slideshow of all the sculptures, click on this page: http://monroevillemainstreet.com/Literary-Capital-Bronze-Sculpture-Trail For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit our website: https://art.ua.edu/academics/or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
UA Artists Help Create Alabama Bicentennial Celebration
“As the Bicentennial approaches it has been obvious that our state’s artists have, throughout the years, been some of our best and most prolific story tellers. Clearly the arts and artists of Alabama will take a high profile position in celebrations statewide.” -- Alabama State Council on the Arts Annual Report 2018 UA art and art history students, faculty, staff and alumni have been intensely involved in our state's 200th anniversary celebrations over the last two years. Here are some of the creative ways our UA art community is participating in commemorating Alabama's history and setting a path for its future: ALABAMA HISTORY IN HIGH RELIEF Professor Craig Wedderspoon is designing part of Montgomery’s Bicentennial park and sculpture project planned for the west side of the Capitol building to be unveiled in December of 2019, with help from Assistant Professor Jonathan Cumberland. Tuscaloosa artist Caleb O’Connor is creating sixteen bronze relief panels with Wedderspoon, who is designing and installing the panels’ bases and supervising the casting process. Cumberland recently joined the team to work on graphics for the project. Wedderspoon is also working with O’Connor on a Tuscaloosa Bicentennial sculpture to be installed at Manderson Landing on the Black Warrior River. ALABAMA ARTISTS FEATURED IN PUBLICATION Fifteen current and past faculty and alumni of the department are included in a special Bicentennial publication honoring notable Alabama artists. Alabama Creates: 200 Years of Art and Artists, published by the Alabama State Council on the Arts (ASCA) and the University of Alabama Press, includes current Professor Craig Wedderspoon; distinguished art alumni William Christenberry, Frank Fleming, Darius Hill, Dale Kennington, James Emmette Neel, Scott Stephens; past faculty Gay Burke, Chip Cooper, Frank Engle, Al Sella, Richard Zoellner; and former UA art students John Kelly Fitzpatrick, Spider Martin, Carlos Alpha “Shiney” Moon and Nall Hollis. The coffee-table book will be coming out in July of 2019. Dr. Elliot Knight, ASCA’s new director, and a UA alumnus, was the chief editor and project director for Alabama Creates. COMMEMORATING ALABAMA'S MEDICAL HISTORY Alumnus April Terra Livingston recently completed three sculptures for the Mobile Medical Museum. Motherwork, which celebrates midwifery, is installed in the Mobile Medical Museum’s Robert Thrower Medicinal Garden, along with Livingston’s Portrait of Bessie McGhee, a Poarch Creek midwife and herbalist. The Portrait of Dr. James A. Franklin, Sr., one of Mobile’s earliest African American physicians, is now on view in the Mary Elizabeth and Charles Bernard Rodning Gallery as part of the museum’s special exhibit Dreaming at Dawn: African Americans and Health Care, 1865-1945). Livingston's sculptures were made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts and have been designated a Bicentennial project by the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. Read more about Livingston's new sculptures here: https://art.ua.edu/loupe/alumna-casts-sculptures-for-bicentennial-project/ APT FEATURES PROFESSOR EMERITUS AND ALUMNUS Associate Professor Emeritus Robert O. Mellown was interviewed for Alabama Public Television's Discovering Alabama special on our state capitals for the Bicentennial. His area of expertise is Tuscaloosa and University of Alabama historical architecture. The episode aired in October 2018. COMMUNITY BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS Solo exhibitions by instructor and alumnus Tom Wegrzynowski, instructor Charlotte Wegrzynowski and alumna Kerry Kennedy at the Kentuck Gallery and the Teer Gallery at the Kentuck Arts Center in Northport were the inaugural exhibitions for Kentuck's "Year of Alabama Artists," designated an official Bicentennial event. One of eight outdoor sculptures at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Craig Wedderspoon’s welded aluminum sculpture, Oval, is installed in the new John and Joyce Caddell Sculpture Garden at the museum. Oval is part of Art in the Garden: The Inaugural Sculpture Garden Installation that celebrates Alabama’s Bicentennial and demonstrates the depth of creativity found in the state. The sculptures will be on display through spring 2020. COINCIDING WITH ALABAMA'S BICENTENNIAL CASTING ALABAMA'S LITERARY HISTORY Cast bronze sculptures by students of Professor Craig Wedderspoon were unveiled in downtown Monroeville, Ala., in April, as part of the Literary Capital Sculpture Trail. Monroeville, the birthplace of author Harper Lee, and the home of the Alabama Writers Symposium for the past two decades, has been designated the Literary Capital of Alabama. The sculpture trail, made up of 14 cast bronze works, celebrates ten writers who have put Monroeville on the literary map, including Harper Lee, Truman Capote, journalist Cynthia Tucker, and novelist Mark Childress. Although not an official Bicentennial event, the sculpture trail and its unveiling was planned to coincide with the 200th anniversary celebrations. The artists were studio art major Hunter Abdo, senior anthropology major Alysa Boyd, sophomore studio art major Zane Boyd, senior BFA major in sculpture and anthropology major Amber Daum, graduate student in creative writing and geography Josh Dugat, Jenn Gault (BFA 2018), special student Jim Harrison III, senior art history major and studio art minor Morgan Harrison, Pat Hoban (MFA 2019), senior studio art major Jonathan Lanier, senior studio art major Hannah Lincoln, BFA major in sculpture Ringo Lisko and senior studio art major Alyson Smith. For a slideshow of all the sculptures, click on this page: http://monroevillemainstreet.com/Literary-Capital-Bronze-Sculpture-Trail This story was featured in the May 30 Bicentennial Banner! For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit our website: https://art.ua.edu/academics/or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
Alumna Casts Sculptures for Bicentennial Project
April Terra Livingston’s new sculpture Motherwork stands as an iron-strong reminder of the endurance of women, and that it really does “take a village.” Celebrating the vital role of midwifery today and in history – termed “motherwork” by scholar Patricia Hill Collins – the cast iron sculpture is one of three new works by Livingston commissioned for the Mobile Medical Museum in Mobile, Ala. Eight pairs of life-size hands, cast from the hands of real midwives and obstetric nurses, clasp together in a circle with a central opening, both protective and in the act of assisting birth, symbolizing the collective effort it takes to bring new life into the world and sustain it. The artistic work itself is also collective. Motherwork is one of three sculptures by Livingston (MFA 2011) that were cast by an all-woman iron pour crew at the Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Indiana last summer. Motherwork is installed in the Mobile Medical Museum’s Robert Thrower Medicinal Garden, along with Livingston’s portrait busts of the Poarch Creek midwife and herbalist Bessie McGhee and Dr. James A. Franklin, Sr., one of Mobile’s earliest African American physicians. Livingston’s sculptures for the Mobile Medical Museum have been designated a Bicentennial project by the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. The three cast iron works are the centerpiece of the museum’s exhibit, Dreaming at Dawn: African Americans and Health Care, 1865-1945, that tells the story of African American medical practitioners in Mobile during the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. The exhibit will be on view in the Mary Elizabeth and Charles Bernard Rodning Gallery at the museum through July 2019. For information about the exhibition, visit https://www.mobilemedicalmuseum.org/. The hands of Motherwork could be Livingston’s own. The three sculptures are the most recent of her works commemorating some of Alabama’s lesser known history. In 2017, Livingston cast the bust of Cudjoe Lewis, a survivor of the slave ship Clotilda and a founder of Africa Town, for Union Baptist Church in Mobile (see The Loupe, spring 2017). For more information about the UA Department of Art and Art History and its programs, visit our website: https://art.ua.edu/academics/or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
UA Alumni and Faculty In Exhibit Celebrating Alabama’s Art
A unique and historic exhibition at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts that includes UA art alumni and faculty opens November 17. Uncommon Territory: Contemporary Art in Alabama honors the 200th anniversary of Alabama’s organization as a United States territory in 1817. The exhibition, Uncommon Territory, recognizes 30 artists/collaborative teams in a survey that showcases a cross-section of the exciting and challenging art currently produced in the state. The exhibition opens Friday, November 17 and runs through January 21, 2018. Works by UA Department of Art and Art History MFA alumni Clayton Colvin, Claire Lewis Evans, Amy Feger, Jamey Grimes (also UA faculty), Darius Hill and studio faculty Pete Schulte and Sky Shineman are included in the exhibition. A reception for the artists will be held Thursday, November 30 at 5:30 pm at the museum. At 7 pm, exhibition curator Jennifer Jankauskas will moderate a panel discussion with artists Katie Baldwin, Claire Lewis Evans, Stacey Holloway and Jürgen Tarrasch to reflect on their diverse ways of working. According to the MMFA's website, "Focusing on new and innovative works produced within the last few years, this survey demonstrates not only a commitment to community and place, but also a dedication to highlighting new viewpoints and practices." MMFA's press release states, "Many of the selected artists demonstrate sustained levels of significant accomplishment both in and out of the state while others at the beginning of their careers display growth and distinction. Each of the artists creates art that is relevant at this precise moment and contributes to the current vitality of artistic creativity found throughout the state." The complete list of artists in the exhibition: Katie Baldwin; Aaron Tennessee Benson; Annie Campbell; Merrilee Challiss; Clayton Colvin; Colleen Comer; Claire Lewis Evans; Amy Feger; Will Fenn and Molly Freeman; Ryan Foster; Jamey Grimes; Darius Hill; Stacey Holloway; Chintia Kirana; Carlton Nell; Cary Norton and Jared Ragland; Irby Pace; Elisabeth Pellathy; E. Bruce Phillips, Jr.; Amy Pleasant; Pete Schulte; Sky Shineman; Greg Skaggs; Lee Somers; Jürgen Tarrasch; Pamela Venz; Cindy Wagner; Michael Willett; Rachel Wright and Tanner Young. For more information about Uncommon Territory, call the MMFA at 334.240.4333 or visit the website at http://mmfa.org/. See photos of the installation on Facebook. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/art-requirements/.
UA Professor Emeritus Contributes to New Online Architectural Resource
Associate Professor Emeritus Robert O. Mellown has published ten articles on the historic architecture of The University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa for SAH Archipedia, a free and subscription-based encyclopedic resource for worldwide architecture published by the Society of Architectural Historians. Mellown's articles are viewable in both versions. Mellown wrote entries for Bryce Hospital; Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion; The University of Alabama campus; Gorgas House; President's Mansion; Manly, Clark, and Garland Halls; Frederick R. Maxwell Hall (the old Observatory); Woods Hall; Morgan Hall and Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library. Mellown is the author of numerous books and articles on architecture in Tuscaloosa including Historic Structures Reports for the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion, Drish House, Marmaduke Williams House and Bryce Hospital, authoritative architectural references commissioned by the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County with support from the Alabama Historical Commission. His most recent book is The University of Alabama - A Guide to the Campus and Its Architecture (University of Alabama Press). Read more about Mellown's publications here. Right: Robert Mellown recently led a sold-out OLLI tour of UA's historic campus architecture. Left: Robert Mellown preparing to be interviewed for Discovering Alabama's special on our state capitals for the Bicentennial. The episode will air in October. Mellown received his undergraduate degree in studio art from The University of Alabama. After receiving the PhD in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he returned to UA and taught nineteenth-century art and architecture, Renaissance and Ancient art for forty-one years. He serves on a number of community and state committees. He is a lifetime member of the Tuscaloosa Preservation Society and a founding board member of the Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion Foundation. He was a member of the Bryce Hospital Historical Committee which was formed by the Alabama Department of Mental Health and The University of Alabama to insure the preservation of the integrity of the historic structure. He is a member of the Tuscaloosa Bicentennial Committee and a consultant for the Alabama Bicentennial Commission. Launched in 2013, SAH Archipedia is an authoritative online encyclopedia of the built world, published by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. Their goal is to have all fifty states represented and to become a comprehensive resource for information on buildings around the world. Funding for the project also comes from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Institute of Architects, the Graham Foundation and Two Cat Digital. The Society of Architectural Historians, founded in 1940, is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes the study, interpretation and conservation of architecture, design, landscapes and urbanism around the world. Robert Gamble, retired Senior Architectural Historian at the Alabama Historical Commission, is State Coordinator for Alabama for the Archipedia project. Gamble wrote and compiled many of the current Alabama entries and recruited other architectural historians from around the state to write on their specialties. Gamble is the author of The Alabama Catalog – Historic American Buildings Survey: A Guide to the Early Architecture of the State (University of Alabama Press). Entries were also written by Ralph Allen, Cart Blackwell, Alice Meriwether Bowsher, Delos Hughes, Michael Panhorst, and Caroline Swope. Alabama has sixty-four entries in all on the new website, the most coming from Tuscaloosa County and the University. Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile have seven entries each. According to the SAH Archipedia website, Alabama's current sixty-four entries comprise the first half of a list of the state's most representative buildings and sites. There'll be more to come! Above: Dr. Mellown discusses the renovation of a 19th century statue, "Hebe," salvaged from Bryce Hospital with Bob Fanning (Engineering) and Art and Art History technicians Patrick O'Sullivan and Mike Eddins and (center) Professor Craig Wedderspoon. The statue was repaired, repainted and placed at the entrance of the New Bryce building.