Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Visiting Artist Sylvie Fortin at Clemson University, Monday, February 3


Monday February 3  @  6pm

Lee Hall Room 100  (next to Lee Gallery)
 
Sylvie Fortin became the Executive and Artistic Director of La Biennale de Montréal in September 2013, and in the year preceding this appointment she was the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen’s University.  

As Editor-in-Chief (2004-2007) and Executive Director/Editor (2007-2012) of ART PAPERS, she led the organization from a regional publication to a global thought-leader. She was Curator of the 5th Quebec City Biennale (2010), Curator of Contemporary Art at the Ottawa Art Gallery (Ottawa, 1996-2001), Program Coordinator at la chambre blanche (Quebec City, 1991-1994), and a long-term collaborator with OBORO (Montreal, 1994-2001). Her critical essays and reviews have been published in catalogues, anthologies, and periodicals across the Americas and Europe, including Artforum International, Art Press, C Magazine, Espace, Fuse, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, and Parachute. Educated at the University of Toronto, Université Laval, and Duke University, she has received numerous nationally and internationally significant grants and awards as a curator and critic, as well as for her academic research. 

She has also worked as an independent curator, critic, editor, and art historian who has sought to operate as a cultural decontamination agent, and her curatorial research is looking into hospitality and pondering the existence of something like a non- aligned aesthetics. 

Sylvie Fortin's visit is a sponsored event of the Department of Art and the Center for Visual Arts.  Funding has been made possible by the Board of the Center for Visual Arts at Clemson University.  Her lecture is free and open to the public.

Digital Musics & Sound Art for Prix Ars Electronica 2015 Prize Competition



DIGITAL MUSICS & SOUND ART

You can submit your work in Digital Musics & Sound Art for Prix Ars Electronica 2015. This year (2014), the open categories are: Computer Animation/Film/VFX, Interactive Art, Digital Communities, u19 – CREATE YOUR WORLD and [the next idea] voestalpine Art and Technology Grant. Please come back next year if your work does not fit in one of the open categories.

Contemporary digital sound productions from the broad spectrum of “electronica” come in for consideration in the ” Digital Musics & Sound Art” category, as do works combining sound and media, computer compositions ranging from electro-acoustic to experimental music, as well as sound installations.

What should you enter?
  • Sound and New Media- (audio visual performance, sonic sculpture, intermedia / video / film soundtracks, installations, soundspace projects, radio works, net-music, generative musics, etc.)
  • Electronica- as in Dub, Techno, Microsound, Ambient, Global, Minimal, HipHop, Jazz, Noise, Downtempo, Drum’n Bass, Mondo/Exotica, digital DJ-culture, Mash-ups, Music videos, Glitch, Plunderphonics etc.
  • Computer compositions (algorithmic, acousmatic and experimental), analog and electro-acoustic methodologies, the use of voices and acoustic or amplified instruments are allowed as well, but the crucial criterium is the artistic and inventive use of digital tools to manifest a convincing realization.
The crucial criterion is the artistic and innovative use of digital tools to manifest a convincing realization.Participants may be individuals, groups, institutions, companies, etc.
Exclusively commercially oriented activities in the sense of product advertisement are excluded.
Only works, which have been created, realized or significantly updated within the last two years are accepted.

Submission Details
All works must be submitted as upload online or on Audio CD, DVD Audio, DVD Video,  including specification of the necessary codecs, plug-ins and formats (such as NTSC and PAL).

http://www.aec.at/prix/en/kategorien/digital-music/

Submitting an entry to the Prix Ars Electronica is free of charge.

Online Submission Deadline: 7th March, 2014 (23:59 CET)

Enter projects such as sound installations, real-time performances, audio/visual environments, etc as a video documentation (3-10 minutes). This documentation should describe not only the event itself but also the characteristics of the work’s environment aside from the music, such as spatial and technical requirements for the realization of the piece.

Along with the work, please include a comprehensive description of the work as well as information about equipment, scores, set-ups, and any illustrations or sketches if possible.

In addition to the complete work, please include a 2-3 minute excerpt that effectively gives an introductory summation of the essential elements explored in the whole piece. This edited extract can serve as a compressed remix of different musical areas of the longer composition, or the participant can simply choose a continuous representative slice. This helps the Jury to deal with large quantities of submissions in a focused judicial manner.

Award-winning works may be performed in conjunction with the Festival Ars Electronica. Entrants are therefore requested to provide precise information about the technical set-up of all required equipment as well as suggestions regarding any technicians, musicians or soloists necessary to implement the production plans submitted.

Jury
All the entries will be judged by a Jury of experts in the order of their arrival and according to the following criteria:
  • Aesthetics, originality
  • Compelling conception
  • Innovation in the special expression of sonic imagination
  • Technique and quality of the presentation
In addition to the works entered by participants, each Jury may also nominate other works.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Clemson University Art Department CAA Get-together: Chicago 2014!

Calling all CU Art Department current and former faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends who are going to Chicago for the 2014 College Art Association (CAA) Conference in February. 

We're getting together at 8:00 pm on Thursday, Feb. 13th. As opposed to crowding the conference bar, we're headed to a place recommended by the Hilton concierge, a 0.3 mile, 5-minute walk from the hotel: Jimmy Green's. Lots of craft beers on tap (gluten free options, too), workable wine list, food, etc.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Guest Artist Lecture: Alleghany Meadows at Lee Gallery, Clemson University. Monday, January 27, 6:00 pm


“Sourcing the Local”  

January 27 @ 6 p.m., Lee Gallery Room 1-100, Lee Hall

What is local?  Artist, gallerist, entrepreneur and nomad Allegheny Meadows believes the local can be where ever the road may take you.  Owner and operator of the Artstream Gallery since 2001, Alleghany has crisscrossed the country bringing the best of contemporary functional ceramic artist awareness to major conferences (NCECA, CAA) and art fairs, while maintaining an active individual studio practice and co-ownership of the successful Harvey/Meadows Gallery in Carbondale, CO.  Recent trends in ceramics as well as contemporary art support environmental concerns – the reduction of mass-produced waste and the longevity of use in handmade pottery are major concerns of contemporary functional artists, many of whom subscribe to innovative models of sustainability. Alleghany will speak about his personal artwork and the Artstream Ceramic Library, on loan to Clemson University.

Alleghany Meadows is a studio potter in Carbondale, Colorado. He received his M.F.A. from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, New York, and his BA from Pitzer College, Claremont, CA. He apprenticed with Takashi Nakazato, Karatsu, Japan, received a Watson Foundation Fellowship for field study of potters in Nepal, and was an artist in residence at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO. 

“THE ARTSTREAM CERAMIC LIBRARY” EXHIBIT
Exhibit runs January 20–February 28
9 a.m.–6 p.m., Emery A. Gunnin Architecture Library, Lee Hall    

The Artstream Ceramic Library is a social-outreach project whose mission is to connect contemporary functional ceramics with ordinary people. Similar in structure to a literature-based library, the Ceramic Library loans out unique handmade cups made by thirteen nationally-known potters, for a period of seven days.  The Ceramic Library will be on view in the display cases outside the Gunnin Library entrance, and cups will be available for checkout through the circulation desk.  



ArtTable invites female graduate students pursuing a career in arts administration to apply for our Summer Mentored Internship for Diversity in the Visual Arts Professions



The program supports emerging women professionals from backgrounds generally underrepresented in the field. Through one-on-one mentoring relationships with ArtTable members, interns have the opportunity to work with an established leader in the field and gain exposure to a range of professional activities.

ArtTable will provide a $3,000 stipend for each selected intern for an eight-week commitment, paid in two installments.

 
Are you enrolled in a graduate program in the arts? Click here to apply for a 2014 mentored internship!

We are currently accepting applications for the summer of 2014!
Application deadline: February 6, 2014

Eligibility

Applicants must be:
  • female students enrolled in a graduate program
  • from a cultural/ethnic background underrepresented in the field 
  • seeking career opportunities in the visual arts professions
  • a U.S. citizen or have permanent resident status 

Application Process
 
How to apply:
  • Review the available opportunities hereYou will be asked to indicate your 3 preferences on the online application.
  • Click on "Apply" at the bottom of the page to start or return to your application. You will be asked to create a login and password.
  • Click "Submit" only when application is complete. Until you click submit, you are able to edit the application. 
  • Provide two references with this form and a resume to Evelyn Bround at ebround@arttable.org or to the ArtTable office (1 E 53rd St. New York, NY 10022) by February 6, 2014.
  • By submitting your application you agree to these Terms & Conditions.

Requirements for Accepted Interns:   
  • Selected interns are responsible for securing housing during the internship. Many of the internship options are able to provide or subsidize housing in some way, as indicated on the available opportunities.
  • Interns will be required to commit to a full-time, consecutive 8-week period. 
  • Interns are required to maintain a blog of their experience throughout the internship. (ArtTable may use excerpts and images on our website and in future publications and proposals.) 

If you have any questions or would like further information please contact Evelyn Bround at 212.343.1735 x14 or ebround@arttable.orgWe look forward to reviewing your application!

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Clemson Art Department MFA, Jeanet Steckler Dreskin, Also Featured on Tulane University's Web Site

Featured Alumni

Jeanet Steckler Dreskin, BFA 1942


Jeanet Steckler Dreskin, BFA 1942
Painter, printmaker and medical artist Jeanet Steckler Dreskin (b. 1921) earned a BFA from Newcomb College in 1942, a certificate in Medical Art from Johns Hopkins the following year, and was the first MFA to graduate from Clemson University in 1973. She studied at Newcomb College from 1938-1942 under the direction of Will Henry Stevens, Xavier Gonzalez, Robin Field, and Caroline Durieux. She also took night classes in anatomy with John McCrady at his eponymous art school in the French Quarter. While at Newcomb she was a member of the honorary biological society LAMPYRIDS and served as art director for the Tulane Hullabaloo. Upon graduation she received the Ellsworth Woodward Award in painting. 
“The World’s Her Oyster: 70 Years of Making Art exhibit by Jeanet Dreskin is currently on display at the Lee and Acorn Gallery at Clemson University until February 13, 2014.
Included in this exhibition are paintings from the artist’s private collection as well as from the collections of the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina State Museum, South Carolina State Art, Pickens County Art Museum, Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research, Spartanburg Art Museum, Palmetto Bank, Hampton III Gallery, and private collectors.
Dreskin’s work is in the collections of The Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.; Imperial Chemicals in Manchester, England; Strobel in West Sohne, Munich, Germany; Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y.; Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, G.A.; Asheville Museum in Asheville, N.C.; Columbia South Carolina Museum of Art in Columbia, S.C.; Gibbes Museum of Art in Columbia, S.C.; Greenville Health System in Greenville, S.C.; Wells Fargo National Bank in Greenville, S.C., and the Federal Reserve Bank in Charlotte, N.C.
[photo credit: Jana Candler, TALK Magazine]

Summer Employment Opportunities at Interlochen Arts Camp

Located in northwest Michigan, Interlochen Arts Camp offers visual arts summer programs to students in grades 6-12. Interlochen attracts highly dedicated and talented faculty, staff, and students from around the world to create an environment focused on the exchange of artistic values, ideas, and aesthetics.
The visual arts department is housed in the state-of-the-art Dow Center for Visual Arts. This exceptional facility includes separate studios for ceramics, sculpture, painting, drawing, metals, digital arts, photography, printmaking and fibers. The light-filled complex also features a professional gallery space for exhibitions.
A Unique Work Experience
Situated on 1,200 acres of forest and nestled between the shores of two crystal clear lakes, Interlochen Arts Camp annually employs more than 1,000 summer faculty and staff. The Camp provides a diverse and enriching arts-centered learning experience for more than 2,200 talented youth from around the world. Involvement in Interlochen Arts Camp not only makes a difference in the life of young artists, it also enriches the lives of those who work among the arts community each summer.
A Community of Artists
Interlochen Arts Camp cultivates an environment rich in community. The camp provides an opportunity to form bonds of friendship that often last a lifetime. Camp is a veritable beehive of activity. Campers and employees are required to wear the camp uniform. In the File Downloads section below please find the camp uniform policy and sample photos.
Make a Difference
The personal and professional rewards of leadership, service above self, and fellowship have been reflected by those working at the camp in the past. Additional advantages include networking with visiting faculty and staff from prestigious colleges and conservatories, options for private lessons and exposure to world-class performers.
Recreational Activities
Interlochen Arts Camp offers a "true camp" experience. Summer staff positions include dormitory or rustic cabin lodging and a daily cafeteria meal plan. Enjoy a canoeing excursion, a state-of-the-art challenge course, basketball, tennis and beach volleyball. Campfires, hiking trails and social activities among the pines contribute to the overall camp experience. The northwest corner of Michigan, centered around Traverse City, has long been deemed a vacation paradise.
Entertainment & Performance Opportunities
The world-class Interlochen Presents concert series, which boasts 750 annual performances by students, faculty and guest artists, is in full swing during the summer season. Additionally, camp community members are encouraged to participate in staff ensemble performances.
Rewarding Employment
If you're looking for a fulfilling camp experience, where the work is challenging and fun and where you share in the enthusiasm of achievement, we invite you to consider Interlochen. You can find job postings and all application materials online. Interlochen Center for the Arts is fully committed to providing equal opportunities for all, without regard to race,color, national origin, sex, marital status, physical ability or age. The organization is committed to cooperating with local, state and federal government agencies in an effort to ensure equality.
- See more at: http://www.interlochen.org/summerjobs#sthash.n99KEVPR.dpuf 

The National Ornamental Metal Museum (Memphis, TN) Now Accepting Applications for Blacksmithing Apprenticeship


The Metal Museum's Blacksmithing Apprenticeship offers young and emerging metalsmiths the opportunity to work alongside Museum staff members in the blacksmith shop and foundry for two years.  The program also includes: 
  • housing
  • health insurance
  • a living stipend, and 
  • unlimited access to studio facilities. 
Applicants must have completed undergraduate work in metals or have completed comparable training. The dates for the next apprenticeship are June 1, 2014 - May 21, 2016, and the application deadline is February 28, 2014.

For more information, a copy of the application, and a list of required materials, please visit the Artist Programs section of our website.  If you have further questions, please contact Carissa Hussong at carissa@metalmuseum.org

METAL MUSEUM
Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM–5 PM; Sunday, 12 PM–5 PM. 
374 Metal Museum Drive; Memphis, TN  38106

For more information, call 901-774-6380 or visit www.metalmuseum.org

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Over 200 Staff Positions Open at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp!


Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp is a non-profit summer school of the arts serving more than 5,400 gifted elementary, junior high and high school students each season.  Now entering our 49th season of operation, Blue Lake offers more than 200 staff positions to motivated college students.

We are currently in the process of hiring staff for our 2014 season (June 16 – August 17) and are searching for enthusiastic and talented college students to fill positions.  We are in need of exceptional art majors.

Members of Blue Lake’s counseling staff who serve as art assistants have the opportunity to assist faculty in the art department, supervise art students during classes, and work with and learn from professional faculty. There are also teaching positions with our elementary students available for those who qualify. Working at Blue Lake offers college students incredible experience in leadership and working with youth!

We would appreciate your help with passing the word to students about Blue Lake and the positions we offer to college artists. 

More information is available at: www.bluelake.org/employment/staff.html, or 1-800-221-3796. Thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

Heidi Stansell
Camp Director

1-800-221-3796

Monday, January 20, 2014

Clemson University's first MFA in Art, Jeanet S. Dreskin, Solo Exhibit at Lee Gallery

Art Exhibit - The World’s Her Oyster: 70 Years of Making Art by Jeanet Dreskin


Center for Visual Arts-Lee Gallery

1-101 Lee Gallery

Lee Hall 

Clemson, SC 29634-0510

Art Exhibit - The World’s Her Oyster: 70 Years of Making Art by Jeanet Dreskin

 


“The World’s Her Oyster: 70 Years of Making Art” exhibit by Jeanet Dreskin is currently on display at the Lee and Acorn Gallery at Clemson University until February 13. 
Dreskin is the first master fine arts graduate from the Department of Art at Clemson University, Clemson, S.C. The master’s program recently celebrated its 40 anniversary in 2013. Dreskin also earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, L.A. and a medical art certificate from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, M.D. She also studied at the NY Art Students League.
Included in this exhibition are paintings from the artist’s private collection as well as from the collections of the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina State Museum, South Carolina State Art, Pickens County Art Museum, Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research, Spartanburg Art Museum, Palmetto Bank, Hampton III Gallery, and private collectors.
Dreskin’s work is in the collections of The Smithsonian National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.; Imperial Chemicals in Manchester, England; Strobel in West Sohne, Munich, Germany; Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, Long Island, N.Y.; Zimmerli Museum of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, G.A.; Asheville Museum in Asheville, N.C.; Columbia South Carolina Museum of Art in Columbia, S.C.; Gibbes Museum of Art in Columbia, S.C.; Greenville Health System in Greenville, S.C.; Wells Fargo National Bank in Greenville, S.C., and the Federal Reserve Bank in Charlotte, N.C.
The recent honor of one of TALK Magazine's "Most Beautiful Women" in the Upstate was given to Dreskin.  
The exhibition can be viewed until Friday, Jan. 24 in the Lee Gallery and until Wednesday, Feb. 13 in the Acorn Gallery. The Acorn and Lee Gallery at Clemson University hours are Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. There will be a gallery talk with Jeanet Dreskin on Friday, Jan. 24 at 5:30 p.m. followed by a reception at 6 p.m. Admission to the exhibition, gallery talk, and reception is free.
Dreskin is represented in Greenville by Hampton III Gallery. For additional information regarding the exhibits, contact Lee Gallery Director, Denise Wooward-Detrich, 864-656-3883 or woodwaw@clemson.edu.
photo credit: Jana Candler, TALK Magazine

Great Article about Clemson University Art Department Alumus, Kep Pate (BFA, Art-sculpture 2013), "Kep Pate brings a competitive edge to his artwork" on CU Newsstand

Kep Pate brings a competitive edge to his artwork

After taking his bronze sculpture out of the mold, Clemson art student Kep Pate grinds off the extra pieces of bronze.
After taking his bronze sculpture out of the mold, Kep Pate grinds off the extra pieces of bronze.
When Kep Pate came to Clemson, he spent more time drawing than studying — a tactic that he doesn’t recommend. “It doesn’t end well for your grades,” Kep laughed. “But it made me realize that I needed a creative outlet.” And that outlet was Clemson’s sculpture program.
Sculpture, defined as any non-ceramic, three-dimensional art form, gives Kep endless possibilities to unleash his creativity. But for Kep, simply being creative isn’t enough — whether he is working with wood or metal, he strives to make his art the best it can be.
“You can’t really beat your friend at art,” he laughed. “But I push myself to capture the details.” This competitive edge comes in part from his involvement with Clemson’s nationally renowned waterskiing team. “Both sculpture and waterskiing are very technical,” he said. “I work just as hard to perfect my skills in the studio as I do on the water.”
In the realm of sculpture, Kep isn’t riding in anyone’s wake. After spending many hours in the art studio, he wanted to share his passion with fellow students. “I noticed that there was a huge separation between students and the art on campus — many didn’t even know what the pieces were.” So he took a step to bridge the gap between the artist and the public by joining Atelier Insite.
Pate busts his bronze sculpture out of the mold he created.
Pate busts his bronze sculpture out of the mold he created.
Atelier (ar-til-e-ay) is the French word for studio, so it’s fitting that this Creative Inquiry class works to promote a positive feeling for art on campus. The group of Clemson students from across many different disciplines is tasked with the full responsibility of bringing public art to new buildings on campus. From choosing the sculpture’s concept to handpicking a professional artist, engineering, life science, architecture and art majors all work together on a budget. “It’s a time consuming process, but we’re starting to get the flow of things,” Kep said.
The Atelier Insite students put emphasis on site-specific art, which is any public piece that is designed specifically for its location. “We want the new art on campus to relate to the people, to the classrooms, to Clemson as a whole,” he said. “It’s our job to find out what students want to see.”
Public art is particularly important to Kep because it presents challenges that aren’t associated with personal art. “It is difficult to find a balance between aesthetically pleasing and thought provoking subject matter,” he said. Always ready to rise to the challenge, he understands the importance of finding common ground between the artist and the viewer. “This is the art of our generation,” he said.
After graduation, Kep plans to attend seminary, but knows that art will always be a part of him. The ambition and creativity he has developed as an artist will help him make a difference in all of his future endeavors. But for now, he can reflect on the positive impact he has made at Clemson.
“Sculpture has allowed me to leave a mark on campus,” he said. “It’s great to change something that you thought couldn’t get any better.”

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Clemson University Art Department MFA, Alyssa Reiser Prince, Selected as Emerging Artist in Residence at Penn State Altoona

Clean50"x50". Acrylic on Canvas, 2013, Alyssa Reiser Prince

2014: Alyssa Reiser Prince 

(CU MFA, Painting, 2013)

Biography

Alyssa Reiser Prince was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, spent her childhood in the northeast, and in Charlotte, NC. She has exhibited at Miami University's Young Painters Competition in Oxford, OH., the Zhou B. Art Center's Wet Paint Exhibition in Chicago, IL., the Center for Visual Arts in Greenville, SC., the McColl Center of Visual Art in Charlotte, NC., and the NoDa arts district in Charlotte, NC., among others. She graduated from Clemson University with a MFA, emphasis in Painting, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with a BFA, emphasis in Painting with an Art History Minor.

Artist Statement

As we recall moments from our past, we remember our visual experiences, the way the light hit the trees, the way in which we felt very small compared to our surroundings, or the infinite space around us. In turn, the paintings reflect these ideas; they display a fragmentary visual structure that alludes to our senses, and emotional feelings of awareness and wonder of the experience.
The act of remembering is an imaginative, reconstructive process. Our minds do not function as a filing cabinet, retrieving information that was stored away for safekeeping. We actively engage, change, distort and recreate our memories in every instance. Sometimes, the more we try and remember, the more distorted our memories become. Yet, they no less influence us. Our memories start to become stories we've told ourselves over and over again, with the narrative changing ever so slightly each time. Through remembering, we amplify some things: a cold touch, a sweet taste, and warmth that envelops us, while other details fall to the wayside. We remember and experience past memories under the lens of our subjective and ever changing present. Simultaneously we occupy past and present through these experiences. Time disappears and forgoes its linear quality. My paintings convey these ideas of remembering and reconstructing by depicting the partial and incomplete, referencing multiple sensations, and alluding to the ever shifting and fragmentary nature of our experience over and through time.


The residency is designed to offer an emerging artist substantial time to develop a new or existing body of work.  Duties include teaching one studio workshop in Painting during the Spring 2014 semester (January 13-May 8, 2014), lecturing about ongoing and future work, and serving as a resource for Visual Art Studies students. The Emerging Artist in Residence will also mount a solo exhibition. 

Clemson University MFA in Art Candidate, Ayako Abe Miller, Selected as a Runner-up for Creative Quarterly: 34!

Creative Quarterly is pleased to announce the winners of CFE 34. All winners will be exhibited in Creative Quarterly, on the newsstand Spring 2014. The winners and runner-ups work will be posted on their Online Gallery in Spring 2014.






Thursday, January 16, 2014

Great Experience "Getting Mugged" with Clemson University's Potent Object Project

Today I got "mugged."  Don't worry: I'm fine, and I wasn't attacked.

In fact, quite the contrary. I had a great time exchanging a story about my father for a ceramic mug.  I plan to live with and use the mug for two weeks and then exchange it with my daughter in exchange for her story.  The idea is that she'll also live with the mug and trade it with someone else.

Detail showing the ceramic decal CR codes glazed
to the bottom of each mug.
This all came about because two of Clemson University students: Patricia Fancher, Ph.D. candidate in the Rhetorics, Communication, and Information Design progra, and Brent Pafford, MFA candidate in the Art Department (ceramics emphasis).  Patricia and Brent teamed up to develop a project that involves the fabrication and distribution of 500 hand-made mugs they plan to exchange for 500 stories.

The aim of the project is to create connections. Ceramics and oral histories will create connections by highlighting our shared experiences. In addition, this project creates connections between the disciplines of Visual Art and Rhetorics. Building out from these connections, the project seeks to integrate the work of Clemson’s creative culture into the broader Clemson community and beyond.

This project began with the simplest, most common material: clay. With this clay, Patricia and Brent have made the most everyday of objects, those objects that populate our cabinets and desks: ceramic mugs. From these common and shared beginnings, this project calls attention to the locations where unique individuals assemble, share, exchange, divide, drift, and reconnect.

All participants will begin with a shared experience with handmade ceramic mugs, but they all bring to that common experience their different histories, values, personalities, and concerns. The mugs were designed to function as a creative outlet with compositional lines that promote the user write on them. From this initial point of contact, the mugs and participants will scatter into their different lives.

After two weeks of use, participants will give their mugs to someone else. This could be anyone. There are only three expectations:
  • First, the participants must compose a short oral history relating a personal story that in some way involves the mug;
  • Second, participants will photograph themselves with their personalized mugs. These oral histories and photographs will be submitted as documentation of the project and will create a catalogue for the exhibition; 
  • Third, the participants will give their mugs to someone else and will request that the new owners use the mug for a while, write a new message on the mug, and then give it to someone new. The mugs may continue to travel, but they don't know where or with whom.  
Pretty cool, eh?!?

To find out more, please log on to: http://potentobjects.wordpress.com/

This project was made possible with generous support from Clemson University's College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities Graduate Student Research Award fund.


and the 

Art Department
Clemson University


Monday, January 13, 2014

19th Young Package Design Competition: TAKE AWAY

Model Obal company and CZECHDESIGN is pleased to announce the 19th year of the Young Package competition which brings a new topic this year: TAKE AWAY.

Originally, a term TAKE AWAY was related to packaging of meal from fast food. However , today it isn't only about quick lifestyle and junk food.  We are looking for that kind of TAKE AWAY packages, which will be original and functional at the same time. That kinds of package, which can help carry things from shop to home- nice package for clothes, which can be use for instance also as a wrapping paper, an ingenious package of six bottles of beer or clever package for fragile vase.

You can register in one of our two categories: high school students or university students and designers up to 30 years of age. The winner of the first group will receive 1100 EUR and one of the winners will be chosen for three weeks remunerated internship in innovation center of Model Obaly company. The rest of prize-winning will be awarded by another financial bonus or other prizes donated by the competition partners. This year the special prize of Slovak Design Centre will be awarded too.

The deadline is on 14 March 2014. Please find the detailed terms and conditions in the attachment of this email. You can also find them, as well as many pictures of winning entries from previous years, on our website:



Contacts

For general questions of any kind, please contact Radka Pitrmucová. 
Radka Pitrmucová
manager of the Young Package competition
CZECHDESIGN.CZ
email: radka.pitrmucova@czechdesign.cz
tel.: +420  739 071 491
CZECHDESIGN.CZ
Organiser of the Young Package competition
www.czechdesign.cz
Vojtěšská 3, Prague 1, 110 00
Czech Republic
Model Obaly, a.s.
Promoter of the Young Package competition
www.modelgroup.com/cs
Vanda Myšáková
email: vanda.mysakova@model.cz
tel.: +420 553 686 412

Friday, January 10, 2014

Spotlight on Student Fiber Trends 2014 Exhibition at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, The University of Georgia, Athens, GA



Strictly for undergraduate and graduate students in the Southeast, the exhibition will focus on trends and creative works.

Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries on the UGA campus in Athens, GA.

All students working in fiber are encouraged to enter up to three works and all accepted entries will be eligible for First-, Second-, and Third- Place prizes of $800, $500, and $300, respectively.  Honorable Mention and additional prizes will also be awarded.  Glen Kaufman, Professor Art Emeritus, Lamar Dodd School of Art, will juror the entries and Ray Pierotti will select the award winners.

Entry fees are affordable at $15 for current members of SEFAA and $25 for non-members (which includes a 1-yr student membership in SEFAA).  Entries are due by April 2, 2014.

Last, but not least, students may also be interested in participating in our Square Foot Fiber Art Pin Up Show which is open to all, free, and unjuried - any material(s), and fiber technique(s), 12" x 12" maximum size.  Square Foot entries are due by April 9, 2014 and entry forms are available to download.

Please email or call 678-235-4328 if you have any questions or need further information about either exhibition.

Suzi Gough
President, Board of Directors
Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance



Tuesday, January 7, 2014

CU BFA Alumna, Stacy Isenbarger, Interviewed in Made in Mind

HER SERIES, stitched drawing on found image, 2013
Clemson University BFA Alumna, Stacy Isenbarger (Art, sculpture, 2005), was interviewed in Made in Mind magazine (Issue 00, Winter 2013). Checkout the interview from the issue here, http://www.madeinmindmagazine.com/stacy-isenbarger/, or read it below:

STACY ISENBARGER

Tell us about your background

I have lived in various regions around the US, but consider my time growing up in South Carolina the most formative to my background. Growing up as a Southeastern Suburban Catholic, I was constantly confronted by Catholic iconography that my Baptist peers thought made me heathen despite their welcoming concrete driveways. These environments of confused judgment still influence the ways in which I navigate my own creative installations, but I often acknowledge that I have been taught well to project the best side of myself through the material world. Whether I was presented through appropriate dress, catholic diligence, or a clean-cut green lawn, my social and cultural expression was always addressed through material and object first and foremost.

You use frequently the religious iconography, why?

Working with religious iconography has offered me the opportunity to question social and political awareness but in a more reverent atmosphere. One of my most influential teachers, David Detrich, once ask me to draw out a line diagram with “Zen” on one side and “Disneyland” on the other. He’d say to choose a place within this scale that best balanced out my desired concept and to make formal and material decisions that support this place. I always felt that working from a point closer to the “Zen” side has been a more authentic point of departure for me. Religious imagery can have a forceful impact but through a more quiet delivery.

I also rely on the language of religious iconography because it is loaded with various interpretations. Belief aside, the environment you’ve lived in will dictate how you read a symbol or spiritual figure. During a recent residency in Jetpur, a small village near Jodphur, India, I tried to communicate visually through iconic symbols. Surrounded by spirited children painting in an abandoned schoolhouse, I was struck by how awkward it was to see one child painting swastikas alongside my line drawings of Stars of David. With my lacking verbal skills, I was attempting to share an image that I hoped could communicate the equal beauty of male and female and a 7 year old in turn, wanted to communicate a blessing that I couldn’t read as one. Two shapes built from basic line structures where at conflict for me but beautiful to her. Our gestures where authentic as we created together but our visual language had shortcomings that couldn’t be bridged without further understanding of each other’s perspectives. Our images could provoke, but not justify themselves alone. The layered history of religious iconography is rich for communicative disruptions as well as sharing the beauty of a spiritual awareness. Through my work, I explore these possibilities.

How do you make it? What do you hope people take away from your art?

When I create, I explore a variety of mixed-media approaches that produce sensory connections for viewers to their environment. I assume that most viewers won’t immediately touch art, but they will reflect on their own physical understanding of the material they see, and in turn, reflect on their own negotiations of metaphorical space. In our typical environments, we tend to experience imagery and media through a lens of complacency, but its refreshing and potentially generative when we are cued to see an icon, familiar object, etc. in a way other than generally accepted. I also play with barriers and layers of information to suggest a place where a shift in ideation is helpful for further understanding. I want viewers to walk away from my work reflecting on some aspect of variance in themselves— and in particular, those moments where, through their own unique cultural judgment, they address social constructs from a more specific perspective.

I never tire of visual language’s mixed messages and meanings. I rely on viewers’ considerations that dance between soft and hard, warm and cold, domestic and industrial, etc. to create a sense of place where one can mentally navigate one’s own physiological deviations in understanding.

How important is your environment in shaping your work?

Understanding sculpture seems impossible for me without considering the environment it exists in. As a physical manifestation, I have to understand it through my body as I reference my experience of the space it inhibits. And as this happens, I always thinking about my place, how I occupy it, and how my understanding of that space impacts the way I read the work.

When I create, I will often reflect on various cultural and social impacts within my environment. Aspects of a scaled sense of freedom, familiarity, and memory of experience are all drawn together to communicate a place for others to reflect on their own environmental perspective as well. Due to this, an undercurrent of my work is to always share an understanding of place.

What art do you most identify with?

It’s not that I identify with a specific art or form of art, it’s what I look at and for and live with, meaning what I may read and surround myself with. There are many things that contribute to the investigations I undertake visually in and out of the studio—poetry, published writings on social practice, religious spaces, found and incidental images, and many things that are unexpected and not sought out could fulfill my needs and inspire me at any moment.

Tell us about Canary Marys, what has inspired this artwork?

I had recently been invited to a new moon gathering ceremony where women were celebrating winged spirit animals & even though I’m not accustomed to this type of ritualistic practice, I was touched by the beauty of women gathered to celebrate the spirit of something outside themselves. The directive sensibilities some shared through their own visitations of these spirits in their dreams, meditations, etc. seemed strangely familiar to Catholic stories I’ve been raised by. I wanted to make work that spoke of my navigation of this event.

I came across the figurine of an uncloaked praying woman at a thrift store, identified her as a more humble vision of the Virgin Mary, and made a mold of her. I had planned to pair her with another carved bird form I had made and to create a chorus of sorts with multiple forms in an installation. But as the piece developed, I realized that cloaking the figurine yellow tool dip could suggest both bird and Mary at once. In Creature Comforts (Canary Marys), as markers of an open path, the Canary Marys reflect nature and spirit at odds and in communion. These forms where paired with a rock as a silhouetted barrier of itself and itself stuck between two sides. I’ve been asked if the Canary Mary is meant to represent me, but I think the rock is perhaps a more suited stand-in for my role in this environment.

In Her series you drew Mother Mary’s veil, what does this action mean?

My Her series is still an in-progress body of work, but as I form it into various thematic groupings, the embroidered blue veil and golden halo continue to be sewn on top of various images of women. As this work evolves, I continue to question this drawn action. Using the cloak of Mary within these images, I’m reflecting on stories of apparitions and a desire for feminine guidance. Individually each image is a play on an individual’s choice or potential. Collectively these images act as layered voices at odds with innocence and expectation.

What were some the significant happenings that brought you to where you are now as an artist?

At an early age, I was brought repeatedly, among thousands, to a site in Conyers, Georgia, USA where a woman was supposedly having apparitions of the Virgin Mary on the 13th of ever month in late 1980s. Today she is considered a false profit of the church, and I’m still confused by what I witnessed in this space, but since then, stand-ins for Mary have come to represent a childlike desire to trust the spiritual structures in my environment. I think this plays out often in the work I make, but it’s influences are manifested in various forms through my work.

I keep two photos in particular from this experience in my studio. The first is a polaroid photo taken of the sun at this location on the day of an apparition. The image captures three shadowed forms that some took as a miracle representing the Gates of Heaven, but this is just light reflecting of the camera’s shutter. It’s a simple shortcoming of the device. The second image is of a woman with a fantastic perm holding up a photo she captured at Conyers to a small crowd of emotional onlookers. Within the skewed image, there is a faint silhouette of what could be (or could not be) a familiar veiled spiritual presence. For me, this image represents the beauty of not knowing everything about what an image can represent. I have these images next to each other in my studio and challenge myself through the small space between them. That gap represents a place where knowledge of the theater of religion is in conflict with a desire to trust the unknown. I want to make art about this sort of space and create environments where we are left to consider the weight of both sides of understanding—the authenticity of the known and the beauty of the unknown.

Could you talk about I.M.M.I.G.R.A.N.T. ?

In my series I.M.M.I.G.R.A.N.T., the sewn golden Stars of David spell out the word immigrant. These works address problematic labeling in conflict with a collective notion what is a rightful home environment. For instance, in I.M.M.I.G.R.A.N.T. (Heritage Status), this text hangs as a quilted curtain or vine-like root system below a white picket fence cross-stitched on a “Home, Sweet, Home” banner. As a foundational-structure to an idealized suburban American home landscape, the word is meant to question of whom—if any—have a right to this label of home here. Judaism isn’t something associated with some US states’ growing interests in targeting immigrants by making anyone suspect responsible for showing paperwork of their nationality—instead a Christian, Hispanic culture tends to be the most targeted—however, I am concerned about this “need” to decide who belongs in a culture built from immigration. As an iconic devise used to segregate “the other” from the privileged, the domestic yellow star is meant to readdress this politically charged title as we reassess where we come from and where we even belong.

What are you currently working on?


I’m currently working on a series I’m calling “What Man Builds, Man Can Confuse.” By labeling or projecting more than one meaning to an object, I’m building more poetic forms that reflect on broken institutional structures and confused human perspectives. I’ve been cross-stitching confused directives and diagrams that play off of “Do & Don’ts” in conflict for this series as well. I’m also working in collective called BASK. We’re incorporating movement, 3-D form, poetry, and music in community-based practice and performances to address social projections and sources of empowerment for women in the Arts.

About Made in Mind: Made in mind is a new independent publishing project dedicated to the promotion of young contemporary visual art. It’s  focus is  to provide  visibility to young art , particularly for lesser known visual artists to showcase their work to an international audience which includes  artists, galleries, museums, curators and others interested in art. The aim is to become bridge between the art world and artists.  Our critics and curators are looking for new ideas, and artists can also propose their own projects. Anyone who wants to participate in the selection is invited to present their artistic work and have the opportunity to be published. Visual artists of various media are encouraged to enter this juried competition to be included in the first issue. We are a Work in Progress, and we happily agree to proposals to improve the project

Made in Mind is a new independent publishing project dedicated to the promotion of young contemporary visual art. It’s focus is to provide visibility to young art , particularly for lesser known visual artists to showcase their work to an international audience. 

Application for artists

The project aims to research and promote  young artists, we are selecting emerging artists for feature in our publication. Artists can propose their own artistic work. The open call submission is international and there is no age limit for entry. Artists are encouraged to enter this juried competition to be included in next issue of Made in Mind. 

Selected artists will  be presented  with images of their work, interview, artist statement, and contact detailsThe competition is open to all artists, to all nationality, working in all media. Please, consult the section Open Call for details.