Monday, January 27, 2014

Malone University Announces Spring Galleries Now Open




Fountain Gallery
The Fountain Gallery continues to feature Malone students in the Fourth Annual exhibit of R.S.V.P., a Writing and Visual Art Exchange through February 18, 2014. Bridging the gap between the right brain and the left brain, R.S.V.P. involves students, half of whom are visual artists with the other half being writers. Participants are randomly paired in artist/writer duos. Each writer is to respond to a visual artwork with a piece of poetry or prose. Each artist responds to a written work in a visual medium such as paint, fiberarts, or photography. A reception will be held on January 16, 2014 from 4 - 6 P.M. The Fountain Gallery is located on the Malone University campus in the Johnson Center for Worship and the Arts. The Johnson Center is located at 2600 Cleveland Ave, NW, Canton, Ohio 44709. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. through 6 p.m.

McFadden Gallery
The McFadden Gallery is featuring Whimsical Worlds of Wonder mixed media digital photographs by Canton-based artist, Michael Weiss, through February 4, 2014. Through a combination of drawings, photography, painting and digital artistry, Weiss’ works create a world where words tumble off pages, children transform into angels and boats soar through the sky on journeys into the unknown. Weiss writes of his work, “It is my job as an illustrator to compliment, not compete, with a story. This body of work is like a storybook. Each piece is like a page from a book, only the beginning of the story nor the ending isn’t always clear. . . . My inspiration comes from book titles and quotes, as well as song lyrics and movie taglines.” Weiss’ work has been published in Stark Arthology, Somerset Magazine, and Incite: Dreams Realized. He has permanent gallery space at Evolution Art on Fourth Street in Canton’s Arts District. He has won numerous design and illustration awards as the Associate Graphics Editor at The Repository. Find more of his work at michaelweiss.carbonmade.com. The McFadden Gallery is located on the Malone University campus in the Johnson Center for Worship and the Arts. The Johnson Center is located at 2600 Cleveland Ave, N.W., Canton, Ohio 44709. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. through 6 p.m.

Art-in-a-Case
Art-in-a-Case is featuring works in calligraphy by native Ohio artist, Sharon Lee Hanse, through from March 14, 2014. Hanse’s calligraphy illustrates thought provoking and motivational texts using layouts and designs specifically created to enhance the meaning of the words and increase the visual impact. The works exhibited include a wide variety of media including watercolor, acrylics, collage, embossing, gilding, paper cutting, and hand made books. She writes of her work, “The Calligraphic quest is to me one of the most fascinating journeys one can take. Nothing is more satisfying than to create beautiful works of art using words that are inspirational, uplifting, thought provoking, and comforting.” Hanse has been studying and practicing calligraphy since 1978. She participates in numerous art fairs and produces works on commission for individuals and businesses. She also teaches classes in calligraphy. More on Hanse and her work can be found at http www.toucancalligraphy.com. Art-in-a-Case is displayed inside the Everett L. Cattell Library located on the Malone University campus, 2600 Cleveland Avenue, NW, Canton, OH 44709. The Library is open Monday to Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.; Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.; and closed on Wednesday mornings during chapel (10 a.m. -11 a.m.)

"Gently She Rose" Weiss

Friday, January 24, 2014

Malone Writing and Art Project and Wooster Museum Donations


Malone University Combines Writing and Visual Art

The fourth annual R.S.V.P. - a Writing and Visual Art Exchange exhibit opens this week with a reception scheduled for Thursday, January 16 from 4-6 p.m. in the Fountain Gallery of the Johnson Center for Worship and the Fine Arts, located at 2600 Cleveland Avenue N.W. in Canton, Ohio. The exhibit will run through February 18. The Fountain Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.- 6 p.m., is free and open to the public.
R.S.V.P. is a collaborative project between the Visual Arts and the Language and Literature Departments of Malone University. Bridging the gap between the right brain and the left brain, R.S.V.P. involves students, half of whom are visual artists, the other half being writers. This conceptual exhibit is the result of inviting the right side of the brain and the left side of the brain to thoughtfully respond to each other. Participants are randomly paired in artist/writer duos. Each writer is to respond to a visual artwork with a piece of poetry or prose. Each artist responds to a written work in a visual medium such as paint, fiber arts, or photography.
Students participating include:
·         Kelsey Case, a senior English major from North Canton, Ohio
·         Kristen Csuti, a sophomore English major from Elyria, Ohio
·         Jaime Heller, a junior creative writing major from Louisville, Ohio
·         Akash Negi, a senior English major from Akron, Ohio
·         Riley Richards, a junior creative writing major from Maple Falls, Wash.
·         Marie Davison, a senior visual art education major from Cortland, Ohio
·         Hannah Morgan, a senior psychology major from Rootstown, Ohio
·         Brian Neigh, a senior art major from Butler, Penn.
·         Candice Hale, a senior visual arts education major from Canton, Ohio
·         Brian Hookway, a sophomore art major from Akron, Ohio
To learn more about the Department of Visual Arts at Malone University, please click here.
To learn more about the Department of Language and Literature at Malone University, please click here.

Wooster Art Museum Receives Donations

Three recent gifts — two from private donors and one from a foundation — have further enhanced the teaching mission of The College of Wooster Art Museum (CWAM). The gifts, all received in 2013, have become part of the CWAM’s permanent collection.
“It is very exciting to receive gifts of this variety and quality in one year,” said Kitty McManus Zurko, director of The College of Wooster Art Museum. “Even better, through the generosity of the donors, our students and faculty are already benefiting through their use in teaching, research, and exhibition.”
The first gift is a collection of Japanese and Chinese ceramics given by Jay Gates, a 1968 Wooster graduate and former director of several major museums, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC. Gates’ gifts include several ancient Chinese vessels, five Xixing ware teapots, two scholar rocks, and a group of Japanese Meiji period bottles, bowls, and tea bowls. Rounding out Gates gift is a group of Japanese Ikebana baskets.
            “A major advantage of teaching from real objects in a studio art class is that they engage students directly in ways photographs (of such objects) cannot begin to address,” said Walter Zurko, professor of art at Wooster. “Teaching with actual historical objects creates an immediate sensory link between students and the ceramic object that can result in new levels of interest, scrutiny, and understanding.
“For example,” added Zurko, “in viewing an actual Chinese, Han Dynasty (206 BCE – CE 220) cocoon-shaped earthenware jar, and seeing the maker’s fingerprints impressed into the fired clay and sensing the vitality of the fluidly painted design up close, students can attain a much better idea of how the vessel was constructed and decorated. Also, by having the ability to peer into the dark interior of this distinctive form, one might begin to visualize or consider how or why such jars were used; was its purpose to store grain or water, as its form suggests, or could it have been used as funerary ware? Questions such as these become much more palpable when one has the chance to experience the historical object firsthand.” 
The second gift is a collection of African art given my William C. Mithoefer, a 1953 Wooster graduate, and his wife, Renee-Paule Moyencourt. The gift includes objects from several ethnic groups not previously represented in the CWAM collection, such as the Zulu and Ndebele peoples of South Africa, the Kota-Mahongwé peoples of Gabon, and the Pende peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 
“These are fabulous objects in and of themselves, but when added to our African collection at Wooster, many of which were given previously by Mr. Mithoefer, they enrich the entire learning experience,” said Kara Morrow, assistant professor of art history at Wooster. “They help the students to become real scholars, and even more importantly, the cultural meaning of each provides students and members of the community with an opportunity to enrich our understanding of the world outside of Wooster.”
Having access to these objects allows students to add an experiential dimension to their education, according to Morrow. “Instead of having a class in which we tell them about things, these objects enable students to explore and discover for themselves, and to me that is a core mission of a liberal arts education,” she said. “These objects will have an extraordinary impact on how we think about and conceive our classes here.” Several of the newest gifts from Mithoefer and Moyencourt were recently on display in the CWAM in the exhibition “The Performative in African Art,” organized by Morrow and the students in her African Art class.
The most recent gift was a group of six silkscreen prints from The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Art, located in New York City. The iconic pop artist is famous for his images of such celebrities as Muhammad Ali and Elizabeth Taylor as well as his appropriation of consumer product imagery, such as Campbell’s soup cans. His works, which explore the relationship between artistic expression and celebrity culture that flourished in the 1960s, encompass a range of media, from painting, printmaking, and photography to silk screening, sculpture, and film. The most recent gift from the Warhol Foundation join more than 150 photographs given to the CWAM previously, and include silkscreened images of Sitting Bull, Pete Rose, and the German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys.
“Already in the works for next fall is a focus exhibition of Jay’s gift in support of the 2014 Wooster Forum on East Asia, and a special exhibition of the Warhol prints,” said McManus Zurko. “Truly, such gifts keep on giving in a teaching museum geared toward experiential learning.”

Mount St. Joseph and Hiram have New Exhibitions


Exhibition Opening at the Flats Gallery

The Flats Gallery: a College of Mount St. Joseph Urban Arts Partnership, at 3028 Price Avenue in Price Hill is pleased to announce the opening of New Work (January 21 – March 1, 2014).  Walk into the curious worlds of Cincinnati fine artists Cynthia Gregory and Christian Schmit, as they create magical spaces of miniatures and mysteries.  The Gallery/Closing Reception is scheduled for Saturday, March 1 from 2-4pm.

Cynthia Gregory and Christian Schmit were colleagues in UC’s graduate fine arts program and have continued with collaborations since completing their MFA’s.  Existing familiarity with their work enabled them to mount engaging local exhibitions that complimented their use of realistic, illustrative styles, and the similar use of traditional (graphite, ink, gouache) and non-traditional (salvaged wood, insulation foam, cereal box cardboard) media as building materials.  Gregory points out, “Common themes to both of our art include implied narrative told through juxtaposed , enigmatic yet everyday objects, and an exploration toward how these objects act as metaphoric ‘containers’ for memory, experience, and unspoken mysteries rooted in human experience.”  Exhibited art works include 2D drawings, 3D sculptures and site-specific installations that have expanded on their MFA themes, Schmit’s A Memory Rocket and Gregory’s The Poet’s Table. 

Cynthia Gregory holds a B.A. in English from NKU, a B.F.A. in Fine Arts from the College on Mount St. Joseph, an M.L.S. in Library Science from IU, and most recently an MFA from UC in 2012.  Her writing has been published in The Alleghany ReviewPoetry MotelForklift OhioCollege & Research Libraries News, and Reference Quarterly, and her artwork has been shown in national and international galleries including the Manifest Gallery (Cincinnati), the Carnegie Arts Center (Covington) and Budapest’s Raday Kepeshaz Gallery.  Last year she was awarded a 2013 artist residency and grant from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

Gregory adds, “The work I have assembled in this exhibit involves object-based drawings and sculptures that consider the abstract qualities of experience, history, memory, time, and containment.  I choose subject matter that reflects the ephemeral yet tactile world of the everyday—a safety pin, a scrap of paper, a stone. In my juxtaposing of these bits of information, I am interested in the metaphoric qualities these objects create and how they can build implied narratives and meaning when composed on the page and in space.”

Christian Schmit received his undergraduate B.F.A. from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and more recently his M.F.A. from UC in 2011.  He is currently an adjunct professor at The Art Academy with similar adjunct positions at UC over the past several years.  He has also taught at Baker Hunt Arts Center (Covington), at the Kennedy Heights Arts Center (Cincinnati), the Carnegie Arts Center (Covington).  He has lead workshops at The Cincinnati Art Museum, the CAC, and the Art Academy; guest lectured at CAM, The University of Dayton, UC, the Semantics Gallery (Cincinnati) and the Clifton Cultural Arts Center.  Schmit has had solo exhibitions at UC and UD, the Carnegie Arts Center, and the UnMuseum at the CAC, with exhibition participation in Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and West Virginia. 

Schmit adds, “The pieces in this show concern the secret and obsessive activities of mysterious figures.  In the Cathedral, someone is relentlessly and uninterruptedly scribing text onto scrolls, which are subsequently squirreled away and stowed in the furthest reach of the structure.  In the Conservatory, a miscellany of plants is being cultivated and meticulously researched and documented.  In the Observatory, someone is watching distant occurrences and notating their significance.”  And, he continues, “This work offers the opportunity for new discovery to the returning visitor, as the contents of each piece will change over the course of the exhibition.”

Christian Schmit will be conducting an accompanying hand’s-on workshop at the Flats Gallery on Saturday, February 8, from 2-4pm.  The workshop title is Memory Capture: Exploring the Intensive Now and includes making a small object out of recycled materials that captures a memory.  The workshop is free and open to the public, but is limited to the first 10 arrivals.

Digital images of participating artists’ work available upon request.

Flats Gallery business hours are: Tuesdays from 4-7pm; Fridays 3-6pm; Saturdays 1-5pm.  Admission is free.  The Flats Gallery is closed on major holidays, including the Mount’s Mid-Semester Holiday weekend, Friday, February 21, and Saturday, the 22

Tiffin Gallery Hosts MLK Inspired Exhibition


The Diane Kidd Gallery and the Student African-American Brotherhood of Tiffin University will present “I Have a Dream,” an exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inspirational speech. The opening reception is Thursday, February 6 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The exhibit will end March 6.

In his speech, labeled as one of the most important American speeches in the 20th century, King talked about his dream for equality and justice. This exhibit asks about the legacy of that dream, its implication on society today, the practice of non-violent protest, issues of segregation, diversity, and acceptance, and questions whether King’s dream has been fulfilled.

The exhibit features twelve professional artists and a multi-media installation by the Toledo School for the Arts. Artists include Kamal Al Mansour, John Chang, Brian Cirmo, Françoise Duresse, Daniel Farnum, Ray Ford, Jamie Gardner, Nestor Armando Gil, Ruslana Lev, Lynn Schmidt, Antoine Williams and David Willison.

Their work includes painting, digital images, printmaking, sculpture and photography.

The Toledo School for the Arts installation is a result of collaboration between many students and many programs at that school. Seniors in Advanced Acting wrote and performed two different pieces that have been made into films that will be shown in conjunction with the mural entitled "Struggle" and "I Have a Dream.” The mural was designed and constructed by the Theater Tech Class and the visual imagery will be designed and executed by the theater students and a group of visual arts students who routinely involve themselves with "Visual Art Outreach.” This outreach earns money as part of the student fundraising arm of the Toledo School for the Arts, a charter school. The Visual Arts group is coordinated by Leslie Taylor, the Social Enterprise and Gallery Manager for the school.

This collaborative effort of these groups is also fulfilling a semester arts integration requirement on "multiculturalism."  Each year, Toledo School for the Arts staff is given an arts integration theme per semester.  Arts and academic teachers pair up and collaborate to complete a project together around that particular semester theme.

Attached Image:
Red, White (Black) and Blue by Kamal Al Mansour
Medium:  pastel / digital / mixed media collage on paper
Dimensions:  20 H x 40 W (in)
Date:  Copyright © 2013


ABOUT THE DIANE KIDD GALLERY:

Through the leadership of former first wife Diane Kidd, the original Tiffin University Art Gallery opened in Franks Hall in 1994. Now located in the Hayes Center for the Arts, the gallery has grown to become one of the finest exhibition spaces in the area – a drawing card for art lovers in northwest Ohio and beyond.

For more information about the Diane Kidd Gallery of Art or to schedule a private tour, contact Lee Fearnside, Currator, at fearnsidel@tiffin.edu



Tuesday, January 7, 2014

The Emerging Artist applications for the 2014 Columbus Arts Festival are now open!

The 53rd annual Festival will take place June 6, 7 & 8, 2014 at the beautifully revitalized Columbus Downtown Riverfront. Approximately 450,000 people attend the Festival every year. 
The Emerging Artist program is designed specifically for artists who have extremely limited or no experience exhibiting and selling their artwork at arts festivals. Artists who apply in this category must be residents of Franklin, Union, Delaware, Licking, Fairfield, Pickaway, Fayette and Madison counties.
This program has been designed to help promote Central Ohio artists who are new to presenting their work at festivals. Last year there were 36 applications to this program and 11 artists were selected by the Festival jurors. In addition to a lower booth fee Emerging Artists also receive assistance from Festival staff on how to best present their work to the public.
Local artists who wish to be considered for the 2014 Columbus Arts Festival’s Emerging Artist program should apply through ZAPPlication™, an online application tool, by submitting four digital images of their work and one image of their booth display. A jury panel, selected by the GCAC staff, conducts a blind jury process, where jurors review the artists’ images and technical statements without any biographical information about the artists. The top scores, allowing for a balanced show across mediums, are invited to participate in the Festival.
For detailed information on the application process for Visual/Emerging Artists, download a complete prospectus. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

Friday, January 3, 2014

2014 EVAs in Full Swing!

It's that time of the year! The first round of judging starts tomorrow for the 2014 AICUO Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts. We will be sure to give you updates as the competition goes on, but we are very excited about this year! 

Be sure to keep updated with our Social Networks as well! There will be updates and pictures on there as well.

FACEBOOK
TWITTER
TUMBLR

Be sure to check out our website as well when it is up to see about the "People's Choice Awards" where you will be the judges. Vote on an artist of your choice daily at www.aicuoartaward.com

Thank you all so much for your support and be sure to spread the word about our competition to your friends!