Tuesday, May 2, 2017

OHIO WESLEYAN STUDENTS CURATE ART EXHIBIT ‘Many Faces, Many Stories’ Opens May 3 with Public Reception


DELAWARE, Ohio – They’ve researched, budgeted, curated, designed, prepared, installed, and helped to publicize Ohio Wesleyan University’s newest art exhibit. 
And the OWU students – all enrolled in a fine arts “exhibition practice” course – will open their exhibit with a public reception May 3. 
Titled “Many Faces, Many Stories,” the exhibit will run from May 3 through June 9 in Gallery 2001, a satellite of Ohio Wesleyan’s Richard M. Ross Art Museum. The reception will be held from 4:15 p.m. to 5 p.m. May 3 in the gallery, located inside Beeghly Library, 45 Rowland Ave., Delaware. Gallery 2001’s hours coincide with library hours and are available online at www.owu.edu/library
Erin Fletcher, director of OWU’s Richard M. Ross Art Museum, teaches the semester-long exhibition practice course, which includes a combination of museum history, theory, and hands-on skills for developing exhibitions. 
“This class draws on Ohio Wesleyan’s theory-to-practice ideology,” Fletcher said, “and I have truly enjoyed watching students from the arts, the sciences, and the humanities come together, using campus collections, to develop an exhibition. Their intelligence, diligence, and creative abilities are beautifully on display.” 
First-year student Thalia Sallas-Brookwell of Los Angeles, California, said the class ties in directly with her future career plans. 
“I’m interested in a future career in museum education or some type of work that combines art and creativity with community outreach,” said Sallas-Brookwell, an art history major and women’s and gender studies minor. 
“We’ve studied a lot about museum management and have been able to practice the concepts we learned when planning ‘Many Faces, Many Stories,’ ” she continued. “I’m proud of our class’s hard work and can’t wait for our opening reception.” 
Evelynn Wyatt, a senior from Louisville, Kentucky, also appreciated the collaborative class dynamic in planning the exhibition. 
“As a person who prefers working on her own to set and accomplish goals,” said Wyatt, a double major in biology and English, “collaborating with six other students was an incredibly challenging, yet rewarding experience. Though we didn’t always agree with one another, we learned to compromise from a place of mutual respect and understanding.” 
The final exhibit features items from Ohio Wesleyan’s permanent collection and included collaboration with local artist Nick Stull and The Page Collective artist collaboration group.
Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s Ross Art Museum at www.owu.edu/ross and more about the university’s fine arts major, including the exhibition practice course at www.owu.edu/finearts.

OHIO WESLEYAN ARTISTS AMONG OHIO DESIGNER CRAFTSMEN’S ‘BEST OF 2017’


DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University fine arts professor Cynthia Cetlin and student Wyatt Hall are among the artists selected to exhibit works in the upcoming Ohio Designer Craftsmen “Best of 2017” showcase. 
The 34th annual juried exhibition will run from May 7 through June 18 at the Ohio Craft Museum, 1665 W. Fifth Ave., Columbus, and from July 7 through Sept. 9 at the Southern Ohio Museum, 825 Gallia St., Portsmouth. The event will showcase works in clay, glass, fiber, wood, metal, and mixed media – all created by Ohio Designer Craftsmen artists. 
Cetlin, M.F.A., who joined Ohio Wesleyan’s faculty in 1987, will have two fiber pieces in the show, with her creation “Felt Memory” earning the Ruth Lantz Award for Excellence in Fiber. She will be recognized during an awards presentation at 3 p.m. May 7 at the Ohio Craft Museum. 
“Wool, like gold, has a memory,” Cetlin says of the piece, “and when formed and dried, as in this seamless neckpiece, can be stretched, only to return to its original form.” The piece is made from merino wool and natural dyes, using wet-felted, stitched-resist, and shibori (fabric dying) techniques. 
Her second piece “Forest Ground” was inspired by “a favorite path taken through shoreline pine forest in Deer Isle, Maine,” Cetlin says, and is made of rust-colored merino wool and naturally died, pale green silk. It was created using wet-felted, stitched-resist, and nuno (fiber bonding) techniques. 
Hall, a senior from Delaware, is exhibiting small-scale metal sculpture and jewelry – both created as part of Cetlin’s metals course. Hall will earn his Ohio Wesleyan Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in May with concentrations in metals and bookmaking. 
His “Blue-Green Fracking Well” sculpture was created using copper, nickel, cupric nitrate, and silver nitrate. His “Softshell Necklace” incorporates copper, brass, merino wool, liver of sulfur, Prismacolor pencil, and heat patina. 
“The metal sculptures which I construct are created utilizing traditional metalworking techniques,” Hall says. “Their toy-like, miniature scale is reminiscent of the train models that I built with my father and grandfather in my childhood. 
“Constructing isolated objects within the rural landscape, such as fracking wells, on the scale of a model creates a shift in perspective which allows me to consider industrial processes and the rural landscape on a manageable scale,” Hall says. 
Learn more about the Ohio Designer Craftsmen “Best of 2017” exhibit at www.ohiocraft.org. Learn more about Ohio Wesleyan’s fine arts department at www.owu.edu/finearts