Allegheny College’s Art Department will present the Here/Now Exhibitions, exhibitions created by students and professors, during the week of March 6.
Various exhibitions and projects are scheduled throughout the week, with a final reception and celebration on Sunday, March 12, from noon to 1 p.m. The exhibits, showcased in the Bowman-Penelec-Meaghan Art Galleries in the Doane Hall of Art, are free and open to the public.
As part of the Allegheny’s ongoing Year of Mindfulness, the exhibitions will use creative processes as meditations on mindfulness, and offer a shared learning space for the collaborative projects. There will be a variety of project concepts, using various mediums.
· Under the instruction of Instructor Heather Brand, photography students will create body contact prints in their classes Monday and Wednesday, 1:30 to 3:20 p.m. Visitors are invited to participate in the project as well.
· Introduction to Studio Art students, instructed by Sculpture Technician Ian Thomas, will paint boxes white and strap them to their feet, and then walk across campus, accumulating dirt, marks, and other evidence of their journey. The boxes will then be put on display in the gallery.
Some of the exhibitions will be a direct response to the previous week’s exhibition, the creation of a sand mandala by Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery. The mandala demonstration will take place March 1-4 in the galleries, also as part of the Year of Mindfulness.
· Professor Amara Geffen’s sculpture students will work to capture the sand mandala’s concepts in an installation of fluorescent lights. They will work with articulating geometric forms and rhythms, to explore sacred geometry and minimalism.
· Students in a Freshman Seminar, directed by Associate Professor Darren Lee Miller, will begin their projects during the time the Tibetan monks are working on the mandala, observing and then creating preliminary drawings and reflective written responses. During the Here/Now Exhibitions, the students will choose one of their preliminary concepts to fully develop, as well as writing three haiku poems based on their reflections. After this, the students will come together, each bringing one drawing paired with one poem, and bind a set of accordion books. The prints and at least one book will remain on display throughout the week.
· Introductory Drawing and the Black Art Expression classes, under the direction of Assistant Professor Steve Prince, will work together to address the question of “who we are as a people, and who we wish to be as a people,” by creating a large charcoal drawing. It will have two perspectives – one an objective representation of America with all its good and problematic aspects, and the other a hopeful speculation of what might come of a communal handling of the issues.
The exhibition is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
The Year of Mindfulness is a series of events and a challenge to the campus community to live this year with mindfulness and intention. For more information, visit www.allegheny.edu/yearofmindfulness.