Art

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

What started as an artistic endeavor developed into a lesson in business and marketing — and ended with more than $2,600 in donations to four local nonprofits.

Over the course of two days, 20 Allegheny College students in Assistant Professor of Art Steve Prince’s Introduction to Studio Art class raised $2,615 for Active Aging Inc., Women’s Services Inc., the Center for Family Services Inc. and Bethesda Children’s Home through the sale of T-shirts the students designed and printed. The money will be split equally among the four agencies.

Krista Geer, executive director of Active Aging, lauded the students’ generosity.

“It’s refreshing in that this is a group of young people who thought of seniors. … It renews my faith that the younger generation isn’t forgetting” about senior citizens, Geer said.

The assignment was meant to introduce students to the basics of design and screenprinting in a way that benefited the Meadville community. But the project went further: Working in teams, students met with representatives of the four agencies to better understand their missions. The Allegheny teams developed business plans, considered how many shirts to order and in what sizes, and debated price points and how best to market the shirts.

The last day of the sale found sophomore Derek Sawer of Edinboro hawking his team’s shirts from a table carefully designed to attract eyeballs — and dollars for the Center for Family Services. The team’s T-shirts featured a logo of an entwined family of three in the shape of a tree.

“That’s what Center for Family Services does,” Sawer said. “They (give families) the ability to make roots … those essential things that are the foundation for success.”

Passersby were invited to sign leaves made from construction paper and pin the leaves to a cutout of a tree near the table. The group also launched a campaign on a crowdfunding site to raise money.

“I really learned a lot from this class about executing an idea,” Sawer said.

Much of Prince’s work centers on community engagement. He is the designer and coordinator of The Big Zipper, a community art project constructed from wooden puzzle pieces carved by Meadville residents.

“Right from the beginning I wanted to do a project that went beyond the self,” Prince said of the T-shirt assignment. “How do we make students understand that they’re planted in Meadville for four years and understand the community context that they’re living in? Wherever you’re planted, you need to be active in that community.”

It’s a lesson that will stay with Rachel Crookston, a first-year student who plans to major in psychology and neuroscience and minor in art. She and her teammates raised money for Women’s Services; their T-shirts featured a purple design patterned on a phoenix and a butterfly: symbols of rebirth.

The project allowed Crookston to combine her favorite things: art, advocacy and charity. She said she once served on a forum for abuse victims in her hometown of Valparaiso, Ind., and plans to become an art therapist.

“I know what art can do for people,” she said and smiled.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Conneaut Lake, Pa. — How do you move a 3,500 pound, 10-and-a-half foot tall woolly mammoth made of steel?

Very carefully, and with the help of a very large crane and a team of dedicated community partners.

“Ganesh,” a sculpture created by Eila V. Bush Endowed Professor of Art Amara Geffen of Allegheny College, was installed at Fireman’s Beach in Conneaut Lake Friday morning, the culmination of a community art project two years in the making. The project is funded by a competitive National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant, federal money that “supports creative placemaking projects that help to transform communities into lively, beautiful, and resilient places with the arts at their core.”

“It’s incredibly rewarding, beyond belief,” Geffen said of the project, which she called a “a highlight of my career.”

It was a fitting day to welcome a sculpture of an Ice Age mammal to the lakeshore. A crew from Pipeline Systems Inc. operated the crane amid frigid temperatures and blowing snow, slowly transporting and then positioning the massive piece to its new home under a tree. The space has meaning: Actual woolly mammoth bones have been found at several sites around the lake.

The sculpture’s name is a reference to the Hindu god Ganesh, an elephant-headed deity who is known as the god of wisdom and learning, as well as “the remover of obstacles,” Geffen said.

Geffen said she hopes the sculpture serves as a source of inspiration for Conneaut Lake Borough and the townships surrounding the lake, as well as many other small communities that are working together, many through the arts, to strengthen social fabric and improve livability in the rural core of our nation.

For more, watch the video below, courtesy of YourErie.com:

https://www.yourerie.com/news/local-news/woolly-mammoth-art-sculpture-placed-in-conneaut-lake-/617518504

Coverage in The Meadville Tribune:

• Woolly mammoth finds home at Conneaut Lake Beach
• Woolly mammoth sculpture to arrive at Fireman’s Beach Friday

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

The art galleries of Allegheny College will feature the work of graduating art majors and other upper-level art students Dec. 6–16. The exhibit will open with a reception from 7 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 6 in the galleries.

This semester’s graduating studio art majors are Brennen French, Melissa Lunz, and Benjamin Tarcson. French’s portfolio of sculptural works, “Stronger in the Broken Places,” is an evaluation of damage, focusing on finding one’s intrinsic beauty and self-worth after experiencing trauma. Lunz’s video work demonstrates how stressful influences, chaotic environments, and personal hardships help to create identity, order, and comfort. And Tarcson’s installation of painted television screens explores the blurred lines of politics and popular culture in Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency.

Other featured student artists include psychology majors Nadiya Wahl, Christina Ecker, and Alex Fawcett; studio art and environmental science major Madeleine Zimmermann; environmental science majors Margaret Stanger and Hannah Eisemann; environmental Studies major Emiranzala Kisyanto; studio art major Dave Ambroso; biochemistry major John Audley; history major Kevin McIntyre; and Rachel Greiff, an economics major. The show will also include works by Eliza Weisman.

The reception and the exhibit are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday 12:30–4 p.m.; Saturday, 1:30–5 p.m.; and Sunday, 2–4 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.

The Art Galleries, which are wheelchair accessible, are located in Doane Hall of Art, east of North Main Street between College and John Streets in Meadville. For more information, call (814) 332-4365 or visit https://sites.allegheny.edu/art/the-art-department/galleryexhibitions/.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Assistant Professor of Art Byron Rich spoke at the International Symposium on Electronic Art 2016 in Hong Kong about his collaborative project with Mary Tsang “Open Source Estrogen” in May 2016. From there he traveled to The Hague where he was a finalist for the Bio Art & Design Award.

Rich also spoke at Art Meets Radical Openness in Linz Austria in June 2016, then closed ExoEvolution, a group show at ZKM New Media Institute in Karlsruhe, Germany. He also was an invited speaker at The Waag Society in June 2016 in Amsterdam.

Finally, Rich was an artist-in-residence at MediaLab Prado in Madrid for Interactivos’16 during June 2016. In early July 2016, Rich was an invited speaker at Border Sessions in The Hague, Netherlands where he and Tsang introduced their research on “Open Source Estrogen.”

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Professor Emeritus of Art George Roland had a work of computational art accepted into the 93rd Spring Show at the Erie Art Museum. Juried by artist and educator Virgil Marti, the exhibition runs to July 17.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Professor Emeritus of Art George Roland had a work of computational art accepted into the 93rd Spring Show at the Erie Art Museum. Juried by artist and educator Virgil Marti, the exhibition runs to July 17.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Brianna Layman ’16 has been awarded a Three Rivers Pittsburgh Arts Festival Emerging Artist Scholarship, an award that includes a booth for her to showcase and sell her artwork at the annual arts festival. Brianna will be exhibiting her work June 3–7.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Brianna Layman ’16 has been awarded a Three Rivers Pittsburgh Arts Festival Emerging Artist Scholarship, an award that includes a booth for her to showcase and sell her artwork at the annual arts festival. Brianna will be exhibiting her work June 3–7.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Ceramics and Sculpture Technician Ian F. Thomas had artwork reviewed in the international magazine Ceramics Monthly by author and critic Dr. Glen Brown. Thomas’s artwork was a finalist in the Zanesville Prize for Contemporary Ceramics at the Zanesville Art Museum in Ohio. His work was one of fifty artworks that were chosen from more than 900 entries nationwide. He also has artwork in the Society for Contemporary Craft’s exhibition “Mindful: Exploring Mental Health through Art,” which is slated to travel for the next two years to museums and universities across the country. He also exhibited artwork in “Cup: The Intimate Object XI” at the Charlie Cummings Gallery in Gainesville, Florida. In addition, he had three written art reviews featured on eutopia.us, an online critical art website; presented a lecture on his research at Adrian College; and gave a technical workshop.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research