Category: art

The long and winding road leads to here. Congratulations to all students, parents, friends and standers-by. For a much more eloquent rendering, I turn the blog over to Franklin College senior associate dean Hugh Ruppersburg, from his prepared remarks at the Lamar Dodd School of Art commencement and awards ceremony earlier this week:

I am pleased to be here to offer congratulations and best wishes to those of you who are marking your graduation today from the University of Georgia with a degree from the Lamar Dodd School of Art.  You’ve worked hard, you have much to be proud of, you ought to feel good.  I extend these wishes to your friends, your parents and spouses and partners and special others, and to everyone in general, because at the end of the year everyone deserves a hug and congratulations.

I have two very brief but important imperatiuves for you today.  First, use your love of art, your creative and scholarly abilities, to do good in the world.  Don’t go back to your studio or office after this ceremony and close the door.  You haven’t earned the right to do that.  What you have earned the right to do is to use your education and your training and talent to go out and improve your society, serve your fellow human being, and do good for this planet.  This is what art is for—it serves the higher needs of humankind.  And humankind, in this day and age, really needs some help. 

Second, take every opportunity you can find to promote--among your friends, your family, the people you work with, and anyone else you happen to run into--the value of the arts.  A recent report from the Wallace Foundation found three intrinsic benefits of the arts:  one is pleasure and captivation.  A second is personal growth “such as enhanced empathy for other people and cultures, powers of observation, and understanding of the world”—these “cultivate the kinds of citizens desired in a pluralistic society.”  The third benefit is the sense of “communal identity” that comes from thinking and talking about the arts, the “expression of common values and community identity” that come from artworks that commemorate events important to individual, group, or national experiences.  And this report does not even begin to touch on the economic values of the arts, or their impact in providing a meaningful quality of life in our community.  Here’s my report to you: The arts are not a luxury, a convenience, or a casual pastime.  They’re an essential part of our daily lives, of our private selves, of what it means to be human and civilized.  Be sure to share that message.

Congratulations, and my best wishes to you all.

Optional soundtrack.

This Friday April 26th, the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute inaugurates an interesting new juried exhibtion to bring attention to art and the natural environment:

"Reflections of the Latin American Natural Environment," a national juried exhibition of contemporary art, [will be on view] from April 22 to May 17 in its offices at 290 S. Hull St.

An artists' reception will be held April 26 from 4-6 p.m. in the UGA Latin American Ethnobotanical Garden behind Baldwin Hall on UGA's North Campus. The event is free and open to the public.

The exhibition's focus—on painting, drawing, textile, sculpture and photography—is designed to help the public develop an appreciation for Latin America's wealth of biological diversity and its variety of land, water and cultural resources.

This work will be for sale, so drop by LACSI during business hours and see what you might be able to add to your collection, an unusual opportunity to view works we might not see in Athens or at UGA.

It's a busy time of year but don't forget to get out and see some art! It's the season for BFA Exit Shows in the Lamar Dodd School of Art. The Photography, Printimaking and Sculpture show is up for a couple of more days. Next up: Painting and Drawing, Jewelry and Metals, Art X.

Image: poster of and by the sculpture students. See? Good work.

Tomorrow, Tuesday April 2, the Graduate School presents the 13th annual Mary Frances Early Lecture at 4 pm in the UGA Chapel.

The Speaker is Hank Klibanoff, a Pulitzer Prize winner and the James M. Cox, Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University.

In 2007, Klibanoff won the Pulitzer Prize in history for his book "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation." The book explores news coverage of civil rights from the 1930s through the late 1960s, particularly the impact of the black press, the Northern press, the Southern liberal and segregationist press, television and photojournalism.

The lecture honors Mary Frances Early, the first African American to earn a degree from UGA, and her legacy at the university. Early graduated with a master's degree in music education in 1962. She completed her specialist in education degree in 1967.

Also tomorrow afternoon is a Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture in the Lamar Dodd School of Art by Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the High Museum of Art Michael Rooks 5:30 pm in room S151 of the school of art.

Rooks is also Commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Prior to joining the High Museum in 2010, Rooks held curator positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, and the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

Both of the terrific events are free and open to the public.

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts presents a lecture by assistant professor of art Jon Swindler on Wednesday March 27 at 4 p.m. in room S150 of the lamar Dodd School of Art. The lecture, part of the 2012-23 Fellows Lecture Series in the Willson Center, is titled "This ≠ That: Mediation and Accumulation."

Swindler's talk will focus on
two recent printmaking-based
projects generated during an
artist residency in Venice, Italy.

A printmaker, Swindler is one of our great young art faculty members. And who among us doesn't love Venice? This should be good.

This year's Dodd Professorial Chair in the Lamar Dodd School of Art is the jeweler and metalsmith Lola Brooks. The school will present an exhibition of her new work, opening on Feb. 1 in Gallery 307:

The exhibition will include five to seven pieces installed alongside objects from the artist's many collections, including some 1/4 inch-scale furniture, all designed to shift the viewer's perception of scale and meaning.

"This is an opportunity to explore some ideas about shifting meaning through perception of scale and context using display," Brooks said, "and is probably partially a result of the psychological and physical space that opened for me by moving here.

"I make large, outsized jewelry to begin with, but I'm interested how the pieces become a little more heroic or ridiculous on these diminutively scaled antique salesman samples."

Brooks is a tremendous artist and teacher, and her time at LDSOA - continuing through the spring semester - has been mutually beneficial. Our students are fortunate to spend time and interact with an artist of her caliber and intellect. Her work is a treat - a compelling take on 'jewelry as art' that is refreshing and enlightening.

Image: "Bubblepearls," by Lola Brooks

"Landscape for the Night," a kinetic sculpture by LDSOA associate professor Martijn van Wagtendonk, is featured on the front page of the Athens Banner Herald today.

It's a great work, a terrific notice for one of our very talented faculty members, a great show and the second time in several days that art work related the Lamar Dodd School of Art has been above the fold on the front page of the local paper.

Substantive, good news - not "good" but good - on the front page of a small town paper is positive in a number of ways, not the least of which is that it reinforces the high impact the arts have on campus and in the town of Athens. "Landscape...," for example is sophisticated work by a Dutch artist living in Athens, highly celebrated elsewhere, and so raises the tenor of an already-formidable arts scene here that makes our local quite international. 

These kinds of stories also support the case for the arts as an economic development tool at least as well any article dedicated to talking about such a proposition. It's the old saw - show, don't tell. Good job, ABH.

Image: Athens Banner Herald photo by Richard Hamm.

Hugh Hodgson School of Music graduate Richard Gnann (BMus, MMEd) is the author of Dreaming of the Redcoat Band, the true story of one child’s Bulldog dream — to march in Sanford Stadium with the University of Georgia Redcoat Band. The story personifies the Redcoat Marching Band legacy and experience for the hundreds of Franklin and UGA students who have comprised its ranks over the years. The book inspires children to follow their dreams and inspires parents to encourage childhood dreams. It is also an opportunity to support the band, as all profits generated from the book will be donated to the Redcoat Band.  

Gnann will be doing a guest storytime at Avid Books in Athens on Prince Avenue this Saturday, Dec. 8 at 1 pm.

Image: sample of artwork from the book (by Art Roche, Lamar Dodd School of Art BFA graduate).

Student work from the school of art is on sale today from until 5 p.m., get your original pottery and jewelry from the hands that made it:

The Ceramics Student Organization, the student group for ceramics majors, and the Phi Beata Heata, the student organization for jewelry and metalwork majors are holding two different art sales at the same time to raise money for their separate student groups.
Half of the proceeds from the pottery sold will go to help the members of the Ceramics Student Organization attend the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference this year. The other half will go straight to the students who made the art.
Thirty percent of the money earned from the jewelry and metalwork sale will go toward keeping the art rooms supplied with equipment and supplies, and the rest of the money earned will go to the student artists selling their work.

Support for the programs, a chance for the students to offer their work to the public and unique gifts for your family. Great for everyone.

Associate professor of art and chair of Art X: Expanded Forms, Martijn van Wagtendonk will present his Willson Center lecture on Thursday, Nov.15 at 4 p.m. in room 248 of the Miller Learning Center. His lecture will focus on his kinetic sculptural installation, Song of Lift: