THIS WEEK!!! Spring 2012 Interdisciplinary lecture series

The Art Department is pleased to present our Spring 2012 Interdisciplinary lecture series focusing on and inspired by the "Evidence of Aging" exhibit created by Marydorsey Wanless.  For your planning convenience we have divided the events into the following categories:

Thursday March 8:  Artist and Artwork Focus: Photography and Alternative Processes
6:30 - 7:30 pm:  Marydorsey Wanless
8:00 - 9:00 pm:  Rhona Shand: Art Department Chair

Friday March 9 : Spring 2012  Art Department Exhibition Interdisciplinary Lecture Series
Intended as an opportunity for a variety of perspectives related to issues that engage with the subject of aging, a variety of speakers will present their opinions through their diverse and wide-ranging areas of expertise and personal experience.

Biology of Aging  2:00 ˆ 3:15
Dr. Steve Ford: Biology Department
Dr. Xiaolu Wu: Biology Department
Psychology of Aging 3:30 ˆ 5: 45
Dr. Lynette Olson: Provost and Vice-President For Academic Affairs
Harry Krug: Professor Emeritus and former Art Department Chair
Dr. Sean Lauderdale: Psychology and Counseling Department
Dr. Harriet A. Bachner: Psychology and Counseling Department

Culture of Aging 6:00 ˆ 7:00
Yazeed Aldhwayan: International Student from Saudi Arabia.
Alheli Aranda Britez: International Student from Paraguay
Dr. Joey Pogue: Communications Department

Saturday March 10: 10:00 - Noon Family Art Morning
Meet at Porter Hall
Scavenger Hunt and Cyanotype photo workshop
Co-sponsored by the UAA (University Art Association), Student Activities Council,
Gorillas Out of Bounds, and the SAI Sigma Alpha Iota.

We invite you to participate in all or any part of the events listed.  Everyone is welcome and all events are free and open to the public.

Art Auction this week!

PATRICK'S PEOPLE: Pittsburg State is holding an art auction

Students, Art & Pizza

Department of Art students have been working hard over the past couple of months to give a fresh look to the Wheat State Pizza building that is adjacent to the PSU campus. The project is ongoing as students have patiently waited for optimal mural making weather in Kansas.  Their progress is visible to everyone who drives down the Broadway. We will also keep you posted at varies stages of the mural.

PSU Professor exhibits work in the Windy City

Pittsburg State University Professor Rhona Shand flew out to Chicago last week to attend the opening night of the MoCP's Limits of Photography exhibition. Shand had several pieces chosen by the Museum of Contemporary Photography's curator Rod Slemmons for the show.

Limits of Photography explores the area where the viewer loses faith in the veracity of photography. We have been confident since the beginning of widely published photographic images in the late 1920s that photographs are telling us something very truthful about the world. When publisher Henry Luce launched Life Magazine in 1936 he wrote a promotional ad:

To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things….to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed; thus to see and be shown is now the will and new expectancy of half mankind.

In the entire ad he uses the words “see,” or “watch,” or “eyewitness” 14 times. He does not use the word “photograph” when, in fact he means “see in photographs.” This confusion of sight and photography would become very useful to news magazines and to advertisers in them.
This confusion can be challenged when the photograph is manipulated to the point of where we lose our trust both in its identity as a photograph, and subsequently in its veracity as a document. A subtext of this exhibition is how long we can still identify a photograph as photograph, and the realization of how good we are at confusing photography with reality.
The exhibition contains a wide variety of contemporary mixed media, video, and technical alteration and manipulation. Some of these departures from photographic purity result in very minimal imagery and some in dense, intricate detail. Taken as a whole this work results in something more akin to a series of partially remembered dreams—reports as to what was behind rather than in front of the camera. Each artist, however, has their own purpose and goal. The limits of their medium is a tool rather than an agenda.

The exhibition title exploits a double meaning. The first is that many of the artists in the show push photography to the limits of recognizing it as photography. The second refers to the limitations encountered when we trust photography as if it were perception—as if it were a window rather than a flat, constructed surface. These two obviously play off against each other and provide good metaphoric possibilities for making art as well as for viewing. —Rod Slemmons, Curator at Large, Museum of Contemporary Photography

A New Welcome in the Art Office

Marty White

The Department of Art is pleased to announce that a new face will be greeting everyone who comes to Porter Hall. Marty has been appointed the new Administrative Specialist for the department. She will be filling the position left vacant since the retirement of Jolene Robinson last October. 

"We are excited to welcome Marty to the Department of Art family. Her prior work experiences in OIS and Financial Aid will be a great boon to both faculty and students. Marty has already done an excellent job transitioning into her new role. " - Rhona Shand, Department of Art Chair

Students use iPads in Art 434 Life Drawing Course

This spring the Office of the Provost provided funding for an iPad pilot project. Small classes that could demonstrate a unique way of impacting student learning were selected to use the iPads for the semester.  Department of Art faculty member, James Oliver's Life Drawing students were shocked to find out they would be receiving the iPad's to use for the semester.

" I was stunned that we would receive the opportunity to used them in an art class. My favorite reaction when we learned about it was from another student 'I must be dreaming'. The student then asked Jamie (James Oliver) to repeat the news."  - Carol Longman, student

Life Drawing student John Mesplay gets comfortable while learning how to drawing on the iPad.

First Day in Ceramics