Faculty, staff, students and other guests engage in the artworks as they converse about their perspective on them.
London Taylor/The Lion's Roar 

The opening reception of the 2017 Fine & Performing Arts Faculty Exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery was supported by multiple students wanting to see their professors’ and other faculties’ artworks.

The opening reception of the exhibition was held on Jan. 19 at 5 p.m. Even though the weather called for rain, the areas of the gallery still filled up. Director of the Fine and Performing  Arts Department Dale Newkirk,  described how certain faculties have the opportunities to be in the annual exhibition.

“All the faculties show individual art plus design area of the department,” said Newkirk. “If they are a professor of the department, then they’re in the show.”

Newkirk believes that the importance of the exhibition is to show the students and others the work of the faculties.

“The point of the show is it shows students what the faculties are doing in their studios,” said Newkirk. “Because as a faculty at a university, you have an obligation to do research and the art. That’s creating art and showing it. Most of the faculties are showing nationally, and so students don’t necessarily get to see the work that they’re engaged in. So, every year we have the show so they can see what the faculties’ work look like, which you know can affect the work they’re doing in the classroom as well.”

One of the main visited artworks was called “Dammit” by Jeff Mickey. It is a wall piece that has levers that activates the strings to rotate items. Varian Terrin, a sophomore marketing and advertising major mentioned why she visited the art gallery and shared thoughts on her favorite artwork there.

“I’m taking a minor in art, so I’m always interested in seeing what people do,” said Terrin. “It’s time to see what faculty does. My favorite piece is the one by Jeff Mickey because you can interact with it, and I’ve always liked interactive art.”

Newkirk mentioned what the audience should look forward to seeing from the artwork of the faculties as well as what he likes to see from their works.

“Well it’s a manual show,” said Newkirk. “So I always like to see how the faculty’s work has changed over the past year and what new thing they might be working on. “A lot of the faculty uses this as an opportunity to experiment with something because it’s kind of a safe arena so they could try some new things that they maybe wouldn’t normally try or show in their normal art gallery space. The audience is going to see a wide variety of artworks including sculptures, paintings, drawings, prints and video. This year we have a large display from the theatre faculty who teach in the theatre design program which is a new concentration for our students.”

Alumnus of the university, Taylor Hallclay described why he visited and which piece caught his interest.

“I was entertained by what some of our faculties have to offer especially given the fact that I kinda consider them masters and learning from them,” said Hallclay. “I was intrigued to see what their own personal styles were. I definitely enjoy seeing Jeff Mickey’s ‘Dammit’ piece because it’s a very tempting piece. It makes you just wanna crank the piece and see how everything moves at once.”

After the holiday break, faculty members returned to campus with an approaching deadline for turning in their works for the show.

“So after that, the work had to be laid out, the show had to be curetted, which has to do with how you experience the show in order of work in the space, the artwork had to be hung, a poster had to be designed, publicity had to be engaged in and scheduled labels had to be made and the whole process of designing and mounting an exhibition,” said Newkirk. “Art has to be hung.”

As described by Newkirk, most of the audiences for all of the shows are university students.

 “The next will be faculty and staff, but we also have a loyal segment of the population that comes to the exhibitions, maybe not at the opening but during the run of the show which are up for three to four weeks,” said Newkirk. “So during that time, there are supporters of the gallery and the community that come to the exhibition. There are also many class tours that come through from English classes, foreign language classes and art history classes all which use the exhibition as a vehicle for doing usually writing assignments.”

Nathaniel Britton, a freshman general studies major with a theatre concentration went to the gallery to see his professors Veronica Hallock, Georgia Polkey and Nicole Watts’ artwork. His favorite piece was “Opossum” because it wasn’t something he has seen a lot.

“It’s very contrasting with the black and red,” said Britton. “Opossums are usually hated because they’re dirty, but in this piece, they’re wrapped around very compassionate with the heart in the middle. It’s like it’s two sides to every story.”

During the Faculty Exhibition visitors saw artwork from various mediums and engaged my touching the work.
London Taylor/The Lion's Roar  

Students look around the Contemporary Art Gallery to see faculty members’ art pieces.
London Taylor/The Lion's Roar