Art + Design Department News

Fall 2009

Nine MSU Design Students: Loren GRIGGS, Daniel ZENDER, Ashley KELSEY, Mackenzie MOORE, Jesse NICKLES, Rachel OGLESBY, Alex SANDERS, Kelsey STEFFES, Laura SCHMALTZ for being selected as finalists in the Skopje International Poster Competition!
http://www.skopjeposter.com/index.html

posted November 18

The World Biennial of Student Photography, organized by the University of Novi Sad and the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, is open to all undergraduate and graduate students of academies and colleges where the discipline of photography is a part of the curriculum.
http://www.studentbiennial-ns.com/2009/html/regulations2009.html

All photography students from the department that chose to enter had at least one piece accepted into the show. Prizes for the top awards have not yet been posted.

posted November 18

Art + Design Assisantant Professor, Jacek Fraczak, was awarded the Founder's Award at the 2009 Viewpoint  41st National Juried Art Competition organized by the Cincinnati Art Club, Ohio.

Competition results: http://www.cincinnatiartclub.com/2294.html

posted November 17

2009 MSU Juried Student Art Exhibition
Hosted by the Art Club

Guest Juror, Brad Noble

Winners

1- Hillary E. Croan

2- Jenny Busch

3- Caleb Knodell

Honorable mention:  

- Vivian Wheeler
                              
- Ben Divin

posted November 16

Patsy Cox, Ceramics BFA 1995 and Associate Professor of Art and Design at Cal State University-Northridge will have her sculptural installation work featured in the November, 2009, issue of Ceramics Monthly magazine, one of the major periodicals in the ceramics field.

posted October 26

Zachary Tate, BFA Ceramics 2007, has been accepted to receive an assistantship in the Artist-in-Residence program at Guldagergaard International Ceramics Research Center in Denmark. He will work assisting resident artists, work on his own creative work and present a public lecture. He will be travelling to Denmark to work during January and February, 2010.

Zach is also exhibiting his creative work in a solo show this October and November at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois.

posted October 23

Art History major Rachel Aubuchon will give a public presentation of her research on controversies in the museum world for the November First Thursday Art Talk at the Park Central Branch Library in the Springfield town square.  The talk will take place on Thursday, November 5th at 7:00 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer session.

Aubuchon's talk will expand upon her presentation at the annual intercollegiate Art History Symposium 2009, a competitive symposium coordinated by Dr. Catherine Jolivette, Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Missouri State. 

The public presentations on Art History at the Park Central Branch Library have been coordinated by Dr. Billie Follensbee, Department of Art and Design at Missouri State; Jordan Gloyd, Park Central Branch Library; and Aleah Weltha, Park Central Branch Library.

posted October 7

News of recent activities by ceramics alumni

Dryden Wells, BFA Ceramics 2004, recently had his sculptural work printed in the book
500 Ceramic Sculptures, published by Lark Books, Asheville, North Carolina, in spring of 2009.

Tybre Newcomer, BFA Ceramics 2005, will be teaching ceramics this year (2009-10) at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY as a Visiting Assistant Professor.

Nate Falter, BFA Ceramics 1995, recently had his work printed in the book
500 Pitchers, published by Lark Books, Asheville, North Carolina. He also was involved in the following art exhibitions and events: American Craft Exposition (2009), Cherry Creek in Denver, Colorado (2008), Saint Louis Art Fair (2008), Philadelphia Art Museum Show (2008).

Jen Falter, BFA 1996, recently had her work printed in the book 500 Plates, published by Lark Books, Asheville, North Carolina. She also was involved in the following art exhibitions and events: American Craft Exposition (2009), Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City (2009) and Washington Craft Exposition (2009).

Patsy Cox, BFA 1995 and Associate Professor of Art and Design at Cal State University-Northridge, recently was invited to exhibit her installation work in the group show “On the Verge- Contemporary Ceramics” at the Ulrich Museum of Art at Wichita State University.

Rebecca Ruige Xu presents at SIGGRAPH Information Aesthetics Showcase

Rebecca Ruige Xu, Associate Professor of Electronic Arts,  recently exhibited her project, “Out of Statistics: Beyond Legal” in the Information Aesthetics Showcase at the SIGGRAPH 2009 conference in New Orleans, LA. Her project consists of a series of abstract drawings based on US crime statistics as archival-ink digital prints on rice paper. Each image represents the crime status in one of the states, with the seven most significant crime-conviction statistics of each state embedded.
 
SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) is the annual international conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. It is attended by tens of thousands of researchers, artists, developers, filmmakers, scientists, and other professionals who share an interest in computer graphics and interactive techniques. SIGGRAPH is widely considered the most prestigious forum for the publication of computer graphics research.

posted September 18

Fantastic news about the success of one of our B.A.s in Art History!

Heather Nelson, who earned her B.A. in Art History from the Department of Art and Design in 2007, has accepted a position as Collections Project Manager and Manager of Interns at the The Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School Pine Ridge, South Dakota.  
Heather was selected to be an intern for the competitive 2009 Museum Internship Program at The Heritage Center earlier this year.  The position of Manager of Interns is a promotion within this program, while the position as Collections Project Manager is a professional position that extends through July 2010.
Currently completing her MA thesis in Museum Studies at Seton Hall University, Heather was among the first graduates of the Art History B.A. program that was established in the Department of Art and Design in 2005.  Her area of concentration as an undergraduate and in her graduate studies is the Art of the Americas.

redcloudindianschool.org/museum

posted September 18

First Thursday Art Talk Thursdays, 7p.m. Informative discussions on an aspect of archaeology or art history are given by advanced students from Missouri State University.

• September 3: Kristen Wiley, art history major, presents "Jasper Johns".
• November 5: Rachel Aubuchon, art history major, presents "Controversies in Musuems".

posted August 31

Summer 2009

Dr. Billie Follensbee Presents at Prestigious International Conference
Dr. Billie Follensbee, Associate Professor of Art History, presented her paper, "Why It's Essential Not to Essentialize: Analyzing the Varied Roles of Female Figures in Olmec and Olmec-Related Sculpture," in the symposium "Iconography of the Gulf Coast" at the prestigious 53rd International Congress of Americanists (ICA) in Mexico City, July 19-24, 2009. Her presentation derives from her research on women’s roles and status in Ancient Mesoamerica. The ICA holds the longest interdisciplinary tradition of studies on the Americas, having been convened uninterruptedly since 1875 when the first conference was held in Nancy, France. Since 1895, the ICA has been held every three years in a different major international city. Reference.

Sculpture has moved downtown to Brick City, 215 W Mill Street just northwest of the square.

Heather Nelson, BA 2007, has been awarded the competitive 2009 Museum Internship at the Heritage Center at Red Cloud Indian School, Pine Ridge, South Dakota. In this exclusive internship program, Heather will receive training in the day-to-day work of managing the collections. Through work with current collections and new accessions cataloging, she will learn the basic techniques and materials used to move, handle, number, and shelve the collections. She will also receive training in completing condition reports, documenting collections through digital, slide and 35mm photography, and adding records to the collection’s database. One of the first graduates of the Art History BA program established in 2005 by the Department of Art and Design, Heather is currently writing her thesis for her MA in Museum Studies at Seton Hall University. Heather’s area of emphasis as an undergraduate and in her graduate program is art of the Americas.

posted July 28

CMYK Magazine chose Missouri State student, Michael Ragsdale, and Missouri State Instructor, Eric Pervukin, as winners whose work will appear in the Illustration section of CMYK Magazine Vol. 44.

ILLUSTRATION WINNERS - CMYK Magazine Vol. #44
Merzbow CD cover
Michael Ragsdale, illustrator
Eric Pervukhin, instructor
Missouri State University (Springfield, Mo.)

posted June 23

Spring 2009

The Spring 2009 issue of Southern Cultures featured 17 of Bruce West's photographs in a photo essay entitled
"Take Time to Appreciate". The shown image of one of his photographs, "Sonnyboy's Grave, MS", was used as the cover image (He believes that this issue is the first time that a color photograph was used as a cover image). Southern Cultures, published by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is one of the premier scholarly journals dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the South. Two of West's color photographs from MS were also recently published as cover images (front and back) for Michael Burn's new book, For From About James T. Whitehead, published by Moon City Press. Twelve of his B&W landscape images are also included in this publication.

Keith Ekstam, Professor of Ceramics, is exhibiting his ceramic sculpture in the following exhibitions in the spring of 2009:

• One Plus One, Terra Incognito Gallery, Oak Park, IL. National juried show
• 43rd Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture and Exhibition, Delmar College, Corpus Christi, TX.
  Sculpture purchased for the Cain Art Gallery permanent collection.
• 20" X 20" Compact National Exhibition, LSU Union Art Gallery, Baton Rouge

He also had his sculptureal work printed in the following publications in spring 2009:

• 500 Ceramic Sculptures, Lark Books, Asheville, North Carolina
• Creating Ceramic Art, catalog publisher: Taiwan National University of the Arts.

Student Senior Exhibitions in addition to the Art + Design Gallery and Student Exhibition Center shows:

Brick City Gallery, located 215 W Mill Street, will have additional exhibitions of work by students completing requirements for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree May 1 - 12. Exhibiting will be Michael Bishop, Brandon Bullette, Nathan Judah, Lauren Lane, Laura Mallett, and Anthony Rich.

The Creamery Arts Center, 411 N Sherman Parkway, will also be hosting senior exhibitions of work by students completing their BFA May 1 from 6 - 10 pm. Exhibiting will be Carrie Iggulden, Sarah Jackson, and Tracy Link.

Posted April 30

The Student Exhibition Center, located at the intersection of John Q. Hammons Parkway and Walnut Street on 838 E Walnut, will be holding an award ritual for the Art + Design 2009 - 2010 scholarship winners at 7 pm. Please join us in congratulating them~

Sean Lyman showing one of his drawings at the Nice/Nice Exhibiton Space in Hannover, Germany that opened April 18th.

Former MSU ceramics student, Tybre Newcomer (BFA 2004) recently graduted from the Rochester Institute of Technology in N.Y. with his MFA. He has been engaged in several art related activities since gaining his MFA.

Tybre is currently working at State University of New York - New Paltz as the Instructional Support Technician (Studio Technician) for the Art Department.

He also continues to work withthe well-known artists, the Starn twins, assisting them in constructing their bamboo sculptures. This summer he will be presenting a workshop at the Clay Arts Center in Port Chester, N.Y. on cold finishing techniques. And Hot Rod Magazine is doing a short write up on his artwork in their July or August issue. See Tybre's work at tybrenewcomer.com.

Posted April 21

Recent MSU ceramics student Zach Tate is spending the spring semester of 2009 as a resident visiting ceramic artist at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan. This is part of the on-going exchange between MSU's ceramics and metals/jewelry areas and TNNUA's Graduate Institue of Applied Arts (see information on Fang-Yi Chen in other news secton).

Zach has also been exhibiting his work, most recently in the University of Dallas' Regional Ceramics Competition, where he was an award winner, and in the national exhibitions "Feats of Clay" in California and "1 Plus 1" in Oak Park, Illinois.

Zach posing next to one of Keith Ekstam's sculptures in Taipei

Laurie Marshall, MSU Fall 2008 Metals/Jewelry graduate, is also spending her spring at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan as a visiting metals/jewelry artist.
Posted April 21

Laurie, Colombian exchange student, and metals graduate students from TNNUA.

Lauren Abrams, who was the first metals student resident at Tainan National University of the Arts in Taiwan, has just been admitted to the graduate program in Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth Univerisity. She will teach begining metals and enameling as a graduate assistant.
Posted April 29

One Plus One: A Human Network, an Electronic Arts student project, won first place (out of 871 entries) for Long Form Documentary at the 2009 Broadcast Education Association Festival of Media Arts held in Las Vegas, NV. The festival was held in conjunction with the National Association of Broadcasters Convention. The film looks at micro-financing in Africa as a new model for sustainable humanitarian aid. The film, screened at The Moxie Cinema in Springfield, is now showing around the country.

The project was created by EA students: Sid McGregor/Director, Gloria Cohen/producer/audio designer, Alan Scherry/cinematographer, Brian Mehrens/animation/camera operator, Amanda Hunsucker/camera operator and Kalinka Georgieva/multimedia/web developer. "All of these students worked for over a year on the project," said Mark Biggs, EA Program Coordinator. "All of them traveled to Africa for three weeks over the 2007-2008 winter break, and all of them contributed greatly to the success of the project."

Production of this film took fifteen months and required a large amount of commitment, dedication and vision, according to McGregor. "We are all connected, and the more we realize that fact and the more we realize that what we do really does affect the way others live, a real change can happen and the world will become a more peaceful place, a more humane place - one person at a time."

Natasha Montgomery, a senior in the Photgraphy program, received a Student Award to attend the National Society for Photographic Education conference in Dallas, Texas in March 2009. She also received a Midwest Society for Photopraphic Education travel scholarship. Natasha submitted a portfolio application and was seleted from hundreds of applicants for these two prestigious awards.

Jealous by Natasha Montgomery

other news