Truman State University Art Department

Happy Summer!

Photo Credit:  Tim Barcus (Campus Photographer)

The Art Department blog is on break until classes resume in late August...enjoy the summer, everyone, and be sure to check back again later in the summer to find out what's going on in Art at Truman!

Students check out art in Des Moines

Photo Credit:  John Bohac

Last month Prof. John Bohac took a group of Art students to Des Moines, Iowa to visit three great art sites:  the Des Moines Art Center, the John & Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park, and Creative Coldsnow (art supplies).  The group is pictured above outside the Des Moines Art Center.

Art History Alumna Traveling Europe

We recently heard from alumna Ruby Jenkins (Art History, 2011) who also sent us the great picture above.  Ruby is working this year for Travel for Teens (www.travelforteens.com)  traveling all over the United States doing camp fairs, school visits, and home visits talking to people about Travel for Teens;  this summer, she will return to the work she has done for the past few years leading trips abroad for teens from the States.  The picture above shows Ruby (in yellow) at the top of Giotto's bell tower in Florence, looking towards Brunelleschi's famous dome for Florence's cathedral.  Great news and happy trails!

More alumni news!

Congratulations to Art History alumna Jaime Chambers who just let us know that she has been accepted to be a Peace Corps volunteer.  Jaime just found out that she will be working as a secondary-level teacher of English in the Republic of Malawi in southeastern Africa.  Congratulations, Jaime!

If you are an alum and have news for us, we'd love to hear from you!  Please drop us an e-mail at art@truman.edu. 

Art History Alumna in Rome!

Photo Credit:  Nick Cloud

We just recently heard from and received this picture from Art Department alumna Jasmine (Fry) Cloud (BA Art History 2005).  She had this to say about her time at Truman State University:

"As for Truman, how I loved it!  I graduated in 2005 with the last name Fry.  When I began graduate school, I found that Truman had prepared me exceptionally well for further study, which I didn't quite realize while I was a student there.  The guidance of the art history faculty prepared me both for coursework and for the writing of a Masters thesis, and now a Ph.D. dissertation.  The engagement in the classroom which Truman professors encouraged also put me ahead of many of my peers for graduate seminars.  I believe that much of my success in graduate school can be attributed directly to the preparation which I received at Truman."

Jasmine earned an MA in Art History, in the Italian Renaissance, from the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a currently PhD candidate at Temple University also in Italian Renaissance art.  Last spring, she was offered two prestigious research grants in Art History:  the Samuel H. Kress Foundation's History of Art: Institutional Fellowship that includes residency at the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome and a Fulbright doctoral research fellowship to Italy.  Unable by fellowship guidelines to accept both, she ultimately chose to take up the Kress Foundation residency in Rome;  she, her husband, and their two cats moved to Rome this past fall and are settling in and working well!

Her dissertation's title is "Renovation in the Campo Vaccino: The Churches on the Roman Forum from Clement VIII to Alexander VII."  Here is a brief description of her project:  "The study considers the historical resonance of the site for the post-Trent Catholic Church as manifested through a series of renovations of the churches of the Forum.  It also considers the site as part of the greater environment of Rome.  Several popes of the seventeenth century revitalized the city through urbanistic projects and reclaimed areas of the disabitato, of which the Forum is an example, for the modern city of Rome."

Two of Jasmine's articles will be published sometime in the coming year:

“From Cattle Market to Public Promenade: Remaking the Forum in the Seventeenth Century.”  In Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day, eds. Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne.  Ashgate, forthcoming 2012.

 “A Shifting Sense of the Past: The Changing Interpretation of the Byzantine Spolia at the Basilica of San Marco.”  In Venice in the Renaissance: Essays in Honor of Patricia Fortini Brown, eds. Blake De Maria and Mary Frank.  Five Continents/Abrams, forthcoming August 2012.

If you are an alum of the Art Department and have news to share with us, please e-mail us at art@truman.edu!   

 

 

Photography by Prof. Matt Derezinski in international show

Matt Derezinski, Winter's Night, 2010

Congratulations to Prof. Derezinski (Visual Communications)!  He just had photographs juried into an exhibition in Mexico entitled "Crossing Identities".  The show, organized by International ArtExpo and curated by Italian artist Luca Curci, focuses on works that explore the fluidity of identity in contemporary society.  Congratulations!

Congratulations to Prof. Wilbur!

Photo credit:  Wynne Wilbur

Congratulations to Art (Studio:  Ceramics) faculty member Prof. Wynne Wilbur who was just awarded a competitive sabbatical leave for the 2012-13 academic year!  Prof. Wilbur applied to have leave for the year to travel to The Pottery Workshop in Jingdezhen, China, and then to return to the States where she will plan, design, and create a new body of ceramic artwork based on her experience in Asia.  Located in the eastern portion of China, Jingdezhen has been known as a center for ceramic production, in particular porcelain, for almost 2,000 years.

 

Happy Thanksgiving (and feasting)

Photo Credit:  Sara Orel

Last year for Thanksgiving break we featured a picture of luxurious ceramic serving vessels;  this year, again thinking of feasting and celebration, and again from Dr. Sara Orel, a picture from one of her study abroad trips to Cairo in Egypt.  The picture, taken after a huge feast on a boat sailing along the Nile, shows a then-Truman student (now alumna) dancing with two of the trip's taxi drivers.

For more on Dr. Orel's work in Egyptology and travels to Egypt, see this week's great feature on her in Truman's award-winning student newspaper, The Index.

For now, have a happy Thanksgiving and visit us again here at the Art blog after Thanksgiving break for news about Gallery openings, etc.

Ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom mastaba (tomb) from Saqqara showing food offerings being brought to the tomb owner;  the basket includes figs.  Photo Credit:  Sara Orel

Study Abroad and Internships in China!

Students and faculty at the Great Wall in China.  All Photos:  Ping Xu.

This past summer, Art Department faculty member Prof. Ping Xu (Visual Communication), together with Prof. Julie Minn (Classical and Modern Languages, Chinese), took a group of c. eighteen Truman State University students to China for seven weeks;  seven of the students were Visual Communications majors.  Students were in both Beijing and Shanghai.

While in Shanghai, the Vis Comm majors conducted a five-week internship at the top-ten ranked advertising agency, TBWA.

Students also visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and Pingyao, a 3000-year old ancient town in Shanxi province in addition to many other sites;  they also saw the famous ancient terra cotta warriors of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.

Students and faculty at the Forbidden City, Beijing.

British Archaeologist to Speak on Campus

 
copyright the Berber-Abidiya Archaeological Project

Dr. Julie R. Anderson, Assistant Keeper of Ancient Sudan and Egyptian Nubia at The British Museum in London, one of the leading museums in the world, will give a public lecture titled "Black Pharaohs and Porridge: A Nubian temple on the middle Nile reveals its secrets.”  The talk will be on Tuesday, September 20th at 6:00 p.m. in OP 2210.  The talk and related events have been arranged by Dr. Sara Orel (Professor of Art/Art History, orel@truman.edu).

The image above shows a sculpture of the head of Aspelta, king of Kush (northern Sudan, c. 600-580 BCE) which was found during Dr. Anderson's excavations in the the Sudan.