Department of Art • Fall 2010 from Department Head, Ricki Klages
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Department of Art • Fall 2010 From Department Head, Ricki Klages As I draft this letter for our fall newsletter, the rst measurable snow of the year is falling. I Digging in... can appreciate this now after such a beautiful and warm fall. Our year has started with a series of celebrations. September 1st was the ground-breaking ceremony of the new Visual Arts building, next to the Centennial Complex. e reality of seeing actual heavy equipment pushing that red earth around still seems surreal after so many years of planning. It was also on this day that UW President Tom Buchanan announced the extraordinary gift by Neltje to the visual Breaking ground on the new UW Fine Arts Building: Ollie Walter, A & S Dean; Myron Allen, Provost; and creative writing arts, of her ranch and Chuck Brown, UW Trustee; Jim Neiman, UW Board of Trustees President; Governor Dave Freudenthal; artists’ residency in Banner, Wyoming. All UW President Tom Buchanan; Senator John Barrasso, Dick Davis, UW Trustee; Dave Bostrom, UW Trustee; the faculty in the Department of Art were Ricki Klages, Art Department Head; Mary Jane Edwards, former Art Department Head and Executive Director of the Jentel Foundation touched beyond words at this extraordinary gift. We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to work towards as we progress to the next stage of the Visual Arts Complex: moving in next fall and teaching classes in this new facility starting spring 2012. We are also in our third year with the Excellence Endowment shared with Music, eater and Dance. is endowment has enabled the department to bring in a series of artists and lecturers who are leaders in their elds. is fall we have had a total of eight visiting artists, including Art Historian David McCarthy, Metalsmith Susie Ganch, Graphic Designer Bill Gardner, Printmaker and Ceramist Paul Wandless, and artist couple Hunt Clark and Deborah McClary Clark for Painting and Sculpture among others. ere are a similar number scheduled for the coming spring. e bene ts to the Department of Art are many-fold for both the students and faculty. Looking to the future, we are currently in the ...building the future midst of a search for an Art Historian with an emphasis in 20th century art. We are so excited to add to our current o erings in Art History and create more breadth within this important part of our department. Kudos to all Department of Art faculty who continue to raise the bar in expectations for department service, teaching and superb research standards; and congratulations to Associate Professor of Sculpture Ashley Hope Carlisle, who received tenure last spring. Well deserved!! Artist’s rendition of the new Visual Arts Center, courtesy MBA/THA Architects Art Department News 2 Constructi on Begins on the New UW Fine Arts Center Ground was broken September 1, 2010 at the University of of large work. Studios will Wyoming for a new visual arts facility that will expand teaching have daylight or north light as space and provide additional rooms for student projects. appropriate for the medium being taught. e 79,000 square foot Visual Arts Center will “ e Department of Art is provide expanded teaching overjoyed at the prospect of studios and spaces for housing our entire department art history, ceramics, in one building that will drawing, foundations of accommodate an increasing art, graphics, painting, student enrollment, growth in printmaking, sculpture and studio areas, new technologies small metals. In addition and expanding programs,” says to the basic teaching Ricki Klages, head of the UW studios, the facility will Department of Art. “Our close provide administrative proximity to the Centennial o ces, a large student Complex will encourage more commons area, a gallery for cross-over of exhibitions, exhibiting students’ work visiting artists and students’ and to support the Visiting use of the collections. We Artists Program, and a hope that, once we are moved large lecture room for art Current and former Art Department Heads into the new building, we can Ricki Klages and Mary Jane Edwards at the classes and other programs. groundbreaking establish a hub of creativity that will draw visitors throughout Individual studio spaces and the state and attract even more o ces for faculty will supplement the teaching studios. e national and international art ceramics area will have an exterior workspace for large gas- red students.” Top: One of the shovels designed by UW kilns. e sculpture space will have an exterior workspace for Art students for groundbreaking ceremony. Bottom: A & S Dean Ollie Walter at the raw material storage, foundry for metal casting and construction groundbreaking ceremony UW Announces the Neltje Center for the Visual and Literary Arts University of Wyoming o cials have announced is realized, her home will become the heart of the that the university has received the largest estate UW Neltje Center for the Visual and Literary Arts, gift in its history, a bequest that will transform the a place to honor and showcase the contemporary university's role in the arts in Wyoming and across visual and literary arts and an educational facility for the United States. e estate gift is from Wyoming residencies, workshops, symposia, conferences, art artist, Neltje, a proli c abstract expressionist whose exhibitions and literary readings. works have been described as an "exploration of making the sensed visible." e gift includes all e Neltje Center will be open for UW activities nancial and land holdings save for those going related to the arts and also to the public for special to her children and a select few personal dona- events, conferences and celebrations. It will celebrate tions. Additionally, the gift includes a world-class an expansive, sophisticated awareness of the arts collection of contemporary, tribal and ethnic arts and includes both the literary arts as well as con- collected by Neltje over a lifetime of travel across temporary art. e gift includes a partnership with the globe. Jentel, a private foundation established by Neltje in 2000 that is located adjacent to her home. Jentel e gift will enhance the UW Art Museum and the provides on a working ranch a residency program university's visual and literary arts programs, and it for visual artists and writers from across the country. will enable UW to provide talented students with e foundation strives to protect the pristine natural once-in-a-lifetime arts education opportunities environment of the Piney Creek Valley. unmatched in the United States. When this gift Banner, Wyoming artist Neltje 3 Art Department News Across the Pond: Ricki Klages on the London Semester e London Semester is a competitive opportunity for UW faculty to live and teach in Central London and to interact with faculty from other universities across the US. I had to adapt my normal subject matter to the speci cs of the London environment, which meant adapting a studio course to a small classroom in the student Union of the University College, London. I also had the opportunity to teach a course I had never taught before, Art History 2020, Survey II. Although I was familiar with London from many other previous trips, teaching Art History allowed me to visit museums and galleries several times a week throughout the three months I was teaching. What an amazing gift to a visual artist! e support while I was there was impressive, and I was especially happy to be there with a colleague, Margaret Wilson, from eater and Dance. A record number 26 students from UW also attended. Left to Right: Ricki Klages at the Tower of London; Stonehenge; Millenium Bridge and St.Paul’s Cathedral; e Globe eater; e Houses of Parliament and Big Ben Round and Round: UW Fine Arts Bus is Ready to Roll A 58-passenger Motor Coach Industries bus is now designated Oliver Walter, dean of the UW College of Arts and Sciences, says as the Fine Arts bus that will extend UW cultural o ering across the vehicle strengthens UW's long-standing commitment to share Wyoming and beyond. its rich array of cultural assets. " e addition of the Fine Arts bus will greatly expand our ability to take student and faculty productions from three departments- Art, eatre/Dance and Music-around the state," Walter says. "Educationally, it is a wonderful opportunity for our students. Moreover, it will provide us with the ability to share with the state the great talents we have in these departments." e bus was decorated at Wyoming Technical Institute with graphic art designed by UW's Institutional Marketing personnel with input from faculty in the ne and performing arts. When it's not being used for ne and performing arts functions, the bus is also available e UW Fine Arts Bus Hits the Road for use by student organizations such as the debate team, club sports teams and other campus units for statewide and regional travel. Faculty News 4 Ricki Klages, Head, Department of Art, has a solo exhibition Jennifer Venn, Assistant Professor, was awarded the of her paintings at Western Wyoming Community College. e Outstanding Educator Award at the Art Directors Club of Denver exhibition, titled, “Memento” will be on exhibit from Oct. 4 Annual Student Show. through November 19th Venn was awarded an American Inhouse Design Award from ❄ GDUSA Magazine for her design work “InPro le”. Mark Ritchie, Professor, Department of Art has work included Venn’s design work “InPro le” was featured in the July/August Issue in the “2010 MAPC Member’s Exhibition”, Murphy Gallery, St. of GDUSA Magazine. 600 works were adjudicated for publication Catherine University, St. Paul, MN and in the portfolio.