Abstracts for the Annual SECAC Meeting in Birmingham, Alabama October 17Th-20Th, 2018 Conference Chair, Jared Ragland, University of Alabama at Birmingham
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Abstracts for the Annual SECAC Meeting in Birmingham, Alabama October 17th-20th, 2018 Conference Chair, Jared Ragland, University of Alabama at Birmingham Mark Abbe, University of Georgia - Lamar Dodd School of Art Ancient Marbles on Biscayne Bay Overlooked and essentially unknown, the oldest intact historic collection of classical sculpture in the southeastern United States is at Villa Vizcaya, James Deering’s Italianate estate on Biscayne Bay, Miami, built between 1914–1922. This paper presents the preliminary results of new research on this collection of large-scale ancient Roman marble sculpture that includes free-standing statuary, furniture (table legs, candelabra), and sarcophagi, dating from the 1st century BCE to the early 5th century AD. The Villa’s archives allow the story of these antiquities—several with distinguished provenances, including the Borghese Archive and Stanford White—to be examined in great detail from their acquisition through prominent and well-documented antiquities dealers in Italy and New York to their historic display at Vizcaya by the estate’s designer Paul Chalfin (fl. 1905–1923). Chalfin creatively combined and thereby reformulated many of these works into larger site-specific ensembles such as fountains and garden ornaments. Perhaps more than any other artistic media, save for the architecture of Vizcaya itself, these antiquities framed the historic aesthetic experience of the estate and combined to form a composite vision of the “Classical.” Troy Abel, University of North Texas Stop Teaching Technology—Becoming Autodidactic: Strategies for Teaching UX and Design Tools This presentation explores several teaching strategies used to help students become self- learners (autodidactic) with regard to technology, specifically in User Experience (UX) and Visual Communication Design (Graphic Design) classrooms. Over the years it has become nearly impossible for design educators to keep on technological trend and teach the latest and greatest tools. Moreover, as design pedagogy begins either to incorporate, or create, new User Experience tracks in programs across the country, the issues of technology and software are becoming exceedingly important. The days of Adobe ruling the design software landscape are over—think Sketch, InVision, Proto.io, Principle, and the countless number of other apps being released into the design software marketplace. Workflows are constantly being redefined by new, innovative industry standards. Sketch is the new Illustrator, InVision Studio is the new Adobe XD, and probably by the time this abstract is printed a completely new set of tools may have emerged. Let’s stop teaching technology and start teaching critical thinking, problem solving, and resourcefulness skills to our students. Armed with these tools in their toolkit, students will be able to pivot, learn, and adapt in the ever-changing landscape we call design software. Brad Adams, Berry College Unauthorized Comprised of printouts of images of Hammons’s work rather than the work itself, Triple Candie’s UnAuthorized Retrospective of David Hammons (2006) provides a useful model for utilizing exhibitions in art classes at a small liberal arts college’s art gallery. Unauthorized imagines dynamic and meaningful ways to engage with students taking general education offerings to senior theses. Rather than students writing a formal analysis of an artwork on display for an introductory survey of art history course, they are instead asked to recontextualize the work on display in order to engage with a specific audience. Rather than a pre-thesis studio class mounting individual and discrete examples of their research, they are given free rein to rethink ways art is typically presented to an audience. The attitude of Triple Candie’s show could foster an exhibition that is more fluid than fixed, like the exhibition by frje Echeverria a few years ago. With work installed and gallery floor covered with tar paper, he maintained the routine he keeps at his home studio, except he would speak with gallery visitors if they were willing to engage with him. Work was created, rethought, rehung, and destroyed throughout the run of the show. Jaime Aelavanthara, University of Tampa Experimental Photography: The Magic When Past Meets Present This presentation shares examples and experiences teaching Experimental Photography, a studio course that introduces students to alternative photographic processes using various lens-based practices and equipment. Students experiment extensively with hybrid forms, using analog and digital methods to combine old and new techniques in innovative ways. This specifically includes examples of student projects in tri-color gum bichromate, cyanotype, liquid light, polaroid and digital transfers, among others. Chad Airhart, Carson-Newman University Expanding the Microcosm: My Art and the Issue of Competition vs. Cooperation In the context of a discussion about Airhart’s art, the issue of competition versus cooperation stimulates an autobiographical inner tension. On one hand, the goal is to create better compositions, which brings up what is the standard or the means in which to judge the outcome of his work. On the other hand, there are problems regarding the audience, social recognition, and the need to exhibit and sell the work. In both realms, there exist obstacles and supports; there are difficult egos and helping hands. Airhart’s approach combines gestural action painting with design modules inspired by the microcosmic world of ant colonies. A traditional and easy-to-accept mode of abstract painting encounters what many consider disturbing and absurd. For an art history professor, exhibitions and art sales do not align with scholarly papers and peer-reviewed publications. For most administrators and professors in the ivory towers of the university, Airhart’s exhibition accomplishments seem to ignore the pre- existence of disciplinary models. This presentation explores the tension between these aesthetic and practical issues with a goal to create a new strategy embracing the forces of both competition and cooperation. Lisa Alembik, Georgia Southern University Instilling the Art Spirit Art making has been deeply extracted from our everyday lives, mined out of our natural way of being. The cover-up of our creativity begins at a young age—as soon as schools make the ill- fated decision that there is no time in the schedule and no money in the budget for the Arts. The Arts, hand-in-hand with creative thinking, can be integrated seamlessly into the everyday lesson plan and learning process for youngsters through college students. Even better, much inspiration and interest can come from all groups—including students who are further along in their program, mentoring their younger counterparts. College students recognize the importance of outreach to new learners, especially after they themselves experience it firsthand. How the other’s own presence can alter the dynamics can be immediate. As a curator, a professor, an artist and a mother, Alembik has organized lesson plans to engage students in a larger concept. For this panel, she discusses what she has done and touches on the vibrant arts for children in the city of Atlanta. Brooke Alexander, The University of Mississippi Borrower or Thief? “Borrowing of all sorts,” as described in the call for this paper, is an intriguing phrase and sets Alexander’s mind wandering in all directions. Everyone has their own opinion of what constitutes borrowing and what crosses the line into theft. Alexander explores her own definitions of borrowing and appropriation, discussing where she walks and deliberates back and forth between the lines of borrowed and stolen. Alexander’s paintings are greatly inspired by literature. She uses writers’ imagery, yet their images live in spaces where the rules are even vaguer than in some visual art, for they do not deal in physical images. They use words to paint pictures in the mind. Are those images, created from their black and white words, Alexander’s or theirs? She also studies the structure of novels and poetry and builds her paintings using writers’ and poets’ methods of arrangement. There is no way Alexander can give them credit within the painting without straying into the realm of illustration, which is impossible because her paintings are not illustrations. Is there a concrete answer on how to classify such actions, or must we all decide within ourselves if we be thieves or not? Asia Allen, Millsaps College The Portrait of “Dido”: Belle and Other Black Figures in the 18th Century The black identity throughout art has been and still is muddled by the superiority and dominant control of the white European and American perspective. The black presence in most 18th and 19th century paintings is merely as an accessory to accentuate popular visual ideals that symbolize power and superiority in the wealthy white majority. But there are questionable mysteries that go against this common trope painted by most white artists. This paper uncovers the only portrait in existence of Elizabeth “Dido” Belle, a black woman associated with European aristocracy. Allen compares this uncommon portrait to the usual depictions of blacks of that same century, and why Belle was an exception. Allen deciphers Belle’s story and legacy by how she is painted differently from those who look most like her. Kasie Alt, Georgia Southern University Manifesting Fiction in the Landscape: The Mithraic Altar at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire In the 18th century, an