INDIANA UNIVERSITY–PURDUE UNIVERSITY FORT WAYNE www.ipfw.edu/vpa A PUBLICATION OF THE IPFW COLLEGE OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS SPRING 2008 Wherefore Art Thou, Shakespeare? eave it to Cole Porter to coin a lyric that Shakespeare titled Brush Up Shakespeare’s Lwould connect everyone who ever attended a Your Shakespeare. Everyday Idioms high school English class: “Brush Up Your The 50-minute theatrical ■ See back Shakespeare.” Being introduced to Shakespeare in presentation is perfect for cover high school is one of the threads most of us have audiences of approximately in common. And now, the IPFW 120 high school students. The troupe will perform Department of Theatre wants on stages, in cafeterias, and in libraries. According to enhance to John O’Connell, chair of the Department of that experience for Theatre and the director of Brush Up Your hundreds of high school Shakespeare, the department has 17 different tour students throughout dates available and there is still opportunity for northeast Indiana. schools to sign up. Starting in February, four Written by Tina Fitch, Brush Up Your Shakespeare IPFW theatre majors will be is filled with scenes from Romeo and Juliet, A touring high schools, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, and Macbeth presenting a wild and is interspersed with historical (or hysterical) romp through the dialogue that reminds the audience that land of Shakespeare was a regular guy who wrote for the masses. During the 1600s, not even bear-baiting and public executions were more popular than Shakespeare. For only a penny, the average Elizabethan “Joe” could pay to stand in the Globe ▲ Brush Up Your Theatre and enjoy all of the blood, gore, bawdiness, Shakespeare and history that The Bard could dish out. players are (back row, (left to right) “We want to fill every available tour date throughout Josh Loe and Aaron Mann the spring, but to do that we need to hear from the and (front row, different high schools.” O’Connell said. “We want (left to right) Stephanie principals, English teachers, and drama clubs to call Vanderwall us for a free booking while there’s availability.” and Breona Conrad. In Brush Up Your Shakespeare, O’Connell uses rap continued on back/Shakespeare incandescent. I think that it was his classes that made it Fred Fenster: clear to me that metalsmithing was the route I, too, Prolific and would take. Fenster was prolific and always busy, creating silver Incandescent hollowware objects and many hollow form pieces in pewter that will be featured in the upcoming exhibition By Robert F. Schroeder Exhibition Curator of Fenster’s work at the IPFW Visual Arts Gallery Feb. Student. Teacher. Artist. Mentor. One person can and 4–29, 2008. has fulfilled these roles for others as relationships grow, change, and evolve. Fenster’s attraction to pewter began in the late 1950s when he was a graduate student at the Cranbrook ▲ Fred Fenster is such a person. I Fred Fenster | Teapot, 1998 | pewter, 10 x 10 x 4 inches IPFW Exhibition Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. He observed first met Fenster during fall 1974 and Workshop other students working the metal in a way that reminded any other copper alloy. Treating pewter like clay, Fenster Information while a college sophomore at worked fast and hard completing 24 works of the University of Wisconsin– him of the ceramic process. He decided to learn all he ■ See page hollowware and more than 40 jewelry pieces for his could about this malleable metal for his thesis, which was 10 Madison. As an artist and thesis exhibition in only two years. teacher, Fenster was more spontaneous and forgiving than silver, copper, or continued on back/Fenster Contents Revelations Through the Lens Elizabeth Opalenik is a photographic artist Elizabeth who believes that all good photographs are self- Community Arts Academy Opalenik: enriching youth, p2 portraits that lie somewhere between imagination and dreams. Poetic Grace Fine Art Photographer, Educator and Lecturer Opalenik uses photography to facilitate the healing New faculty join VPA, p3 process for women with cancer and artists dealing April 14–16: Opalenik will visit IPFW on April 14–16, with life issues. She uses the creative process as a prior to her upcoming gallery ▲ Elizabeth Opalenik’s “Angel's Trumpet,” 1998 Students create life-size sculptures, p5 tool for revealing inner thoughts, discovering new opening at David Weinberg Gallery in Chicago which Polaroid sx 70 direction, and finding the beauty and strength within opens on April 18. She will manipulation, archival each participant. be conducting a photography pigment print Our students and alumni excel, p8 workshop with IPFW photography When a woman is battling cancer, struggling with majors and will present a public lecture on her work on April 15. Copies of her recently self-published chemotherapy and radiation, one of the first things monograph of images entitled Poetic Grace, Elizabeth Dozens of exciting events slated to take a huge blow is her self-image. If only Opalenik Photographs 1979-2007 will be available for for spring, p10 women could take a picture of the people they are purchase. inside as they’re working through their struggles: a Elizabeth Opalenik Lecture, April 15, 6 p.m. picture of themselves as the fighter, the spiritualist, Science Building, Room 168 Interim Dean reflects on the last the survivor. 21 years, p11 foundation’s healing program is two-fold, composed As a coach and leader with the F. Holland Day of spirituality and creativity. Artistic activities provide Foundation for Creativity and Healing, Opalenik is a participants with an understanding of their capacity photographer who helps women do just that. And as to invent and to manifest possibilities for change and a photographic educator in her popular class titled acceptance on paper, in verse, in song, through a Imaginations and Dreams, she helps artists to move lens, or by other means. ahead creatively. From her earliest days doing advertising and The F. Holland Day Foundation holds regular retreats for people dealing with cancer at its editorial assignments, Opalenik was known for the beautiful lodge on the coast of Maine. The sense of poetic grace and movement that she brought to her images. Today, her voice is primarily that of a fine art photographer, educator, VPA Visions is a publication of the College of and lecturer. Visual and Performing Arts at Indiana A denizen of the darkroom, she creates many one- University–Purdue University Fort Wayne. of-a-kind images in the Mordançage process—hand painting, toning, and working with Polaroid and As northeast Indiana’s premier center for arts other transfer processes. Today, she also uses education, the college offers programs in fine arts, technology, working digitally when appropriate, and music, theatre and dance, and visual communication using Photoshop for its creative possibilities. Opalenik recently had the thrilling, somewhat and design. More than 600 arts majors and minors daunting, and quite rewarding experience of self- study at IPFW, and numerous outreach activities are publishing a collection of images in a monograph available to the community. VPA features more than titled Poetic Grace, Elizabeth Opalenik 100 annual performances and exhibitions that are Photographs 1979–2007. The 12-inch by 13-inch open to the public. Visit our Web site at book is filled with 90, four-color images that span ▲ Elizabeth Opalenik | Three Pears, 2002 www.ipfw.edu/vpa. Polaroid sx 70 manipulation, archival pigment print her 28-year career as a photographer. Community Arts Academy Continues Its Almost 20 Years of Youth Enrichment The Community Arts Academy (CAA) is an outreach learn about our exciting summer camps, call program of the College of Visual and Performing Hunter at 260-481-6059. Arts, offering classes in art, music, theatre, and dance for children Pre-K through 12th grade since CAA Student Successes in 2007 1989. In the beginning, the classes focused on Michael Hesse, a seventh grader at Holy Cross music and private music instruction, but over time, Lutheran School and a piano student of Dorothy parents began to request more of the classes that Hendricksen, received a “1” rating at the Lutheran their children were not being offered in school. Arts audition for Concordia High School and “Our classes are filled with enthusiastic young received gold at last spring’s Indiana State School artists who want to learn about art, music, and Music Association auditions. theatre, and they keep coming back for more,” Leechen Zhu, student of piano instructor Christine said Maggie Hunter, director of CAA. “We try to Freeman, won the district competition in the Early offer a large variety of artistic experiences— everything from weaving, to ceramics, to theatre, to Elementary division of the Hoosier Auditions (Indiana Irish step dance.” Music Teachers Association) in spring 2007. ▲ Breona Conrad teaches Irish step dance to Community Arts Registration for spring semester started on January Natalie Farison, a piano student of Joyanne Academy students on Saturdays. 7 and will continue until classes are filled. For a Outland, received early acceptance as a piano complete listing of our affordable spring classes, performance major at The Cincinnati Conservatory The IPFW CAA Community Flute Choir, directed by visit our Web site at www.ipfw.edu/vpa/caa. To of Music. Another of her students, Evan Keenan, Ann Donner, gave holiday concerts in 2006 at register for classes, receive regular mailings won the district competition in Senior Level division Village Oaks Nursing Home and at Forest Park regarding classes offered each semester, and to of the Hoosier Auditions. United Methodist Church. 2 3 exposition is offered, followed by a situation, “When Oedipus discovers that his idea of self is and finally a resolution of that situation in the absolutely wrong, he banishes himself, and in third act.