Posted on Friday, December 04, 2020
The Senior Exit Exhibition has been a rite of passage for graduating Art and Design students for as long as Marcia Brown, Chair of the Fine and Performing Arts Department, can remember.
“I’ve been told we’ve been having these senior exhibitions for almost 60 years,” she said.
And then came 2020. Because of COVID-19, classes went online, the Lamar Dodd Art Center gallery was closed, and the traditional exhibition was canceled. However, the Art faculty was adamant about not abandoning the annual event.
“In an effort to recognize and showcase the students’ hard work and achievements, I decided to create a Virtual Senior Exit Exhibition,” said Austin Wieland, Assistant Professor Art and Design. “The website highlights the work of each senior who graduated in the spring of 2020.”
Students have their own page on the site, consisting of an artist’s statement, short biography and gallery of images or videos of their work.
“While it is different from having a physical exhibition, having the show virtually allows the work to be displayed for a much longer time,” Wieland said. “It also allows for more people to view the show since they didn’t have to travel to campus to see it in person and the site can be easily shared. http://lagrangecollegeseniorexhibition.weebly.com/
Although the Dodd gallery has been closed to the public since the pandemic began, there were still student artists with works to share. Margaret Reneke, Professor of Art and Design; Lanora Yates, Curator of LDAC, and Wieland came together to create a purely student-driven exhibition called the “Dodd Scramble.”
“This was an opportunity for students to display their art in a gallery setting,” Weiland said. “The 26 works of art include a variety of media and styles such as drawing and painting, ceramics and sculpture and animation.”
Participants in the show were from the Art Foundations Seminar and Professional Practices in Art courses. They were able to gain hands-on experience by curating and installing their own exhibition.
Images from the exhibition can be viewed on the department’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
In conjunction with the “Dodd Scramble,” the Art staff created “Growing Together: A Fresh Look at Our Permanent Collection.”
“At the start of the year, we wanted calm images like landscapes and flowers in the galleries to help ease the anxiety of opening for classes,” Yates said. “The calm meditation on nature idea evolved and grew and included categories such as ‘Creature Feature’ and ‘Adaptation through Mixed Media’ to invite conversation and curiosity for the more challenging art.”
Because the galleries were open only to the campus community, the exhibition could be less formal and more conversational between students and professors. It also gave the staff time to go through the collection’s vaults to pull art that was rarely viewed.
“It gave us an opportunity to ensure the permanent collection reflects our goals of inclusivity,” Yates said. “We installed a diverse sampling of 49 works of art.”
Students helped with ongoing research into objects in the collection. The display also includes research by Museum Studies classes, as well as artwork by previous students.
Yates said she wants to include works by professors next semester.
“We want to remind students that their professors are also artists,” she said. “The exhibition will evolve and change and hopefully continue as a conversation.”
Giving Tuesday this week brought LC friends together to help students succeed. Final numbers are still being tallied, but as of now, results show that 84 donors gave nearly $40,000 to support LaGrange students. In timely fashion, Political Science Professor Dr. John Tures published a newspaper column this week about why Giving Tuesday matters. You can read it here.
Theatre Arts’ fall productions of "Medea" and “Antigone” have been honored in the Kennedy Center Theatre Festival’s Region IV competition. Nominated for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Award were Malcolm Stephen, Carlie Jones, Cole Reihing, Jaylynn Mangual, Kyle Hildebrand and Landon Bee. Four tech and design students were also nominated for KCACTF awards - DJ Kelly, Devin Fourqurean, Rachel Cartwright and Lauren Collins. Finalists will be selected from virtual auditions in January and submitted to the Kennedy Center Theatre Festival in the spring. Both shows are available on the college's YouTube channel.
Medea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB1YST54neI&t=8s
Antigone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11idn631VFA&t=19s
Don’t forget the video production of “The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols” goes live at 7 p.m. Sunday. See video below.
Dr. John Tures, Professor of Political Science, recently appeared in a virtual Georgia Political Science Association meeting. He presented a game to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Panel that he and his students created to replace the canceled Model United Nations. “From Model UN to ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’: Providing a Virtual Experience into International Organizations and Conflict” is based on the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. The game allows participants to play a diplomat at the UN, trying to prevent another war between India and Pakistan. Players learn about how the UN works and the many issues of dispute between the South Asian countries, as well as China’s and Russia’s roles.
Dr. John Cook, Professor of Religion, published “A Naked Seed: Platonism, Stoicism, or Agriculture in 1 Cor 15:37?” in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (Journal for New Testament Research).
Men’s Tennis
John Mitchell Benton realized his full potential while at LaGrange College.
http://www.lagrangepanthers.com/sports/mten/2019-20/releases/20201119g0m4im
The Service of Nine Lessons and Carols, the college’s annual Christmas gift to the community, will be available for viewing, beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOpxAo2gfLU
LaGrange College profiles HCES teacher Blake Alford – Heard Citizen, Dec. 3, 2020
http://www.heardcitizen.com/lagrange-college-profiles-hces-teacher-blake-alford
Dr. Zachary Taylor is new District 2 public health director – Forsyth County News, Nov. 4, 2020
Category: College, Arts and Culture, Faculty, Academics, Students
Keywords: Lamar Dodd art exhibition senior exit
