Texas Tech University

By now we hope you have received this fall’s Art Alumni Newsletter.  If you have not, we probably do not have your current mailing address in our database.   Reply to soa.alumni@ttu.edu<mailto:soa.alumni@ttu.edu> with your current mailing address and we will mail you a copy ASAP.  Since we don’t have all Art Alumni in our database, feel free to forward this e-mail to your Art Alumni friends.

Two items of particular interest are mentioned in the newsletter.

1 – School of Art will hold an Art Alumni Homecoming Weekend Reception in the newly completed 3D Art Annex on Friday, October 14th from 5:30 – 8:00 PM.  If you plan to be in Lubbock for the football weekend, please drop by and say hello.  (RSVPs will be appreciated at soa.alumni@ttu.edu<mailto:soa.alumni@ttu.edu>.)

2 – We have issued a CALL FOR ARTWORK DONATIONS to this year’s 4th Annual 5×7 Art Scholarship Fundraiser.  The successes of the past three fundraisers have helped us increase the ART Scholarship Endowment by $170,000.  This is all made possible through the sale of 5” x 7” artworks donated by alumni, previously exhibited artists, and other artist friends from around the country.

We invite you to join us in this great project by donating one (and up to 3) 5” x 7” artworks (that’s the final sheet size; image size can be any size on the 5×7” sheet.  3-D artworks about the same size are also invited).  No framing is required; however, we like to display the work anonymously, so please sign and title the works on the back.  Contact us at soa.alumni@ttu.edu<mailto:soa.alumni@ttu.edu> if you would like to participate and we will e-mail you an Art Donation Form to include with your work.

Please send these artworks by early December so that we can scan them and post them online.

Shannon Cannings, adjunct instructor at School of Art and one of only two Texas artists west of I-35 to be curated into the 2011 Texas Biennial, will be in a two- person show, with Ann Wood, at the Anya Tish Gallery in Houston.

Cannings has the following to say about her recent work:

As an artist and a consumer, I am drawn to the bright colors and thrilling packaging of toy guns.  In my paintings I make these objects appealing and strong, so that the viewer is as absorbed by the formal beauty of the objects as I am. Toy guns, however, can be polarizing objects.  While some people see them as objects from their own childhoods, recalling good times playing with friends, for others, these toys are symbols of how our society teaches our children to be violent. While I seek to control the imagery in various ways, I want viewers to have room to encounter the paintings in their own ways, bringing with them their own histories.

The opening reception for the exhibition is May 6th from 6:00-8:30 PM.  The exhibition continues through June 4th.

“Greed” from the Seven Deadly Sins series (inkjet print) by Christina Orozco of Odessa.

Studio art seniors graduating in 2011 have staged a group exhibition of their final work in the Studio Gallery for the School of Art Open House.  The reception for the exhibition will be held on Friday, March 4th from 5:00-7:00 PM, immediately following the open house.

The exhibition was covered by the Lubbock Avalanche Journal Online today.  Be sure to check out the article and join us for the reception.  The exhibition continues through Thursday, March 11th.

There are only a few days left to view “Epicenter,” John Hitchcock’s (1997 MFA in Printmaking/Photography/Painting) multi-media installation at The Gallery at UT – Arlington.  The exhibition ends on Saturday, February 12th.

Hitchcock lives in Madison, Wisconsin where he is Associate Professor of Art and Director of the Hybrid Press.  To read more about the exhibition go to John Hitchcock – Epicenter.

John Hitchcock's "Epicenter" - installation view from 2001.

Seven School of Art alumni are the founding members of a 12 artist collaborative called The Culture Laboratory Collective.  They include Piotr Chizinski (2007 MFA Sculpture, Ithica, NY), Shreepad Joglekar (2006 MFA Photography, Victoria, TX), Ryder Richards (2001 BFA Painting + Drawing, MFA from TCU, Princeton, TX), Sue Anne Rische (1994 BFA Jewelry Design & Metalsmithing, MFA from Univ. of Washington, Princeton, TX), Ian F. Thomas (2006 MFA Ceramics, Slippery Rock, PA), Dryden Wells (2008 MFA Ceramics, Jingdezher, China), and Jonathan Whitfill (2006 MFA Sculpture, Lubbock, TX) – click here to see their resumes.   The Collective, in collaboration with Ben Lewis, will present Response at the Brazos Gallery at Richland College, Dallas from February 3 – March 2, 2011.  A closing reception will be held March 3rd from 4-7 PM.

Ian F. Thomas, "4 of 8"

Ben Lewis, of “Art Safari,” London, has offered a statement to the members of the Collective:  “Nowadays we must distinguish between the superficially deep and the superficially superficial.” In Response, the artists have taken a word from the statement and developed art, interpreting and elaborating on their piece of the sentence.  Ben Lewis is an award winning film maker, writer and director. His BBC series, “Art Safari”, offers witty investigations and interviews with contemporary artists and dealers which provide a glimpse into the complex, and baffling, world of contemporary art. For Response, Lewis offers a paradoxical statement, embraced and dissected by a group of twelve contemporary artists.

Dryden Wells, "Superficial"

The exhibition pinpoints the individuality of the participating artists and their localized attempts to remain part of the larger group discussion, while inversely opening the artist community to influence from an outside source.  The exhibit allows multiple interpretations and relational aesthetics, favoring the complexity of individuation and community vitality over homogenization.