The Loupe, Spring 2015
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Transcript of The Loupe, Spring 2015
The newsletter of the UA Department of Art and Art History ART.UA.EDU/RESOURCES/NEWSLETTER-THE-LOUPE/
Keeping you in...
The LoupeOur Front Page Image:Pictured above is a painting from 1965 by
UA art alumna BARBARA PENNINGTON
(BFA 1955, MA 1957) titled Selma, inspired
by voting rights protests the same year in
that city. Read the full story on page 7.
image credit: Museum purchase with funds provided by Peggy and Bob Culbertson, the Romare Bearden Society, Sally and Russell Robinson, Mary Lou and Jim Babb and a gift of the Moreland Family. 2014.79. Collection of the Mint Museum. Image © Mint Museum of Art, Inc., reproduced here courtesy of the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC.
he year 1945 was pivotal for UA and the art department. After Congress passed
the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (better known as the “GI Bill”) at
the end of World War II, schools around the country, including The University of
Alabama, prepared for a large influx of new students as soldiers returned. In 1945,
newly hired professor Richard Zoellner established a printmaking concentration in
art at Alabama, one of only two schools in the Southeast that offered it. Also, that
year, the department began to offer the professional degree for artists: the Bach-
elor of Fine Arts. In September of 1945, amidst other announcements about higher
education across the nation, the New York Times ran a short notice:
“Recognizing the growing demand for professional training in art in addition to
the art program generally offered by Southern colleges on a cultural basis, the
University of Alabama has instituted a curriculum leading to the degree of Bache-
lor of Fine Arts. The university, which plans to erect a new Fine Arts building after
the war, is setting up temporary headquarters for the enlarged department. There
will be five studios, two classrooms, six offices and a large gallery.” d
Spring 2015
Alumni Issue: 70 Years of the B.F.A.T
ART AMBASSADORSEncouraging Students by Example
This year, Martha Sears cultivated a new crop of Art Ambassa-
dors. Art and art history majors KATHRYN BORNHOFT, KELBY COX,
CHARLA DAVIS, ERIN HEIN, RACHEL JONES, KATHERINE LANGNER,
AMANDA MILLER and JULIA STEWART greeted and gave tours to
potential students, parents and other visitors. Our ambassadors
introduced themselves at the Majors Fair and Get on Board Day
and participated in Homecoming festivities on the main quad.
These students share an enthusiasm for art and a desire to “give
back” before they embark on their next life stage. Some, like
Rachel Jones, think it is important to let prospective students
know how valuable “the traditional university” experience can
be. Jones, from Knoxville, is a BFA track major with a minor in
the Blount Undergraduate Initiative program (BUI). Erin Hein, a
double major in art history and biochemistry (and a minor in the
BUI program) from Wheaton, Illinois, “loves” her experience in
the department and wants to share that with potential students.
Amanda Miller, from Cullman, is on a BFA track with a concentra-
tion in painting. Studio major Charla Davis, from Birmingham, is
concentrating in digital media with a double minor in BUI and art
history. Julia Stewart, also from Birmingham, is majoring in art
history with a minor in Spanish. Kelby Cox is a double major in
art history and studio art with a concentration in ceramics. Cox
recently added a minor in Italian and graduated this spring, in
STUDENT NEWS ~ DEPARTMENT NEWS ~ STUDENT NEWS
Spring 2015 2
three years! Katherine Langner, from San Francisco, will gradu-
ate in August with a double major in art history and public rela-
tions. Kathryn Bornhoft, from Los Angeles, is a BFA track major
with a concentration in sculpture and ceramics.
An Array of Career Choices in Art
The variety of career plans among our ambassadors is dizzying,
proof of the wide-ranging possibilities for studio art and art
history majors. Hein plans to go into art conservation. Miller
wants to teach high school art and then go into arts adminis-
tration. Davis aims to be a graphic designer. After she earns an
MFA in illustration, Jones says “my dream job is working as a
concept artist, designing for video games or graphic novels.”
Stewart says that she will “pursue a career in art galleries.” Cox
is applying to graduate school in art history and hopes to go into
museum work. Langner wants to work for an art auction compa-
ny. Bornhoft plans to go to graduate school and then into teach-
ing. Bornhoft’s words sum up quite well the driving force of all
of these young women: “art as an experience enriches life at all
levels and is something that should be accessible everywhere.”
AROUND THE QUADWoods Quad Dedication In the 1870s, Woods Quad was a drill field; in the 1970s it was
a hangout for students and faculty. Since the mid 1990s, Woods
Quad has been home to a growing number of outdoor sculptures,
some definitely temporary, some possibly permanent. This past
summer, Dean of Arts and Sciences Robert Olin officially dedi-
cated the quadrangle as the Woods Quad Sculpture Garden. Billy
Lee’s Homage to Brancusi has made the southeast corner of the
little quad its home since the sculpture won the 1993 Alabama
Biennial Purchase Award. Since then, alumni artists Joe McCrea-
Our 2015 Art Ambassadors reflect the wide variety of career choices open to art majors, both history and studio. They are, from left to right: Erin Hein, Kelby Cox, Katherine Langner, Amanda Miller, Julia Stewart, Rachel Jones, Kathryn Bornhoft and Charla Davis.
The Loupe, published since 2002, is the newsletter of the NASAD -accredited Department of Art and Art History, in The University of Alabama’s College of Arts and Sciences, for students, alumni, facul-ty, staff and friends of the department. Please send correspondence to Rachel Dobson, Visual Resources Curator, [email protected].
(loop), n. 1. a small magnifying glass used by jewelers or watch-makers, or for viewing photographic transparencies.
Ceramics graduate student Sydney Ewerth’s work was recently
accepted into a national juried exhibition, Graphic Clay: A Sur-
vey of Illustrated, Printed, and Innovative Surfaces, at Balti-
more Clayworks (MD) with juror Jason Bige Burnett. Ewerth’s
ceramic work was also accepted into a new national juried
competition: the First Annual Dirty South Mug Competition at
the River Oaks Square Arts Center in Alexandria, Louisiana. More
about Sydney Ewerth here: http://wp.me/p4Zowu-2xe
MFA candidate Claire Lewis Evans has been a whirlwind of activ-
ity. Lewis Evans was awarded Best Three-Dimensional Artwork
for her paper and bamboo sculpture Messenger and for her paper
and reed sculpture Satellite in the online exhibition Chasing the
Light (Finding the Shadow) at the virtual Still Point Art Gallery.
She presented her MFA exhibition, Passages, at Northport’s The
Grocery in April. The sculptural works featured in this show
reflect Lewis Evans’ interest in material, process and time. Her
explorations of form and space allow her to help create the uni-
verse, shaping matter and experience as the work unfolds. While
her work can be approached by the viewer simply as abstract
ry’s Goldie 1971 and Lindsay Lindsey’s Fibonacci Spiral have
been ensconced in the two north corners. Associate Professor
Craig Wedderspoon’s Montgomery Marker sits in the southwest
corner at Manly Hall. His Vessel Series #3, part of his solo exhi-
bition at the Birmingham Museum of Art, is the latest sculpture
at the quad’s center. For more about the sculpture garden, go to
http://art.ua.edu/gallery/public-sculpture/.
MORE STUDENT NEWSUA’s art historians hosted the 20th Annual Graduate Symposium
in Art History this year.
Amy Williamson, UAB ARH
graduate student and Shane
Harless, grad student from
Tulane (and Alabama native)
shared the inaugural prize
for the Best Paper. This
new award, funded by Jim
Harrison III, was presented
March 6 at the symposium, held annually since 1996 by UA and
UAB’s joint program for the MA in Art History. More info about
our symposium here: http://wp.me/P4Zowu-2a
Two photographic works by graduate student Sarah Austin were
accepted into the 2015 SPE Combined Caucus Juried Exhibition
at the Society of Photographic Education Conference, Ogden Mu-
seum of Southern Art in New Orleans this spring. The jurors were
Deborah Willis, acclaimed artist and chair of the Department of
Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU,
and Carol McCusker, eminent scholar and Curator of Photography
at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. More about
Austin here: http://wp.me/p4Zowu-2xs
3 Spring 2015
CONTINUED ON PAGE SEVEN
above left: Yummy symposium cake designed by Dr. Rachel Stephens; bottom left: Sarah Austin, Fortune Teller, archival injet print, 11X16" one of the two works in 2015 SPE; top: Sydney Ewerth, Mind the Gap, ceramic, at Baltimore Clayworks; middle: Claire Lewis Evans, Passages: installation view featuring Mayflies and Suchness. Art images courtesy of each artist.
STUDENT NEWS ~ DEPARTMENT NEWS ~ STUDENT NEWS
GRANATA~GALLERY SELLA-GRANATA ART GALLERY~SELLA
Spring 2015 4
Spring semester in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery...After an interactive exhibition by video artist Erin Colleen Johnson, Master of Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts shows and the BA Senior
Exhibition, EXIT 2015, dominated our spring semester schedule in the Woods Hall gallery. See more: http://art.ua.edu/gallery/sgg/
top row, l-r: Josh Whidden, elemental; Sarah Austin, Through; Turner Williams, work in Twang of the Void; Ali Hval, Together, Apart; middle row, l-r: Sarah Austin, Retreat; Anna Katherine Phipps, Stretch at the First Blush of Morning; Installation view, Twang of the Void. bottom, l-r: Heather Whidden listens as Associate Professor Craig Wedderspoon and graduate students critique Whidden’s installation piece, Who Could Hang a Name on You, during her MA exhibition with Josh Whidden, Bilateral: Memory & Experience.
5 Spring 2015
top: Angie Brown, Cathy Pagani and Martha Sears (left) give out awards at Department of Art and Art History Honors Day ceremo-nies in the SGG. 2nd row, l-r: Ali Jackson, Snuffles, at the Annual BFA Juried Exhibi-tion in the UA Gallery downtown; a painting by Ali Hval in her BFA exhibition; a visitor to EXIT 2015 BA Exhibition. 3rd row: view at the BFA juried show; visitors discuss Things That Fall Apart by Ali Jackson at her BFA exhibition Degeneration; Jackson, detail of External. bottom left: Claire Lewis Evans and friend at her MFA exhibition, Passages, at The Grocery in April.
...and in galleries around West Alabama.The UA Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, Harrison Galleries in downtown Tuscaloosa and The Grocery on Main
Avenue in Northport (started by three of our alumni) are frequent venues for exhibitions by our students. More photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/uaart/collections/72157623555959241/
GRANATA~GALLERY SELLA-GRANATA ART GALLERY~SELLA
New Curation Area for the Permanent CollectionThe new curation area for the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art’s Permanent Collection opened in the fall with an open house and re-
ception sponsored by the Office of the Dean. With the support of the College of Arts and Sciences, The University of Alabama and
the Farley Moody Galbraith Support Fund, 1,880 square feet of curation and storage facilities have been added for our expanding
collection of Modern and Contemporary art. Both flat file and vertical storage capabilities have been enhanced with state-of the-
art storage and updated climate control systems. Future developments include enlarging the area where the gallery staff prepare
works for exhibits and service works in the collection to add to their stability and safekeeping. A recent addition is the William and
Sara Hall Collection (see page 11). Read more about the Permanent Collection here:
http://art.ua.edu/smga/past-present-and-future-the-smga-permanent-collection/.
S A R A H M O O D Y 2 0 1 4 - 2 0 1 5E X H I B I T I O N H I G H L I G H T S
Spring 2015 6
FACULTY-STAFF NEWS~ FACULTY-STAFF NEWS~ FACULTYPERMANENT~SARAH MOODY GALLERY OF ART~COLLECTION
Walker Evans, Office Building Vicinity Tuscaloosa, 1935, gelatin silver print, 7¼ x 9¼", P74.9
above left: Visitors tour new curation facilities at the Open House held by Dean Robert Olin in December 2014. center: Gallery Director Bill Dooley gives Dean Olin a tour of the space. right: Among the visitors were Associate Dean Tricia McElroy, Chair Cathy Pagani and Paul R. Jones Collections Manager Emily Bibb.
clockwise from top left: Exhibitions coordinator Vicki Rial (left) gives a tour of Redefining the Multi-ple: 13 Japanese Printmakers in September; Richmond Burton, Architectural Yellow in Alabama Oval; Susanne Doremus, Body, in Urban Virtue with Cora Cohen; Astri Snodgrass, in a moment of temporary blindness, with detail inset, from her MFA exhibition VERSO | RECTO; Minor White, Sc-hoodic Point, Maine, 1967, donated by Pamela and Michael Murray, from Contemporary Treasures (our annual Permanent Collection show); and Richard Ross, three works from Juvenile-in-Justice.
7 Spring 2015
-STAFF NEWS~FACULTY-STAFF NEWS~FACULTY-STAFF NEWS
FACULTY-STAFF NEWSIn November, Rachel Stephens
received one of two “Educator
of the Year” awards from the
Tuscaloosa County Preservation
Society, for her efforts to teach
students about the importance
of nineteenth-century architec-
ture. The society’s president,
Ian Crawford, recognized her
for her work educating students
about the history of architec-
ture both in Tuscaloosa and the
state of Alabama. In 2014 she
organized field trips to historic
structures, led research proj-
ects about local architecture
and organized a digital database of historic Alabama structures
to which her students contributed. Stephens was also selected
by the Research Advisory Committee (RAC) as the 2015 recipient
of the President’s Faculty Research Award for Arts & Sciences –
Humanities for excellence in her field.
This fall, Bryce Speed’s mixed media paintings were exhibit-
ed with works by sculptor Jack King in a two-person show at
Valdosta State University. Works by Speed and Matt Mitros were
featured in Paper or Plastic? at The Grocery in Northport this fall
and new works are featured there in May.
Tanja Jones recently published “Ludovico Gonzaga and Pisanello:
A Visual Campaign, Political Legitimacy, and Crusader Ideology,” in
Civilta mantovana. Forthcoming is “Crusader Ideology: Pisanel-
lo’s Medals in the Guantieri Chapel in Verona,” in the 2015 issue
of The Medal 66. Jones’ collaborative course project (ARH 373)
with the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Alabama Digital
Humanities Center was featured in the March issue of Dialog:
http://dialog.ua.edu/2015/03/the-art-of-collaboration/
In October, Lucy Curzon, director of education and outreach
for the Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art at UA, spoke to
students from Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary and Westlawn
Middle schools at the PRJ Gallery as part of the gallery’s inau-
gural K-12 Fellows program. After a ribbon-cutting by A&S Dean
Robert Olin, Curzon talked to students about how to look at and
think about the art in the gallery before they went back to their
classrooms to make their own art. More photos here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/uaart/sets/72157648130194349
“Whether students go on to become curators, engineers or ad executives, in the ‘real world’ one needs to know how to research a problem, analyze rele-vant data and present findings in a clear and cogent way. This project is designed to aid students in building those skills,” — DR. TANJA L. JONES in Dialog
sculpture, it is deeply informed by her longstanding interest in
spirituality and the environment, as well as more recent reflec-
tions on the fragility and resiliency of art and life in the face of
the unknown. More here: http://clairelewisevans.com/
. . . FACULTY-STAFF NEWS ~ CONTINUED ON PAGE ELEVEN
STUDENT NEWS ~ CONTINUED FROM PAGE THREE
Read about our
Honors Day Awardees online:
http://art.ua.edu/resources/newsletter-the-loupe/
Spring 2015 8
~ ALUMNI NEWS ~ ART DEPARTMENT HISTORY ~ ALUMNI
top: Barbara Pennington proofing a lithograph print with Professor Richard Zoellner. In 1945, Zoellner founded the printmaking pro-gram in the art department, the same year that the BFA degree was introduced. Photo by Laurens Pierce, a photographer in Montgomery who made a number of photographs of UA subjects in the 1950s. Photo from the collection of Barbara Pennington; reproduced here courtesy of Vicki Moreland.
An Exceptional Painting
While living in New York City in the 1960s, Pennington made
at least three figurative paintings about the tumultuous and
horrifying events going on in Alabama during that time. In Selma,
painted after the 1965 voting rights marches, she contrasted the
solemn demonstrators emerging from a church with the violent
police beatings of citizens in the streets and a giant, ghostlike Ku
Klux Klan figure menacing over all. The painting’s monumental
size and the stylization of its figures enhances its iconic charac-
ter. Pennington painted a slightly smaller canvas, Riot, about five
feet wide, after the Watts Riots in Los Angeles that occurred just
a few months later. At the time, they were the worst race riots
the country had ever experienced. She also made an abstract
painting titled Selma March and at least one drawing after a
bombing in Birmingham.
Recently, we exchanged emails with Pennington’s niece, Vicki
Moreland, a freelance writer and the executor of Pennington’s
estate. This is an excerpt from our questions and her responses in
which she says more about her aunt’s art:
loupe: Do you know if [your aunt] was making abstract work at
the [same] time that she painted Selma and the painting, Riot?
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
THE HUMANITY OF ART As part our 70th anniversary commemoration of the Bache-
lor of Fine Arts degree, we are recognizing some of our alumni
who have received the degree. Stories and images from our BFA
alumni are found on pages 10-12. Following is a compelling and
timely story about one of them.
Barbara Pennington (BFA 1955, MA 1957) dedicated her life to
painting and art education until her death in 2013. From teaching
art therapy to Bryce Hospital patients to her provocative paint-
ings of the Civil Rights Movement to her later intensely colored
abstract works, Pennington always expressed compassion for
humanity through her art.
Pennington grew up in Tuscaloosa and attended Tuscaloosa
High School. She won a four-year full scholarship to UA from the
National Scholastic Art Awards and received her BFA and MA in
painting and printmaking. After graduation, she taught in public
schools in Alabama, lived in New York from 1960 and then moved
to Connecticut in 1968 where her high school students received
many state art awards. In 1977 she returned to Alabama and set
up her studio and an antique business in Gordo. Pennington was a
member of the Crossroads Arts Alliance, a group of artists in and
around Gordo that included the late GLENN HOUSE, Sr. (BFA 1957)
(see The Loupe Back Page).
In 1957, while working on her master’s degree, the Tuscaloosa
News ran a story on April 23 about her work teaching art to Bryce
Hospital patients “44 hours a week.” Pennington’s Bryce students
mirrored widespread attitudes about abstract and non-figurative
art at the time: “At first they thought it was ridiculous,” she said
in the interview, “and now they won’t do anything else.” The
article explained the students’ change of heart: “With abstract
art, they paint emotionally rather than technically and therefore
are not imposed upon by the restrictions of realistic art.” Later
her writing about her own work revealed a similar approach for
herself, “My aim is for the work to be experienced in an uncon-
scious way, bypassing the analytical and going straight to pure
feeling—to a sense of beauty and joy.”
Abstract art was Pennington’s purview and her preference.
However, a few times, she felt strongly enough about her subject
to change her nonfigurative approach. When she passed away
at the age of 81, she left behind a studio full of paintings and
a legacy that has become more than she ever imagined. After
Pennington’s death, her niece, Vicki Moreland, and Moreland’s
husband found previously unknown and rare figurative works by
the artist. The largest painting, Selma, 9 feet wide by 6 feet
high, has become well regarded in the short time since the Mint
Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, announced its acquisition
of the work (see page one).
Did she change to a figurative style because that was the best
way she found to express her ideas; or was she painting in that
style and changed to abstract later on? Have you ever found any
other figurative works from that same time?
moreland: There are a few other figurative works from that time
frame, such as the self-portrait on her website, but she worked
primarily in abstract before Selma and Riot. My mother [Penning-
ton’s sister] and I believe that Selma was painted first and Riot
later. I also know that she did an abstract representation, Selma
March. That painting was found in New York and [was] believed
to be rent payment for an apartment she had there. It is distinct-
ly different from Selma and Riot. I can’t speak to the reasons she
chose a figurative style for these paintings, but I suspect it
was the best way to clearly represent her feelings on the
subject. In the ‘70s she started painting impressionistic land-
scapes inspired by her travels to the Southwest and Midwest,
her garden, and the landscapes of Alabama. But she returned to
abstracts in the ‘80s with a series of mixed media works, water-
colors (her Earth Auras), oils and oil pastels. I believe in time she
began to prefer abstract to other styles because it allowed her to
express freely her feelings about art.
loupe: Have you ever found any
writing by Barbara about her early
paintings? Did she ever talk to you
about her feelings about the Civil
Rights Movement?
moreland: Unfortunately, I don’t have
any writing by her about her early
paintings, nor did she ever talk to
me about the Civil Rights Move-
ment. I have heard from others
though that to discuss her painting Selma was sometimes a som-
ber experience. She also talked about the Freedom Riders, and I
believe these events saddened her. I have a rough sketch she did
entitled Birmingham Bombing, of a cross, buried in the rubble of
the church, and a body on the ground. I do not believe that she
ever painted this scene. We did discuss Riot and she commented
that subconsciously she created the buildings without windows or
doors and believed it to be a commentary on the lack of oppor-
tunity for the young men in the painting. They were “trapped”
figuratively and literally on the campus. d
9 Spring 2015
~ ART DEPARTMENT HISTORY ~ ALUMNI NEWS ~ CAMPUS
ALUMNI NEWS
BFAers Since 1945
Here are a few more of UA’s BFA graduates in art: WILLIAM O.
PARDUE (1951), WILLIAM WALMSLEY (BFA 1951, MA 1953),
BETHANY WINDHAM ENGLE (1955), FRANK GUNTER (1956), GLENN
HOUSE, SR. (1957), SYDNEY HAUSER (1967), DANIEL MOORE
(1967), EDITH FROHOCK (1968), WILLIAM HALL (1973), LARRY
NEWBERRY (MFA 1977, BFA 1975), LEE ANN LUTZ (1979), DAVID
BETAK (1990), PAT SNOW (1990), MICHELLE MCKNIGHT DAVIS
(2003), MARTHA MARKLINE HOPKINS (2004), PAUL OUTLAW (2004),
LIZ WUESTEFELD (2009), JOE STALNAKER (2010), MOLLY BROOKE
THREADGILL (2010), JACOB DAVIDSON (2011), JEREMY K. DAVIS
(2011), AMBER JONES (2011), MICAH CRAFT (2012), ADAM HILL
(2012), BROOKE HOWELL (2012) and ERIC NUBBE (2014). There
are many more BFA alumni than we have listed here. Following
are a few post-BFA stories. Please send us yours!
BILL HALL (BFA 1973) has already made an impression on the
SMGA’s Permanent Collection (Loupe Spring 2011). As Master
Printer at Pace Prints in New York
for almost 30 years, he has had
unparalleled access to renowned
artists making exquisite work.
Over the years, he built a col-
lection that he and his wife have
now donated to the Sarah Moody
Gallery of Art’s Permanent Collec-
tion, already a formidable gather-
ing of the work of internationally
acclaimed artists. Selections from
the William and Sara Hall Collec-
tion of Contemporary Prints will
be on exhibit through June 10 in the UA Gallery downtown in the
Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center.
JENNY FINE (BFA 2006) has come back home to Alabama with
her latest installation performance project, Flat Granny and
Me: A Procession in My Mind. Its latest incarnation was a lecture
and performance in January at the Wiregrass Museum of Art in
Dothan.
Fine uses performance, photography, installation to create and
tell stories about her family and her childhood experiences. Flat
Granny and Me has been more than a yearlong project with Flat
Granny, a life-sized photographic costume of her grandmother.
CONTINUED ON PAGE TEN
above: Bill Hall talks to visitors about collecting at the recent exhibition Selections from the William and Sarah Hall Collection downtown at the UA Gallery in the Dinah Washington CAC.
Spring 2015 10
& CAMPUS HISTORY ~ ALUMNI NEWS ~ TOWN & CAMPUS
top left: Jenny Fine at the Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, 2015. bottom left: Jeffery Byrd, Symphony #4 (Beautiful Notes for SLC), photo by Kristina Lenzi. top right: Martha Markline Hopkins, Pink Moire, 24’x24’x3”, shaped acrylic painting. bottom right: Larry Newberry, photo, detail. See the original photo in the spring/summer 2012 issue of The Loupe (page 9). http://issuu.com/uaart/docs/loupespg12email?e=3441389/9263148
Fine writes, “A Proces-
sion in My Mind is a col-
lision of the agricultural
history of my hometown
of Enterprise (“City of
Progress” and home to
the Boll Weevil Monu-
ment) with my family’s
present day relationship
to the landscape of our
south Alabama farm. This
live theatrical perfor-
mance and room-sized diorama began as a re-imagining of the
year my grandmother was named Enterprise, Alabama’s ‘Woman
of the Year.’”
After receiving the MFA from The Ohio State University, Fine
served as studio assistant for Ann Hamilton, artist-in-residence in
Dresden, Germany, and at the The Wellington School in Colum-
bus, Ohio. She has also taught in China and worked at an orphan-
age and women’s shelter in Nigeria. She lives near Enterprise,
where she keeps a studio.
JEFFREY BYRD (BFA 1987) is pro-
fessor and chair of the Depart-
ment of Art at the University of
Northern Iowa. A video and per-
formance artist, he exhibits and performs around the world, from
Lincoln Center to Beijing. This year he performed in Berlin, Salt
Lake City and a little town
in Poland. He writes, “My
recent work is inspired by
my job as an administra-
tor. This piece [pictured
this page] attempts to ele-
vate the mundane tools of
office work (Post It Notes)
to the level of visual po-
etry. In the performance,
I write beautiful words
from many languages on
the notes and hang them
on a glass surface (in this
case it was a glass eleva-
tor at the SLC Public Library). Viewers are invited to share their
beautiful words as well. I’ve done this piece in Toronto, Boston
and Helsinki, so I’ve collected a great list of words!”
The prolific MARTHA MARKLINE
HOPKINS’ (BFA 2004) painting
Corinthian White was chosen
for the online gallery exhibition
Dark sponsored by Arc Gallery,
San Francisco. Her Pink Moire
was chosen for the exhibition
Voices: An Artist’s Perspective,
Women’s Caucus for Art, NYC.
She lives in Fairhope.
In the Spring/Summer 2012 issue, we published a photo by LARRY
NEWBERRY (BFA 1975, MFA 1977) of a group of art students in
Woods Quad. Only one person remained unidentified - until
now! JAN HOLLAND KIMBROUGH (BFA 1974), then known as JAN
HURSTON HOLLAND, was that person and she sent us an update:
Holland came to UA in 1970, like Barbara Pennington, on a 4-year
scholarship from Scholastic. “It was kind of a big deal because
there were no fellowships,
foundations or endowments for
art students like there are to-
day. Art was not a mainstream
field of study and art students
were understood even less! I
have had an exciting art career working for Occidental Petro-
leum Corporation in Tulsa, as assistant art director for Horizon
Magazine (a national fine arts magazine published in Tuscaloosa)
and a free-lance business, Holland Studios. In 1990, I began work
for a degree in medical social work and earned an MSW from the
university in 1992 and had a 10-year career as a hospice social
worker with Montclair Hospice and a case manager at Lakeshore
Rehabilitation Hospital, both in
Birmingham.” Holland emphasizes
the value of an education in art: “It
taught me to think ‘outside the box’
and to creatively problem solve even
in a totally different work setting.”
In late breaking news, BFA graduat-
ing senior ALEXANDRA (ALI) HVAL was
awarded one of only ten nationwide
Windgate Fellowships this year. Her
“[Art] taught me to think ‘outside the box’ and to creatively problem solve even in a
totally different work setting.”— JAN HOLLAND KIMBROUGH, BFA 1974
CONTINUED FROM PAGE NINE
11 Spring 2015
ALUMNI NEWS ~ FACULTY-STAFF NEWS ~ ALUMNI NEWSsculpture, Genesis, is pictured above. Other UA alumni awardees
are Adam Hill in 2012 and Jenny Fine in 2006, both BFA gradu-
ates. More in the next issue and online.
We have more alumni stories on our website. Read them here:
http://art.ua.edu/loupe/spring-2015-more-alumni-news/.
FACULTY-STAFF NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE SEVEN
The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa awarded Jamey Grimes Visual Arts
Educator in its Druid Arts Awards for 2014, recognizing his many
contributions to education in the community. Past awardees in-
clude Virginia Rembert, Al Sella, Gay Burke and Robert Mellown.
In November, Sky Shineman exhibited new works in the exhibi-
tion Seismic Shift at the Arts Council Gallery downtown. Shine-
man was awarded a research grant by The University of Alabama
to investigate new painting materials including powdered pig-
ments and organic mediums. She said these works are “a product
of this inquiry, serving as a record of elemental relationships and
physical processes.” In the spring of 2014, Shineman’s work was
included in 51st Annual Juried Competition at the Masur Museum
of Art in Louisiana. The juror was Kelly Shindler, associate cura-
tor at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis. Shineman also
was juried into 20”x20”x20”: National Compact Competition and
Exhibition at LSU’s newly renovated Student Union Art Gallery,
juried by Shana Barefoot, exhibitions and collections manager
for the Museum of Contemporary Art Atlanta.
Assistant Professor MATT MITROS, instructor and alumna VIRGINIA
ECKINGER and representatives from Crimson Clay (and grad stu-
dents) SYDNEY EWERTH and JOANI INGLETT (all pictured above)
attended the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts
(NCECA) conference in Providence, Rhode Island, in April to re-
cruit students. As we go to press, Mitros has just left for Ljublja-
na, Slovenia, to attend the opening reception of III International
Ceramic Triennial Unicum at the National Museum where his
work was accepted. His Rubble Trouble Mug won Best in Show in
the new juried exhibition MUG Shots at the LUX Center, Lincoln,
Nebraska and his work was juried into the 7th Annual Beyond
The Brickyard Juried Exhibition at the Archie Bray Foundation in
Helena, Montana. His Pre-Columbian Rave was featured in the
February 2015 issue of Ceramics Monthly. Currently Mitros and
BRYCE SPEED have a two-person exhibition, Paper or Plastic?, at
The Grocery on Main Avenue in Northport, Alabama.
Enthusiastic reviews for PETE SCHULTE’s one-person exhibition
Build a Fire at Atlanta’s Whitespace Gallery in March included
Matthew Terrell for Burnaway.org (“a new door in the mind for
seeing art”) and Faith McClure for Artsatl.com (“Zen draughts-
man”). Schulte will be at Yaddo artists’ retreat this summer.
above: Ali Hval, Genesis (detail), 2015, silk chiffon, muslin, panty hose, plastic wrap, piping, paracord, 6’x10’x12’. top right: Matt Mitros, Virginia Eckinger, Sydney Ewerth and Joani Inglett at the NCECA conference. Photo courtesy S. Ewerth. bottom: Pete Schul-te, Build-A-Fire, installation view. Art images courtesy the artists.
The Loupe
Back PageEarlier this fall, Glenn House, Sr., passed away. Besides being
a BFA alumnus of our department and creator of a Tuscaloosa
icon (the Moon Winx neon sign in Alberta), House was at the
hub of a vibrant network of artists centered in Gordo and
reaching far beyond, especially book artists and printmakers,
as well as many others. In memory of Glenn House and in hon-
or of his former professor, Gay Burke, who retires from UA in
August, we reprint his recollection of his time in Gay Burke’s
photography class (and events leading up to it):
In 1989...I received a call from my old bottle-digging psy-
chiatrist-buddy and photographer. Dr. Jim Morris got right to
the point, “You need a hobby.” He prescribed that I join him
in Gay Burke’s Thursday evening black and white photography
class.
I showed up at a following class to check it out. Dr.
Jim met me at the door and introduced me to Barbara
Lee Black, whose first question made me feel right at
home, “Is that your mother who has the museum at
Gordo?” Then I met a host of other nice folks. It
turned out that Gay Burke (whom I had known
for years) had made a practice of accompa-
nying her classes to my mother’s museum to
photograph the weirdness. Also in that first
class was Kathy Fetters.
I sold a binding press for $250, bought a 35 mm
camera, and signed up for an audit. I am not re-
ally claustrophobic, but I do need more elbow
room than Gay provided for double-left-hand-
ed people to download bulk film from canister
to cartridge.
Being smarter than your average Alabama redneck,
and being fully funded as a college assistant professor, I
learned to save a lot of film by paying other students to
download my film. I then made the terrifying discovery
that my long-suffered darkroom chemical allergy was
about to reclaim its former territory, so I paid to have my
negatives and prints done as well. When I realized that my
continuing to force a total lack of photographic skills onto
the photographic world was causing more harm than good,
I quietly laid aside my camera.
Gay Burke recognized that I was capable of somehow
plucking a positive viewpoint from the most mundane pho-
tograph and, being the super-human being that she is, al-
lowed me to continue to participate in classroom critiques.
Then, with that certain twinkle and grin, she asked, “Well,
Glenn. When are you going to bring some work?”
—GLENN HOUSE, Sr., BFA 1957, MLS 1978, Ed.S. 1983;
Assistant Professor Emeritus, Book Arts
In Memoriam: Glenn House, Sr.
Glenn House, Sr.,
at the Kentuck
Festival of the Arts,
Northport, Alabama,
October, 2013.
Read more about our notable alumni and faculty online: http://art.ua.edu/alumni/notable-alumni-faculty/