Major: Art History, Classical Languages
Additional Degrees: AM University of Chicago (’92), PhD University of Chicago (’99)

I’m a professor of art history at DePauw University, a small liberal arts college in Greencastle, IN. I can honestly say that every time I sit down to prepare a class, and every time I enter the classroom, my Agnes Scott experiences frame what I am doing. Education and social change are inter-related through dialogue, debate, conversation and confrontation. The late-night dorm discussions, and the intense seminar exchanges created lines of questioning that I am still pursuing. I entered college looking for something inexhaustible, for a set of questions I could devote my life to: I found those in medieval art history, and it is thanks to Agnes Scott College, the tremendous professors I had here, and the beautiful friendships I made that those questions remain a vibrant motivation to greater pursuits of knowledge, and through those pursuits, to social change, and on good days, to social justice.

I came alive to the world in the summer of 1989 on Donna Sadler and Richard Parry’s Global Awareness trip to Greece. We read Socratic dialogues in the evenings and studied archaeological sites in the days – there was a continuity between the past and the present, whether it was about the definition of courage in a Socratic dialogue, or about the visualization of beauty in the Parthenon. There are abstract ideas that move ever forward towards greater and more widespread human dignity, and on that trip to Greece, I learned how to ask questions of these ideas.

Art’s New View: The 12 best Colorado artists 35 and under

Jordan Casteel, 22

Residence: Denver

Medium: Painting

Why we like her: This recent graduate from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga., is bounding with potential. She creates expressive, Alice Neel-inspired portraits that draw on her African-American heritage.

Continue reading the article here.

Elysia Lock

I spent from 2004 – 2009ish slowly building my studio practice and taking in as much art as I could, visiting galleries and museums in the States and Europe. I became heavily involved with the Burning Man Community and art scene in general in Chicago around 2009. In 2010 I was awarded a B.U.R.N. art grant with Yva Neal for “The Fungus Humongous,” and joined the Steering Committee. I joined B.U.R.N.’s Art Grant Committee in 2011. I was awarded a grant in 2011 for my interactive glow-drawing piece, “Drawing From Light.”

The one event of which I am the proudest is We Burn: Chicago Burning Man Art. I came up with the idea of an exhibition of art by Chicago burners, presented it to the Steering Committee of B.U.R.N., and they funded it! Both the October 2010 and April 2011 events were a success. I have truly loved curating these events, looking through other people’s art and picking things that speak to me and hopefully others.

From Ashgate:

Though long recognized as one of the most beautiful works from the second half of the thirteenth century, the magnificent sculptural program of the reverse façade at Reims Cathedral has received little in the way of scholarly attention. Interpreting the iconography in the light of Latin texts associated with the building, its history and its ceremonial use, Donna Sadler assesses the significance of the reverse façade in light of other thirteenth century visual programs associated with the court of Louis IX.

The book’s chapters deal with the history of the cathedral and its architectural antecedents; the iconographic message of the visual program, the meaning of the reverse façade and how it intersects with the overall iconography; the function of the verso and how it is enhanced by the marriage of form and content; and a consideration of contemporary works linked to the court of Saint Louis, concluding with a brief look at the new roles sculpture assumes as it migrates inside cathedrals.

Ultimately this book reveals how the imagery on the reverse façade not only conforms to a system of memory and mode of medieval narratology, but also articulates a dominant ideological position regarding the interdependence of ecclesiastical and royal powers.

Congratulations Donna!

Mary Ann Athens is an amazing Asheville-area elementary art teacher and the mother of two. I first starting hearing about her, her summer camps, and her after-school art programs a few years ago and am excited to finally interview her on The Artful Parent! Here she quotes Einstein and talks about the challenges and importance of art in education.

Continue reading the article on The Artful Parent

From case.edu…

Elina Gertsman
Assistant Professor of Medieval Art, Ph.D. Boston University, 2004

Prof. Gertsman specializes in Gothic and late medieval art. Her research interests include issues of seeing, memory, and perception; uncanny animation of inanimate objects; performance/performativity; multi-sensory reception processes; late medieval macabre; materiality and somaticism; and medieval concepts of emotion and affectivity.

She is the author of The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages: Image, Text, Performance (2010), the editor of Visualizing Medieval Performance: Perspectives, Histories, Contexts (2008) and Crying in the Middle Ages: Tears of History (2011), and co-editor of Thresholds of Medieval Visual Culture: Liminal Spaces (forthcoming in 2012). She is currently at work on a book-length manuscript that, while focusing on late medieval Shrine Madonna sculptures, will examine the rhetoric of secrecy, the discourse of containment, and the tropes of unveiling within the context of the increasingly important roles of sight and touch in late medieval devotional art. Prof. Gertsman’s articles appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and collections. A recipient of several prestigious fellowships, she has been invited to speak at many European and American conferences and colloquia, and was a keynote speaker at the Nordic Gender Network conference held in Helsinki in June of 2011.

I earned a BA in Studio Art from Agnes Scott College in Atlanta and an MFA in Photography from the University of Connecticut. Since graduation I have taught photography in the US and abroad through the University of Georgia in Athens, curated art exhibitions, and written on contemporary artists. I have also exhibited my fine art photography in galleries up and down the east coast.

I have been photographing the mining industry in my hometown since 2004, resulting in the ongoing study Kaolin. My recent work from residencies in DC, NY and travel abroad focuses on the scarification of our contemporary landscape. The collection Watershed: How Industry has Changed the Water of the World includes photographs of the Hudson, Potomac, Arno and Tiber Rivers. The international project Superfund: Photographs of Toxic Landscapes is currently underway.

www.rdana.com

Thursday, December 8, 2011

2:30pm until 4:00pm

Dana Fine Arts Building!

Join us for an inside view of the studios

THURSDAY, December 8
2:30-4

Studio Art Open House! 

DANA FINE ARTS BUILDING
1st floor (Gallery)
Capstone  |  FYS-190-H Text and Image: Buddhist Journeys

2nd Floor
Visual Thinking (ART 160)  |  Fluid Media (AKA painting Art 241/341)  |  Digital imaging (Art 250/350)

3rd Floor
Capstone (seniors)

Refreshments!

Bring your friends/mom/parents/kids/etc!

“Openings“, my solo show at Java Monkey, was an incredible challenge but also incredibly rewarding. Curating my own work was difficult because not only do I have personal favorites, but I also have pieces I’m less fond of, yet I know others will respond to them. It’s also difficult because you want to include everything, but you also have to consider the limitations of the space. Thankfully a professor and other artists acted as soundboards, helping me create the show. I’m ecstatic about how the show came together. Not only has it re-energized my excitement for photography, but the public has responded to it well. Both my friends and Java Monkey patrons have interacted positively with the work.

The show will be up until the end of November, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go check it out!

Below are some photos of the show and my artist statement.

“Openings” is about mysterious, ephemeral moments. I took these photographs on two separate mornings in geothermal areas around Rotorua, New Zealand. No one photo was the same, even if I held the camera in the same place. Every moment the earth was changing as smoke from the thermal vents rose and moved with the wind. These two mornings left me with a profound respect for the power and fluidity of the earth. It is an experience I will never forget. In spite of understanding the science of thermal vents, I was captivated by the escaping smoke, and tried to convey that feeling of mystery in my photographs.

Ellie Spresser
elliespresser.wordpress.com

I recently delivered a talk entitled “Claes Oldenburg’s ‘Expansion of Painting’” at the Southeastern College Art Conference. The session was titled “Painting in the Collapsed Field,” a parody of Rosalind Krauss’ famous essay, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field,” originally published in October in spring 1979. The provocative session, organized by Craig Drennen with David Humphrey, Steve Locke, and Wendy White, was such an enriching experience for me and also the first time I have been the sole historian among artists. I met Craig last year when he engaged in an invigorating Q & A after my talk at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (November 2010). We discussed Oldenburg’s sculpture as painting, which was the topic of my SECAC paper. Later, when he did a studio visit at the Contemporary with our Methods class, I understood his interest in this aspect of my work on Oldenburg as we viewed his own compellingly tactile and cerebral canvases. Thanks, Craig, for a continuing dialogue that has introduced me to your creative practice and those of other contemporary artists, and for an evolving conversation that demands an intellectual rigor I really enjoy and that always helps me reflect on my own work!