Junior art major Caitlyn Clark presented her sculpture "Hail Fellow Well Met" during "Visions: A Southeastern Student Art Show" exhibition located in the lobby of the university's Sims Memorial Library. Jennifer Dettwiller/The Lion's Roar
Art major student lent their artwork to the Visual Arts Society exhibition “Visions: A Southeastern Student Art Show” in the Sims Memorial Library lobby.
The official opening reception was held on Oct. 18 from 5-7 p.m. and was accompanied by the artists of the pieces, appetizers and drinks. The artwork is scheduled to be on display until Nov. 8.
According to a press release about “Visions,” the exhibit showcases mediums of drawing, sculpture and 3D designs from the department’s students.
Junior art major Caitlyn Clark and junior art major Catherine Urquhart described what VAS is, and the benefits it provides for students.
“It is an organization within the art department, but it is open to any student of any major,” said Clark. “Our goal is to promote our work, get our work out there and get together to have this sort of community of art students interacting with each other and their community.”
Urquhart discussed the collaboration involved in the exhibition.
“It’s an opportunity for students to get together and collaborate because a lot of people have this false notion of an artist secluded in a studio never leaving and creating whatever, and actually some of the best artist get into these groups and work together,” said Urquhart.
Urquhart helped with the coordination of the event and explained the preparation process.
Urquhart said, “The process was a lot of correspondence and working out what we can and cannot do, and it was reaching out to the artists of the art department, finding people who were interested, and then we had to actually patch up walls. We had to make labels and collect the artwork, make sure whoever didn’t get in got there artwork back.”
Senior art major with a concentration in sculpture Abigail Coleman shared why she decided to enter the exhibition and how she came up with the idea for her piece “Devil’s Remnant.”
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Coleman. “VAS is something that has been wavering a lot in the art department, and I’m really happy to see that it’s coming back, and so I wanted to support that effort in any way that I could. The inspiration for the piece is it’s part of a series of geologic process, and so for that particular piece, I was looking at columnar jointing and rock formations particularly basalt columns. So, Devil’s Tower in the western United States more specifically, which is where it gets its name. The theme is weathering and basically the rock cycle and how it relates to human process.”
Clark, who also contributed a sculpture named “Hail Fellow Well Met” to the exhibition, explained her piece and what it represents to her.
“My piece is focusing on nostalgia,” said Clark. “The paper aspect of it is sort of fleeting but it’s very inviting and promising, but it’s not really going anywhere. It’s very static. The rope, though, it’s stronger kind of harder, maybe a little not as pretty, but it’s going somewhere. It’s pushing through the hard times and moving forward.”
