Ansiedad y Pertenencia Anxiety & Belonging: Latinx Tennessee and the World
Cover Images: Untitled by Andrés Arîzaga Cordero The Girl Sitting Signaled and Took Advantage of the Confusion by Michael Giles Ansiedad y Pertenencia © Slocumb Galleries and Participating Artists, 2019 | All rights reserved Images and artist statements courtesy of the Artists and representatives. | Gallery exhibition images taken by Slocumb Galleries staff. All images and work are copyright property of the Artists. | Catalogue design by Amanda Kilhenny and Karlota Contreras-Koterbay. ETSU is an AA/EEO employer. ETSU-CAS-000-00 100
Ansiedad y Pertenencia Anxiety & Belonging: Latinx Tennessee and the World Featuring Tennessee Latinx Artists Rosanna Camacho Antuco Chicaiza Michael Giles Nelson Gutierrez Yancy Villa-Calvo with Ecuadorian Artist AndrĂŠs ArĂŽzaga Cordero
Curated by Karlota Contreras-Koterbay and Dr. Felipe Fiuza April 2020, Tipton Gallery & June 2020, McKinney Center
Recipient of the Tennessee Association of Museums (TAM) Publication Award 2020
ANSIEDAD Y PERTENENCIA Anxiety & Belonging; Latinx Tennessee and the World
This group exhibition features Tennessee artists with Hispanic cultural heritage and a South American artist educated in the US. The term Latinx is employed to address gender inclusive identities. The works delve into the psychological journeys of biracial and/or migrant artists, whose complex presence is symptomatic of the wider convoluted issues of otherness, belonging and communal identity. To migrate, relocate or seek refuge necessitate a trading of one space to another place. These processes always involve complex emotional and psychological elements that each individual have to address. To grapple with not only the physical and more immediate practical consideration often result to more guarded, or calculated ways of seeing, experiencing and dealing with the new external world. The worlds of migrants or refugee artists provide complex layers of aesthetic materials to explore, and experiment with in order to visualize and dissect their new world, and as well as deal with the old communities they left behind. This exhibition deals with those psychological investigations and coping mechanisms that each of the Latinx artists have to grapple with as sample representation of the larger demographics of Hispanic migrant communities in the US. The title involves a duality, not necessarily dichotomy but form of dialectics of personal struggle and social involvement. As migrant curators, both Felipe and I are interested in the journey of fellow travelers, art practitioners who embody layered identities, with complex strategies to survive their brave new worlds. The artists selected work in various media, yet from diversity, a commonality surfaces, that of the anxious investigation of their adopted community and the various forms of transcending being the ‘Other’ to someone who have been accepted to the communal fold. Different artists have dealt with the anxiety and belonging duality in different ways. Ramón del Valle-Inclán, for instance, was a Spanish play-writer who invented a word in order to describe the aesthetic of his work: “Esperpento.” His “Esperpentos” were shinning explosive grotesque plays that intended to catch the viewer unguarded by showing them at the same time the subliming and the disgusting aspects of life. By creating the “esperpentos,” Valle-Inclán rejects other artistic worldviews that were established before him. It is necessary for him to do so, because other aesthetics were not enough for him to express his individuality. Esperpentos are born from ValleInclán’s anxiety and from his personal quest for belonging.
From the moment we are born, we are presented with colors, from a flag, a sports team, a school, our sexuality, our own ethnicities, our gods, etc. and we are compelled to choose where we belong – as if we could call it even a choice in most of these cases. People who refuse to do so, like ValleInclán, are often seeing with suspicion. What is better: choose to comply and belong to a specific group, or choose to express your own self? Many choose to comply without questioning, while most artists embrace their ambiguity. The questions of why we attempt to belong, or why it matters so much to others that we do, are still to be answered by philosophy and science. The cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett answers this question in his book Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by arguing that belonging to a specific religion enhances one’s chances of survival from an evolutionary perspective. This is the anxiety of life, seeking peers, love, friends, a country, a group, really anyone who accepts us and who makes us feel like we belong without ever knowing if we will find them. We can only hope for a world without walls, boxes, labels, borders, whatever you want to call them, where people can truly accept each other, and we can all belong. If that ever happens, it would potentially diminish our anxiety. In the meanwhile, I invite you to appreciate the art works displayed here and to think about your own anxiety in your own quest for belonging. Or even, that it is okay if sometimes you feel like you don’t belong and that are others who share your anxiety. One of the artists who has initially inspired this idea is Nelson Gutierrez, a Memphis-based Colombian multimedia artist whose work explore the psychological facets of aesthetic experience. He describe his art practice as entry points “to better understand the social and psychological implications of conflict and engage the public in self reflection. My art addresses issues of longing, fear, grief and vanity. I juxtapose materials such as charcoal, ink, wood, metal, blood, wax, water, glass, light and photographs that together have symbolic relevance to the issue I’m exploring.” Gutierrez’ visual narratives are monochromatic, patterned images, such as in the form of mandalas. The absence of vibrant hues, and the geometric, highly calculated structures may seem to be formal evidences or visual devices to reiterate the ‘anxious’ and discomforting issues of otherness vis-à-vis belonging. The images are repetitive images of figures from protest rallies and political mobilizations from the ‘Arab Springs’, a series of protests in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Their angst and anxiety are felt by the unnatural positioning of their bodies as each part is captured as ‘frozen’ from the act of running or other movements of fleeing or escape. Meanwhile, also based in Memphis is Mexican-born female artist and community activist, Yancy Villa-Calvo whose “art provides a platform to see common ground in the midst of our complex humanity, and it encourages civic engagement for the betterment of our shared spaces.”
Her creative process is initiated by the investigation of current political and social dynamics that enable her to employ various media to provide platform for communal conversation and self reflection, yet, all these forms are filtered through her travels and residences in various lands. All these contribute to her being, both artist and holder of various communal identities, she describes it to have afforded her with “with a cross-cultural perspective and an awareness of my place as both a global citizen and a resident of the U.S., a country I call my own.” The sense of agency of calling “one’s own” to us, is crucial and inspiring. Meanwhile Michael Giles’ abstracted landscape series merges literature and visual arts with his work influenced by the most prominent Latin novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ iconic novel ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude.’ His masterful employment of color and pattern, that are both whimsical yet deliberate and instinctive, it embraces the ‘magic realism’ Latin art is famous for, yet, its structure and architectural presence create its own category by itself. Antuco Chicaiza’s mixed media, large scale work “poetically document his life: his family and friends, his travels and relocations, and his cultural identities and political beliefs” he considers it as “layered visual diary, his works gather evidence of the events and forces that have effected him deeply” while providing imagery that are accessible and hint of communal iconography such as his graffiti-inspired murals that speak a visual language associated with ‘outsider art’, often found on the fringes of the art world, yet central in the minority population. Finally, on the one hand, Andrés Arizaga Cordero’s work is described by himself as a transportation of Valle-Inclán’s “esperpentos” from theater to his painting and sculptures. Painting and sculpting “esperpentos” is Andrés way to display anxiety, both his own and the one that he sees in the world, and belonging, to Valle-Inclán and Ecuador. On the other hand, Rosanna Camacho chooses to combine elements from both her Mexican and American contexts celebrating them and diminishing her anxiety to belong. The exhibition is art of the Diverse and Beautiful Exhibition series initiated by the ETSU Tipton & Slocumb Galleries, and sponsored by the Arts Fund of East Tennessee Foundation (ETF), Arts Project Support from the Tennessee Arts Commission (TAC) and ETSU Student Activities Allocation Committee (SAAC). Curated by Appalachian-based Filipinx artist, curator Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, and also the Director of ETSU Tipton and Slocumb Galleries with Brazilian poet and educator Dr. Felipe Oliviera de Fiuza, Director of the ETSU Language & Culture Resource Center.
About the Curators: Karlota I. Contreras-Koterbay develops diverse year-round exhibition/educational programs of innovative exhibits and collaborative activities with the academic and local communities. Contreras-Koterbay curatorial philosophy advances the potential of art as agency, her projects promote social justice, cultural diversity & inclusivity, critical thinking and social awareness. She is recipient of various grants for programs including TAC Arts Project Support (APS) Grant, TAC Arts Build Communities (ABC) Grant, ETSU BUC Funds, ETSU Student Activities Allocation Committee (SAAC), Mary B. Martin School of the Arts (MBMSOTA), Andy Warhol Legacy Program, and the East Tennessee Foundation’s (ETF) Arts Fund. She is a Panelist for the Tennessee Arts Commissions Art Education Grant (2017, 2018) and member of the International Council on Museums (ICOM), Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC), TN Association of Museums (TAM), Tennesseans for the Arts, Association of Academic Museum & Galleries (AAMG), American Alliance of Museums (AAM) and International Association of Aesthetics (IAA). She was former Board Director of Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) and Board Member at the National Commission for Culture & the Arts (NCCA). Contreras-Koterbay is recipient of ETSU Distinguished Staff (2013), Best New Program for Native American Festival, Jan Phillips Mentor Award (2015), and nominated for the TN Governor’s Award (2016). She is founding Board Director and VP for Curatorial Programming for American Museum of Philippine Art. https://www.etsu.edu/cas/art/galleries/staff.php Dr. Felipe Fiuza was born in Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. He received his Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from Purdue University. His research interests are Spanish Literature of the Golden Age (focusing in Cervantes), Medieval Spanish Literature (focusing in Chivalry), and Latin America Literature (focusing in Brazil), Carnival, and Cognitive Sciences. He has almost 20 years of experience as a language and literature instructor, both in the US and in Brazil. Dr. Fiuza’s first poetry book, Ucideia, is expected for the Spring of 2020. As director of the Language and Culture Resource Center at ETSU he has also been engaged actively in organizing educational events, creating service learning opportunities, and offering translation and interpreting solutions for the Tri-cities community. He is a member of the Modern Language Association, the Cervantes Society of America, the American Translation Association, the Brazilian Studies Association, and the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies. Dr. Fiuza’s newest publication ‘Ucideia’ won first place in the fourth literary competition of the Federal University of Espírito Santo Press in the poetry category, and it has poems in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. https://www.etsu.edu/cas/litlang/faculty/fiuza.php
Andres Arizaga, Quito, Ecuador My body of work mainly explores the different angles of the journey as metaphor of life. In particular, I focus on the journey of illegal immigrants coming from South and Central America to North America and Europe as an allegory of life in a hegemonic capitalism. I want to question in my work the way the concepts of happiness and freedom are built on around the spectacle in an advanced stage of capitalism, where these notions are sold to individuals. Their journeys in search of the promised happiness end when they trespass the border and are not allowed to partake of the dream. With a visual and profane discourse that brings the sacred to the world of consumerism, I propose a revelation: there is no salvation and there is no promised land. My work is the profane litany that will not redeem us. It is a dialogue with the whims of Goya, which shows the face of death that we avoid in our daily routines in a ruthless system of consumerism. During this inevitable journey that has been given to us as a gift we did not ask for, we seek redemption (the forgiveness of death), which we absurdly believe can only happen through consumption. In the figures of angels and faces taken from the work of Goya, with their entire semiotic load within Christian tradition, I have sought to represent not divine beings, but human beings who, through consumerism, become merchandise. Life is represented as a constant search of the fallacy of redemption. Happiness in the system of advanced consumption becomes a mirage that vanishes. The figure of the migrant body represents us all in the sense that life itself in hierarchical capitalist society is a journey in which we seek an ideal that never becomes tangible. In different bodies of work of mine, christian and capitalist referents come together because in both the human being is condemned to a system with no way out. Andrés Arízaga Cordero was born in Cuenca, Ecuador, in 1978. He graduated from PUCE (Pontific Catholic University of Ecuador) in Quito in 2007, earning his Bachelor degree in Fine Arts. During his studies, he worked with and taught intaglio techniques at Estampería Quiteña. He has participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Spain, Hungary and the United States. In 2013 he obtained his MFA degree in Studio Arts at the Patty and Rusty Rueff School of Visual Performing Arts at Purdue University, Indiana, US. In his current work, mainly drawings and prints that integrate a variety of different media, he explores topics such as travelling, immigration and the society of spectacles. In 2018 he returned at Purdue as visiting Scholar to continue working on a series of lithographs. Currently, he teaches at the College of Communication and Contemporary Arts at Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
www.andresarizaga.com
Rosanna Camacho, Johnson City I am not free anywhere else but in Art. I feel relief to be myself and to be by myself when I work with any medium. My favorite mediums to work with is paint and digital art. The endless use of colors in both of these mediums draws me in. The vibrant use of colors inspires me to do more work of my Latino heritage. There’s a rich color use in my heritage that’s satisfying to look at and that is what I would like for my viewers to see. No matter what medium I decide to use, always refer my colorful usage to refer back to my Latin roots. Rosanna Camacho is a biracial American with Hispanic heritage. Camacho was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and recently received her BA in Studio Art with a Minor in Advertising at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. Her best interest is abstract expressionism where she feels the most comfortable expressing herself. Her preferred mediums are oil paint and digital. She loves to use a mixture of vibrant colors in reflection on her Latin heritage. She hopes to work in an advertising agency while freelancing her art as well. She was the President of Hispanic American Student Community Alliance (HASCA) at ETSU, the student organization that helps organize the annual Corazon Latino Festival under the Language & Culture Resource Center.
Antuco Chicaiza, Knoxville / Equador Antuco Chicaiza paintings poetically document his life: his family and friends, his travels and relocations, and his cultural identities and political beliefs. Like a layered visual diary, his works gather evidence of the events and forces that have effected him deeply. Chicaiza’s early charcoal drawings and paintings drew upon his childhood memories of the lives of Indians in Ecuador. These works were representational in style and emphasized both social injustice and the peoples’ strength and pride. Later, his work described his own journey, reflecting in his words, “any injustice or prejudices I was affected by.” In 2003 Chicaiza’s work shifted to a more experimental approach which focused on the sketch books which the artist has always carried. In those sketch books he records his thoughts, saves original and found images, and documents his travels. Chicaiza started making paintings that used images that he had archived including phrases, symbols, graffiti, and abstracted figures and faces, combining them in dense, interpenetrating compositions. This work has been his “most personal, showing my struggles and experiences.” Chicaiza’s subjects range from the challenges and rewards of family, to cultural heritage, to social and political issues. In his most recent work, photographs have been melded with painted passages and advertising images with a free-floating, collage-like approach.
https://artavita.com/artists/10143-antuco-chicaiza
Michael Giles, Knoxville / Venezuela My work stems from finding pattern and rhythm in the world around me. The paintings began from finding places and spaces between words and lines in the text of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. These spaces/rhythms/patterns serve as the beginning of the paintings unto which I add color, line, and paint. The colors and patterns come from instinctual spaces in my head; they are worked and worked over on the canvas in layers which are considered, covered, and combined. Taking a cue from the Deleuzian “becoming� my paintings are an attempt to find a new meaning from these disparate influences; an attempt to combine text into visual language; an attempt to find a new impetus to make art. Michael Giles (b.1974) is a Venezuelan- American artist working primarily in painting and drawing. He has exhibited internationally, and currently lives and works in Knoxville, TN. Born in Maracaibo, Venezuela, he was raised in rural Baltimore, OH. He studied as part of the Reciprocal Exchange Program at Edith Cowan University (Perth, Australia, 1996) and received a BFA from the Ohio State University-Columbus in 2000, and a MFA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 2007. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, TN.
https://locatearts.org/artists/michael-giles
Nelson Gutierrez, Memphis / Colombia Since the early 1990s, my work has focused on creating two and three dimensional artworks, conceptual objects and installations, based on current sociopolitical issues. Through art I have often tried to better understand the social and psychological implications of conflict and engage the public in self reflection. My art addresses issues of longing, fear, grief and vanity. I juxtapose materials such as charcoal, ink, wood, metal, blood, wax, water, glass, light and photographs that together have symbolic relevance to the issue I’m exploring. I use these different mediums to express these feelings and tell a story that is universally understood to us all but sometimes experienced more intensely by a subset of our societies. Nelson Gutierrez graduated from the Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lazano in Bogota Colombia. Upon receiving his BA degree in Fine Art, he began addressing the social and psychological implications of Colombia’s armed conflict on its civil society. His artistic process has led him to use a variety of different mediums including drawings, paintings, 3D objects, spatial constructions and installations. In 1999 he received his MA degree in Fine Arts from Chelsea College of Art and Design in London UK. He worked as a professor in the Fine Arts Departments at the Universidad de los Andes and the Universidad de Bogota Jorge Tadeo Lozano, in Bogota, Colombia. In 2002 he moved to USA where he has kept developing and showing his artwork in addition to working as a Teaching Artist for different organizations such as Arts for Learning In Miami, FL and Children’s Studio School in Washington, DC. During this time he also attended the Corcoran College of Art where he did coursework in the MFA program. He currently lives and works in Memphis, TN.
locatearts.org/artists/nelson-gutierrez
Yancy Villa-Calvo, Memphis / Mexico I consider my work to be an intertwined web of art and life. My life experiences have influenced how I define, make, and encounter art. Experiences such as being born and raised in Mexico, living in Mozambique, and traveling to many countries have provided me with a cross-cultural perspective and an awareness of my place as both a global citizen and a resident of the U.S., a country I call my own. My work appears in diverse forms ranging from visual art, to activism, to performance art, to urban planning. For me, the creative process starts by questioning current systems and social dynamics. It leads me to produce asset-based artwork that is aesthetically and emotionally powerful and that emphasizes dialogue, participation, and action. My art provides a platform to see common ground in the midst of our complex humanity, and it encourages civic engagement for the betterment of our shared spaces. Yancy Villa-Calvo’s multimedia work seeks to create awareness, provoke thought, and stimulate conversation on issues of social justice, equality, and prosperity. Villa-Calvo is the creator of Barrier Free: A Socially Engaged Art Installation. She currently works as a City Artist with the Memphis 3.0 Comprehensive Growth City Plan. Her Memphis 3.0 project, Go Explore Memphis Soul (GEMS), uses art to engage city residents in neighborhood planning and development. Her art installations have been exhibited around the U.S. in Washington, D.C., Houston, Phoenix, and Baltimore, as well as in various cities in Tennessee including Memphis, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. Villa-Calvo is a recipient of grants and art commissions sponsored by the Smithsonian Institute Latino Center, the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Tennessee Arts Commission, ArtsMemphis, UnidosUS, the Funders’ Network, the UrbanArt Commission, and the City of Memphis, among other entities. She received her formal art education at Christian Brothers University and Memphis College of Art. She frequently exhibits in solo show and group shows in addition to participating in collaborative projects. Her paintings are displayed in private collections in the United States, Mexico, Spain, Colombia, Israel, and the Netherlands. Villa-Calvo was born in Mexico City. She has been a resident of Memphis for over 20 years, where she lives with her husband Mauricio Calvo and their children Anna, Carolina, and Santiago. www.yancyart.com
McKinney Center @ Jonesborough
Jennings described the work by Antuco Chicaiza, an Ecuadorian artist, as visual “expression of political and cultural beliefs” honed by the historical challenges of his time, growing up as first generation US citizen (he was born in the US) but raised both in the US and Ecuador. Chicaiza’s works originally started as charcoal drawings and paintings, as he explored more media, so did he “focused on injustices in different cultures.” His works progressed as he documented his travels in a sketch book. Chicaiza’s work is mixed media, in the forms of collages, digital graffiti and paintings. Alongside Chicaiza’s art work, are the the historical Latin American art that are part of the Reece Museum Collection from the 1960s. Jennings added, “Latin America, at this time, was in the middle of an economic crisis and a civil war”, and the artists creatively visualized “the injustices of their time” to create their works. This exhibit aims to relate historical Latin American art to the current day, in order to encourage critical discourse on contemporary social and political issues. The exhibition is made possible with the generous support from the Reece Museum for lending their collection. Special thanks to Reece Museum Director Randy Sanders, exhibition coordinator Spenser Brenner and collections manager Amy Steadman. Slocumb Galleries’ Kathryn Alexis Jennings is a Curatorial Intern for the Slocumb Galleries and the incoming President of the Slocumb Galleries. Jennings curated the exhibition specifically for the ETSU Hispanic Students Day in collaboration with the Language & Culture Resource Center Director Dr. Felipe Fiuza.
La Historia Crea el Presente: Antuco Chicaiza and Latin American Art from Reece Museum Collection
The ETSU Department of Art & Design and Slocumb Galleries in partnership with Language & Culture Resource Center and the Reece Museum present a juxtaposition of historical Latin American paintings acquired by the Friends of the Reece Museum during the late 1960s, with contemporary paintings and digital work by Knoxvillebased, Ecuadorian artist Antuco Chicaiza in the exhibition entitled ‘La Historia Crea El Presente’ (History Creates the Present). The exhibit is curated by Slocumb Galleries’ Intern Kathryn Alexis Jennings, in time for the ETSU Hispanic Students Day on October 24, 2018 at the mini dome. Chicaiza served as key speaker for the 300+ Hispanic high school students from various parts of the state.
Antuco Chicaiza’s paintings poetically document his life: his family and friends, his travels and relocations, and his cultural identities and political beliefs. Like a layered visual diary, his works gather evidence of the events and forces that have effected him deeply. Chicaiza’s early charcoal drawings and paintings drew upon his childhood memories of the lives of Indians in Ecuador. These works were representational in style and emphasized both social injustice and the peoples’ strength and pride. Later, his work described his own journey, reflecting in his words, “any injustice or prejudices I was affected by.” In 2003, Chicaiza’s work shifted to a more experimental approach which focused on the sketch books which the artist has always carried. In those sketch books he records his thoughts, saves original and found images, and documents his travels. Chicaiza started making paintings that used images that he had archived including phrases, symbols, graffiti, and abstracted figures and faces, combining them in dense, interpenetrating compositions. This work has been his “most personal, showing my struggles and experiences.” Chicaiza’s subjects range from the challenges and rewards of family, to cultural heritage, to social and political issues. In his most recent work, photographs have been melded with painted passages and advertising images with a free-floating, collage-like approach. https://www.artavita.com/artists/10143-antuco-chicaiza
Tennessee Latinx artist Antuco Chicaiza as Speaker for ETSU Hispanic Day
Hispanic Student Day is the LCRC’s response to the growing Hispanic population and its need for access to higher education. Since its inception in 2001, the Hispanic Student Day has been completely planned, organized and directed by student workers in the LCRC, and it is fully staffed by ETSU students earning Service-Learning hours. This annual event brings over 100 local high school students of Hispanic heritage to the university for a one-day introduction to after high school life. Our goal is to encourage Hispanic students to complete high school and further their education. During the event, representatives from several university offices including Admissions, Advisement, and Financial Aid give a brief presentation. A keynote motivational speech by a Hispanic professional encourages students to develop their abilities and open their eyes to the demand for bilingual professionals. The students are later led on campus tours and rendezvous for lunch, where university recruiters are available for questions. Tennessee and Latinx artist Antuco Chicaiza presented as Speaker during the ETSU Hispanic Day last October 2019. He also spoke to a smaller group of students at Slocumb Galleries suring the exhibiton La Historia Crea El Presente: Antuco Chicaiza and Latin American Art from the Reece Museum Collection.
Student Mentoring with Tennessee Ecuadorian artist Antuco Chicaiza
Corazon Latino Festival 2019
Dia de los Muertos with Rosalie Lopez
Morristown Hispanic Community
East Tennessee State University ETSU provides a student-centered community of learning, reflecting high standards and promoting a balance of liberal arts and professional preparation, and continuous improvement. The university conducts a wide array of educational and research programs and clinical services including a comprehensive Academic Health Sciences Center. Education is the university’s highest priority, and the institution is committed to increasing the level of educational attainment in the state and region based on core values where: PEOPLE come first, are treated with dignity and respect, and are encouraged to achieve their full potential; RELATIONSHIPS are built on honesty, integrity, and trust; DIVERSITY of people and thought is respected; EXCELLENCE is achieved through teamwork, leadership, creativity, and a strong work ethic; EFFICIENCY is achieved through wise use of human and financial resources; and COMMITMENT to intellectual achievement is embraced. etsu.edu Department of Art & Design The ETSU Department of Art & Design provides comprehensive training in the visual arts and art history. The students develop problem solving skills, a strong work ethic, and an ability to communicate verbally and visually through their time with us. Alumni from our program are thriving in various careers in the arts. The faculty includes internationally exhibited artists, published authors, and a Guggenheim fellow. The department is affiliated with the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at ETSU, which sponsors an eclectic calendar of visiting artists, curators, art historians, and exhibitions on the ETSU campus each semester.
The facilities are comprehensive, with materials and spaces for Graphic Design, Fibers, Painting, Printmaking, Ceramics, Drawing, Jewelry & Metals, Sculpture, Analog and Digital Photography, and Extended Media. We have two exhibition spaces, and a satellite gallery in downtown Johnson City, Tipton Street Gallery, where we host exhibitions by students, visiting artists, and faculty. The department offers Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Studio Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design, Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Studio Art, Minor Study in Art History and Marster of Fine Arts (MFA in Studio Art. etsu.edu/cas/art Slocumb Galleries The Slocumb Galleries and Tipton Gallery under the Department of Art & Design at the ETSU College of Arts and Sciences promote the understanding, production, and appreciation of visual arts in support of the academic experience and the cultural development of surrounding communities. Our Mission is to develop creative excellence, foster collaborations, promote inclusivity and encourgae critical thinking by providing access to and serving as platform for innovative ideas and diverse exhibitions. Named after Prof. Elizabeth Slocumb, an art teacher at ETSU, then as East TN Normal School in 1911 and first Chair of the Department of Art & Design. The exhibition programming includes internationally and nationally renowned artists, emerging and regional/ local artists, students, faculty, curated themed, and national juried exhibitions, with collaborative, interdisciplinary community engagement activities. etsu.edu/cas/art/galleries
Tennessee Arts Commission Arts Project Support (APS) Grant The Arts Project Support (APS) Grant provides funds for diverse arts projects in urban counties. Proposed arts projects must involve one or more Commissionrecognized art forms, including: visual arts, craft, media, design, music, theater, dance, folk and ethnic, or literary arts. The grant applicants are reviewed based on its merit on demonstrating the artistic, cultural, and/or educational value to the community being served. The proposed project must advance the organization’s mission to the community as well as support the work of artists. The organization must demonstrate its understanding of the diverse interests and needs of the community it serves, the value of public and private partnerships, and the principles of documentation, evaluation, and results used to guide future planning and programming. The organization must also prove financial stability and a broad base of financial support with the ability to carry out proposed project based on history of TAC funding. tnartscommission.org/art-grants/ Arts Fund at East Tennessee Foundation The Arts Fund for East Tennessee, a field-of-interest fund of East Tennessee Foundation (ETF), serves as a source of funds to support excellence in the arts, expand access to the arts, and connect artists with each other. We are proud to partner with ETSU to support a series of exhibits that celebrate Black, Asian, and Hispanic Appalachian diversity. EFT is a 501(c)(3) public charity and community foundation created by and for the people of East Tennessee, where many donors join together to make he region they love a better place, today and for future generations. deasttennesseefoundation.org
Language & Culture Resource Center LCRC’s vision is to bridge boundaries between the native English-speaking communities in East Tennessee and the non-native English speaking communities, such as the Latinx community. The mission is to increase the awareness and understanding of diversity by involving the university faculty and students in hands-on, communitybased learning experiences and to bring together people from every age and background to share cultural strengths and humanity through research and outreach programs as they work toward the acculturation of the local non-native speakers of English communities. The LCRC publishes El Nuevo Tennessean and sponsors the annual Hispanic Student Day at ETSU for high school Latinx heritage students for a one-day introduction to college life. The goal is to encourage all attendees to complete high school and teach them about the options available for them to pursue higher education. etsu.edu/cas/lcrc McKinney Center The McKinney Center is located in the historic Booker T. Washington School that was originally completed in 1939 as part of the WPA program and opened its doors in 1940 for the purpose of instructing African-American children. It also houses the Mary B. Martin Program for the Arts designed to inspire area residents through appreciation for and participation in the various forms of art and expression. The comprehensive arts program offers a variety of educational opportunities for learning such as drawing, painting, mosaics, theatre, dance, and music. https://www.jonesboroughtn.org/index.php/component/k2/147