JULE, a magazine for Auburn University's Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art

FALL 2016 | VOL IV, ISSUE I

JULE

A magazine for AUBURN UNIVERSITY’S JULE COLLINS SMITH MUSEUM OF FINE ART

PERSPECTIVE JCSM.AUBURN.EDU

BIRDS OF A FEATHER...

Thanks to our friends at the Southeastern Raptor Center at Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine for visiting with us. Just as The Lost Bird Project raises awareness about the plight of extinction, the Southeastern Raptor Center promotes wildlife conservation, education, and rehabilitation.

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| Members, faculty, staff, and students enjoy the opening of the Auburn University Department of Art and Art History Studio Faculty Exhibition

JCSM is a charitable non-profit organization committed to lifelong learning and community enrichment.

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William Dunlop, co-chair Mark Jones, co-chair David Braly Donna C. Burchfield Helen Carlisle Thomas M. Chase Dorothy Davidson Patricia Disque Ralph B. Draughon Jr. Melanie Duffey Robert B. Ekelund Jr. James Farmer Diana G. Hagler Nancy Hartsfield Edward Hayes Jenny Jenkins David E. Johnson Lynn Barstis Williams Katz Roger D. Lethander Sheila McCartney

Janet Nolan Stuart Price Jr. Carolyn B. Reed William Collins Smith Mark W. Spencer Eugene Edward Stanaland Jeane B. Stone EMERITUS Fran Dillard Batey M. Gresham Jr. Taylor D. Littleton William V. Neville Jr. Albert J. Smith Jr. Gene H. Torbert C. Noel Wadsworth EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Allyson Comstock Lady Cox

ADVISORY BOARD

THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS

THE CONVERSATION WITH MARILYN LAUFER,

DIRECTOR

As director, I proudly highlight how JCSM’s exemplary staff reflect Auburn University’s highest quality standards and offer the finest art educational resource. Our communications, publications, programs, exhibitions, and collections growth are evidence of our staff commitment to these ideals. We constantly fine-tune to better serve you.

The JULE is such a result. With the launch of this latest issue, we hope you agree that JCSM has succeeded in providing informative content to make your experience with JCSM even more meaningful and exciting.

JCSM also recognizes the importance of aligning with the university mission of instruction, research, and outreach. We communicate the power of individual expression through the artwork we acquire for our collections. Our exhibitions and programs initiate conversations that foster and challenge new ideas and ways of understanding the world in which we live. One of our greatest assets are the diverse audiences we reach. Comprised of university students, faculty, regional public and private school students, and our many visitors, that total is approaching 40,000 annually; we are a key component in our community’s quality of life.

Our strong association with the university is evident in joining other university units, colleges, and schools in the historic $1 billion Because This is Auburn—A Campaign for Auburn University. Donors provide essential funding for our facility and programs. We thank those of you who have participated to date and encourage those who enjoy our many compelling art experiences and believe in what we do to consider ways to provide for the future of this institution.

As a university, who we are tomorrow depends on what we do today. As a university art museum, the same powerful statement holds great truth.

CONNECT WITH US @JCSMauburn The CONVERSATION THE Conversation | FALL 2016

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12 WHAT’S INSIDE 01 PERSPECTIVE 02 THE CONVERSATION 06 EXTRA EXTRA 08 EXHIBITIONS 20 COLLECTIONS 26 PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS 32 OUTCOMES 34 GALLERY 36 MEMBERSHIP 37 ART CHANGES LIVES

FEATUR 12 SPACE

AN ILLUMINATED Explore the genesis of video art with a primer on Camera Lucida.

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22 SUPPORT 28 NATASHA A LEGAC Y OF

TRETHEWE Y

For the Draughons, serving Auburn is a proud family tradition.

Get to know poet Natasha Trethewey.

JULE VOLUME IV, ISSUE I

ADMINISTRATION Marilyn Laufer, director Andy Tennant, assistant director MANAGING EDITOR Charlotte R. Hendrix DESIGNER Janet Guynn CONTRIBUTORS Rebecca Bresler Scott Bishop Danielle Funderburk Dennis Harper Andrew Henley Hayley Hillberg Jessica Hughes Lauren Horton Reneé Maurer MEMBERSHIP & DEVELOPMENT Melaine Bennett Cindy Cox Noemí Oeding PHOTOGRAPHY Mike Cortez Janet Guynn Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University (JCSM) is an academic unit reporting to the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. JULE is published biannually by JCSM and is distributed to museum members and others in the arts communities.

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TEENS

AND MUSEUMS Teenagers find a place and voice through art.

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Unless otherwise noted, all works of art illustrated are in the collection of Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University.

MISSION STATEMENT Art changes lives. Our mandate within the larger mission of Auburn University is to preserve, enhance, research and interpret the collections entrusted to us. Through the presentation of compelling exhibitions and programs to our diverse audiences, we foster the transformative power of art.

JULE is printed on New Leaf Paper, Reincarnation.

PROCESSED

CHLORINE FREE © 2016 Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University.

Auburn University is an equal opportunity educational institution/employer.

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EXTRA EXTRA

FALL 2016 | VOL IV, ISSUE I

OUR NEW LOOK!

JULE

For the very first issue, we want to introduce the magazine and share some of what the staff hopes to accomplish in this new endeavor.

After reviewing several different types of publications from both museums and universities, the staff identified the best practices of these publications to develop a new identity for JULE. Along with a publication statement for the table of contents, a publication mission statement was crafted: JULE is a membership and marketing resource for JCSM. The producers develop context around what is unique and valuable about exhibitions and programs in order to create interest and inspire action.

You’ll get to know a little more about the contemporary artists who visit campus; you’ll meet those who are passionate about JCSM and hear from them why they choose to support our many activities; the art history discussed in its pages will make your visit to see the exhibitions all the more meaningful; and, you’ll see the positive outcomes of your support through outreach to kindergarten through 12th grade and community visitors.

Membership lists, donor lists, acquisition lists, and other items from the previous JULE format will be printed in the JCSM Annual Report delivered to members and by request from the front desk.

A ma gaz ine for AU BU RN UN IVE RS ITY ’S JUL E CO LLIN S SM ITH MU SEU M OF FIN E ART

Since the expanded content will rely less on a formal calendar, there are other ways you can stay up to date.

1.

On jcsm.auburn.edu, select CALENDAR from the header menu. You may also navigate to INVOLVEMENT to customize your online visit by audience member type.

2.

When you provide an email with your membership form, you’re subscribed to E-MUSE. New contacts may opt-in for this monthly communication at jcsm.auburn.edu. For assistance, please contact charlotte.hendrix@auburn.edu.

3.

Connect with us @JCSMAuburn on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

We hope you enjoy reading these new issues as much as we enjoy producing them for you.

WANT THE LATEST JULE DELIVERED DIRECT TO YOUR DOOR? Consider joining JCSM. JCSM individual memberships start at $50. Get even more benefits as a sustaining member for $125.

4.

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Give us a call at 334-844-1484.

THE LOST BIRD PROJECT

INSTALLATION EXTENDED Given the positive response of visitors and members, JCSM is extending the run of The Lost Bird Project by Todd McGrain. The five bronze sculptures, depicting the artist’s interpretation of extinct birds from North America, are on loan through March 2017. One of the benefits of accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums is that lending institutions and artists recognize that JCSM’s operations and collection stewardship efforts are very sound, making Auburn’s art museum a desired place to exhibit work.

JCSM curators often select pieces to exhibit based on existing holdings in the permanent collection, as in the case of the Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Collection and The Lost Bird Project. New works that also expand the instructional value of the collections are added through charitable giving to our outdoor sculpture program, the 1072 Society, and other acquisition funds.

ART YOU CAN WEAR We are excited to announce the launch of a new product line in the Museum Shop—scarves depicting select images from the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art collection. The inaugural project utilizes three prints from the Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Collection: Hooping Crane, Blue Jay, and Warblers.

The scarves are created by VIDA with state of the art technology through a process called Direct to Fabric Digital Printing. Using this process, the image is replicated onto the fabric with speed and precision; art is transferred and ready to be printed in seconds opposed to months. VIDA is a global company with a strong sense of social responsibility, especially to the makers of their products. The scarves are manufactured in India where workers are part of the One Maker At A Time + Literacy For Life program, which provides a living wage as well as basic literacy and math skills.

AUDUBON SCARVES In the future, we plan to expand this product line to include other works of art from the permanent collection. This is a truly unique product line produced exclusively for the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. These scarves are available only in the Museum Shop where members receive a discount on all merchandise.

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EXHIBITIONS

CAMERA LUCIDA Bill L. Harbert Gallery and Gallery C

AUG. 27, 2016–JAN. 7, 2017 Popular culture has been molded by television and electronic graphic information since the mid-20th century. Whether appearing on a TV console, computer monitor, or smart device, video has become a comfortable, accessible, and preferred medium for both consumption and creation, especially to those among us under 30. Many critics today consider it to be this generation’s quintessential format for expression.

Camera Lucida features eight contemporary artists from around the world who work with video and digital moving imagery. Artists Jay Bolotin, Rob Carter, Joe Hamilton, Yeon Jin Kim, LigoranoReese, Jillian Mayer, Rosa Menkman, and Rick Silva offer fresh perspectives on enduring concerns and new issues, using a technology that is widely familiar through common exposure, if not as broadly known as an independent art form.

Yet video has been used as an eloquent and powerful vehicle by artists for more than 50 years, ranging from early documentary formats and narrative expositions to digital abstraction and game-playing interaction. JCSM’s survey provides a compelling look at the state of the medium today, where age-old intentions find new purpose in new applications.

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Jay Bolotin, still from Kharmen, 2013.

Image courtesy of the artist.

This exhibition has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

MEMBERS’ OPENING

SAVE THE DATE:

TOP: Rosa Menkman, still from Xilitla, 2014, 3-D videoscape/algorithmic art. Image courtesy of the artist and Transfer, New York.

Aug. 26, 2016

BOTTOM: Rick Silva, still from The Silva Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future, 2015.

Multi-channel video. Image courtesy of the artist and Transfer, New York.

CAMERA LUCIDA OPENING RECEPTION

Members’ invitation to follow.

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EXHIBITIONS

The skeleton of a great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), on loan from the Auburn University Museum of Natural History in the College of Science and Mathematics, will be shared in the work of two respondents: Claire Wilson and Zdenko Krtic.

CALL AND RESPONSE Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Gallery

JUNE 18–OCT. 23, 2016 JCSM called nine members of the university community to respond objectively and subjectively to art from JCSM’s growing collection of natural history prints. The resulting exhibition is an orchestrated chorus of diverse voices responding to the art, science, and wonder of representing the natural world.

To expand the conversation, Ralph Brown Draughon Library’s Special Collections Department loaned materials from their collections; JCSM appreciates their kind collaboration. We also thank the Auburn University Museum of Natural History in the College of Science and Mathematics for loaning materials from their ornithology collection.

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RESPONDENTS PARTICIPATING IN THE EXHIBITION: Barb Bondy, visual artist (drawing) Kathryn Braund, historian Anton DiSclafani, fiction writer Andrew Kozlowski, printmaker Zdenko Krtic, painter Keetje Kuipers, poet Jessye McDowell, new media artist Rose McLarney, poet Claire Wilson, editor, Encyclopedia of Alabama

1072 SOCIETY EXHIBITION Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Gallery

NOV. 5, 2016–JAN. 29, 2017

OPENING RECEPTION: Nov. 6, 2016, 2 p.m.

Since its inception in 2008, the 1072 Society has grown steadily to become one of JCSM’s leading sources of collections patronage. Named in honor of the auction price paid in 1948 for 36 modernist paintings that established Auburn’s art collection, the 1072 Society is composed of friends of the museum who contribute funds annually to acquire new art for the museum’s permanent collection.

Jane E. Goldman, Audubon March, 2015, archival pigment print, hand painted, ed: 25. Photo © StewartStewart.com 2015

AUDUBON INSPIRATIONS: PRINTS BY JANE E. GOLDMAN

Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon Gallery

NOV. 5, 2016–JAN. 29, 2017 Jane E. Goldman’s ongoing series of luminous prints reveals the artist’s muse in a graphically novel way. Audubon Inspirations: Prints by Jane E. Goldman features twelve silkscreen and hand-painted digital prints that pay homage to 19th-century naturalist and artist John James Audubon.

Goldman’s sun-dappled still life compositions lyrically document a year’s passing months and seasons. Sprays of cut flowers in glass vases and lush flora growing in natural environments frame each setting and cast shadows across opened books that display images from Audubon’s Birds of America.

Goldman’s dance of light and dark patterns over table cloths, floor tiles, and Audubon’s reproductions unites the various elements and illustrates the kinship she feels with the earlier artist’s work.

Each year we assemble and exhibit a themed selection of art to be considered for purchase with funds generated by this group. With individual donations of $1,072, our diverse patrons collectively help shape the composition and direction of the museum’s holdings of fine art, and build on our founders’ vision to provide a significant cultural resource for the Auburn Family.

The past eight 1072 Society exhibitions have resulted in remarkable additions to the collection including paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture by artists such as Canaletto, Willie Cole, Walker Evans, Claude Lorrain, Beverly Pepper, Giambattista Piranesi, William Wegman, William Zorach, and many others.

This year, we turn our focus to ceramics and art glass. The exhibition will feature historic, traditional, and contemporary examples that augment in meaningful ways our expanding collections in those areas. Utilitarian vessels, figurative ceramic sculpture, and exquisite objets d’art all await this year’s selection. We hope you will make it a point to preview our prospective acquisitions at the opening reception and consider becoming a part of this dynamic collectors group.

Born in Texas in 1951, Goldman received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Smith College and Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin. She has taught at Massachusetts College of Art, University of California at Los Angeles, Rice University, and Hartford Art School. She has exhibited widely in the United States and abroad and is represented in permanent collections that include the Bibliothequé nationale de France, Brooklyn Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, and the Library of Congress. This exhibition features generous loans from Stewart & Stewart fine art printer and publisher, and impressions from Auburn collector Lynn Barstis Williams Katz and JCSM’s permanent collection.

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space

“AN ILLUMINATED

By Dennis Harper

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Camera Lucida is JCSM’s first exhibition dedicated to video art. While the exhibition focuses on recent work and includes emerging artists from around the globe, it is important to take a look back at the earliest uses of this new medium, widely seen as the art of the future.

LigoranoReese, still from Dawn of the Anthropocene, 2015. Single-channel video.

Image courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

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T

h e s c r e e n e x p e r i e n c e s w e e n j oy

today—flat-screen HDTVs, online binge-watching, and smartphone video blogs—have roots in the 1920s, when the earliest television equipment first appeared.

Those devices employed a system of crude, mechanical scanners with neon lamps and perforated rotating disks to reproduce and convey simple moving images by radio communication to a similarly constructed receiver. Electromechanical transmission of motionless images occurred even earlier, as far back as the mid-nineteenth century.

Called telephotographs, their static transmissions were the products of the first facsimile—or “fax”— machines. Despite renown as marvels of ingenuity, mechanical-scan televisions never caught on with the general public, mainly due to their low quality image reproduction. However, the development of vacuum tube amplification, cathode ray display screens, and better quality electronic scanning soon provided a more feasible means to capture dynamic imagery at one location and send it via airwaves or cable to remote viewers. Television quickly became widespread. The first commercially successful television broadcasts occurred in the late 1940s. In the early 1950s the invention of the video tape recorder enabled producers to save live programming for later and repeated viewings.

By the end of the decade, television had blossomed into a major, if not the prime, communications and entertainment medium in America and elsewhere.

At the time, the very high cost of video production equipment deterred its use by all but large commercial operations, the military, or the wealthiest private buyers.

Recorders sold for around $50,000 in 1956, which equates to more than $435,000 in 2016. Magnetic videotape then cost $300 for a one-hour reel. Television cameras were large, heavy, complicated to operate, and similarly pricey. Yet, it wasn’t long before rapid technical innovation drastically reduced the size, complexity, and costs of video recording equipment. Thus, by the late 1960s relatively affordable prices brought portable devices into the hands of ordinary consumers, including artists who were seeking new avenues of expression outside conventional media. Among the first to acquire Sony’s Portapak video camera and recorder when it went on sale to the general public, in 1965, was the Korean-born artist Nam June Paik. An experimental artist who worked primarily with site-specific installation, sound, and improvisational performance art, Paik had already employed television equipment in his work, most notably by positioning magnets to distort their screen images. In perhaps his first use of recorded video as an art form, Paik videotaped the crowds following Pope Paul VI’s motorcade through New York City in 1965.

That evening at Cafe au Go Go in Greenwich Village, the artist juxtaposed his spontaneous and unedited record of the event alongside a broadcast news version, to draw distinction between the mainstream’s slickly mediated interpretation and his more authentic, individual perception.

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ABOVE: Cover, Science and Invention magazine, November 1928. Public domain.

RIGHT: Publicity photograph for Sony Portapak video camera and recorder, ca. 1965. Public domain.

Like Paik, other artists who were involved in creating performances, “happenings,” and conceptual art in the 1960s were quick to embrace video. Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, Bruce Nauman, and Dennis Oppenheim were among the earliest adopters and saw it as a natural extension of their work in other media. While video production still required accessibility to specialized equipment, its immediacy and ease of use complemented the do-it-yourself (or in some cases, do-it-to-yourself) character of their work.

LigoranoReese is the collaborative name of artists Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, whose work, Dawn of the Anthropocene, is featured in Camera Lucida. LigoranoReese’s video documents the limited life span of their massive work of ice sculpture installed outdoors in a downtown Manhattan pedestrian plaza. (Illustr. pp. 12–13) Moreover, it functions independently as a compelling work of art, compressing time and the transformation of matter into an accelerated viewer experience, thus amplifying the artists’ conceptual statement.

The installation of the 3,000-pound sculpture of the words THE FUTURE, measuring five by twenty-three feet, took place at the intersection of Broadway and 23rd Street on the morning of Sept. 21, 2014, to coincide with the United Nations Climate Summit and the People’s Climate March. The artists photographed and filmed the sculpture’s steady disappearance, posting it in real-time on the Internet.

To many artists in the late 1960s and early 70s who created ephemeral or incorporeal works of art, video appeared as an ideal vehicle. Going well beyond a way to document their temporal activities, video upended traditional definitions of what constituted art. For those advocating a new mode of art available to anyone and owned by none, video seemed at least initially to be free from commodification by the establishment art market.

Due to the pervasiveness of broadcast television, video had become a medium that was familiar and comfortable to virtually an entire population. Not surprisingly, artists often chose to subvert that fact, mimicking commercial TV’s style and genres from public service addresses and news reporting to soap operas, quiz shows, and advertisements. One such artist is William Wegman. His large-format photographs in JCSM’s collection, depicting infant puppies among a camouflaging bed of rocks, are familiar to our local audience

Dawn of the Anthropocene is titled after the proposed name for the geological epoch in which we live. The term Anthropocene, popularized by the Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and other scientists, describes the period in which human activity has become the dominant influence on climate and the environment, overtaking that of the Earth’s natural forces. LigoranoReese’s work at large addresses the impact of technology on society, while utilizing high technology itself in novel applications. Recent projects by them include screening micro-projections of Hollywood war movies on the head of a pin and fiber optic data tapestries that alter appearance in response to biometric feedback.

“By the late 1960s relatively affordable prices brought portable devices into the hands of ordinary consumers.”

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and seldom fail to elicit a warm chuckle. Decades before making those works, Wegman created an extensive series of short videos “starring” his grown Weimaraners, named Man Ray and Fay Ray, as they interacted with situational props.

Wegman’s wryly comic sequences play off our long exposure to talk show exchanges between hosts and their guests for appreciation of their absurd humor. Equally, they poke fun at the self-serious tone of much of the 1970s’ sometimes humorless performance art.

That manner of subversive appropriation today includes pseudo infomercials and music videos, along with the slick fades and editing tricks we have come to know through contemporary mainstream television. The videos of Jillian Mayer, another artist exhibiting in Camera Lucida, hold up a virtual funhouse mirror to the deceits of popular television, cinema, and the Internet.

Their humorously distorted reflections are both ludicrous and acutely on point. As if wielding the ultimate universal remote, Mayer channel hops among genres and formats as she takes on the clichéd memes, cultural affectations, lowbrow entertainment, social media confessionals, and online cons that occupy a large portion of her generation’s post-wired existence. Though masked by an aura of pop accessibility and innocence, her work raises serious questions about our spiraling immersion into a surrogate experience of the natural world.

Detail of William Wegman’s untitled photograph (AKA, puppies on the rocks).

Although many of the earliest videos including Wegman’s often involved little more technical methodology than point and shoot, others exploited the distinctive capabilities of this new electronic medium. Stephen Beck, Keith Sonnier, and Benedict Tatti were foremost among a group of artists that used computer technology to modify camera-derived video or even to synthesize images completely. Beck’s training as an electrical engineer, coupled with his interest in experimental music and audio synthesizers, led him to develop equipment that generated direct video patterns from synthesized sounds, using oscillators and color television’s red, blue, and green electron guns. He later created a more complex visual pattern generator called the Video Weaver, which used coded algorithms to produce an ever-changing, psychedelic tapestry of geometric shapes on screen. While Beck’s and others’ seemingly hypnogogic or hallucinatory imagery have an undeniable correlation to the Sixties’ and Seventies’ counterculture fascination with altered states of consciousness, they reflect at the same time a larger desire to create works of art that were not only free from representation but eschewed sign of the artist’s hand in their production.

Jillian Mayer, still from I Am Your Grandma, 2011.

Single-channel video. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Joe Hamilton, still from Survey, 2012. Single-channel video. Image courtesy of the artist.

Most of the artists in Camera Lucida utilize editing and animation technologies that would have astonished earlier creators, thus highlighting how far the field has advanced in half a century. Visual effects seen today in the works of Joe Hamilton, Rosa Menkman, and Joe Silva quite simply could not have been created in an earlier time. Hamilton’s videos integrate rolling overlays of natural landscape views with fields of color, abstract forms, and collaged elements. This thoroughly contemporary, digital take on Cubism elicits an expanded field of awareness that incorporates multiple perspectives and perceptions, much as Braque and Picasso’s paintings achieve. His videos mimic our roaming focus and engagement in the environment and allude to our inner reflections on those sights and activities.

Rosa Menkman makes art of a truly interactive nature by engaging her “audience” to become physical participants in completing the work. Xilitla is designed in a video game format. (Illustr. p. 9) The viewer is transformed into a collaborator by way of a game controller to explore the malleable realms and conditions latent in the experience. However, this is not your normal role-playing game by any stretch of the imagination. Dead ends, unexpected or random consequences, and visual and auditory feedback artifacts, which were they to occur in a conventional game context would be considered negative glitches, are instead coded in and emphasized. Menkman’s work is centered in an aesthetic known as glitch art. Digital and analog errors—bugs in the system—are accepted and incorporated as intentional malfunctions. In Menkman’s work, the glitch disrupts one’s expectations and carries the user/viewer into a new moment or new momentum of understanding.

“This thoroughly contemporary, digital take on Cubism elicits an expanded field of awareness that incorporates multiple perspectives and perceptions, much as Braque and Picasso’s paintings achieve.”

Like Menkman, Rick Silva creates videos and other moving digital art using imaging software. Often, these are designed for a hosted existence on the web, where users may freely access them on personal devices. Some of his past works adopt the commonplace form of the animated GIF, those ubiquitous, looping graphic emblems that enliven websites and HTML emails, often to the irritation of the end user. In Silva’s handling, the result is much more sublime. His projects frequently examine aspects of the landscape and wilderness in the present day. The Silva Field Guide to Birds of a Parallel Future, installed in Camera Lucida on a grid of six wall-mounted monitors, displays looped animations of abstracted avian forms sequenced in eerily naturalistic dynamics of flight. (Illustr. p. 9) Reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbook studies of nature in motion, they also hint at a dystopian future in which those living forms have been supplanted by avatars.

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“THE FUTURE IS

TOP: Yeon Jin Kim, still from Zoonomia, 2015. Single-channel video. Image courtesy of the artist.

BOTTOM: Rob Carter, still from Metropolis, 2008. Single-channel HD video. Image courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco.

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The new editing and special effect capabilities that began to emerge in the 1980s encouraged a more “painterly” approach to video making, building upon those earlier exercises in image processing.

Layering, slow motion, image dissolves, and more extreme visualizations could be easily applied.

Together with continually improving cameras and recording devices, they provided individual artists sophisticated tools to achieve high production values equal to that of Hollywood or Madison Avenue.

Bill Viola’s work, for example, relies on ultra-slow motion recording to arrest a viewer’s racing attention. His videos encourage a kind of meditative mindfulness, as one’s awareness is radically stilled to witness activities “in the moment” as they unfold on screen at a near-glacial pace.

While all of the eight artists featured in Camera Lucida apply advanced processes in widely different ways, some draw significant inspiration from older, pre-electronic technologies to craft their moving picture art. Early filmmakers, as far back as the mid-1800s, created dynamic effects using stop motion animation, miniatures, and painted matte backgrounds. Even today amid eye-popping CGI digital treatments, such mechanical techniques involving clay model animation and puppetry are still effective and popular. Camera Lucida artist Yeon Jin Kim stages narrative videos amid miniature sets of hand-drawn and collage components, with moving scrolls that measure hundreds of feet in length. Tiny, marionette-like protagonists are manipulated through the sets via monofilament lines, with no effort made to hide their low-tech mechanisms. Kim’s charged atmospheres derive in large part from their peculiar settings and eerie plots, but equally through a viewer’s dawning realization that the entire video is shot in one continuous take. The elemental risk of missteps inherent in “live” performance invigorates her work and adds to our appreciation of their inventiveness.

Rob Carter uses stop motion animation to render fictional yet conceivable transformations of the landscape through mankind’s propensity for building. His video Foobel (An Alternate History) traces the imagined evolution of a simple outdoor soccer pitch through time into ever larger and more bombastic iterations of stadium architecture. A later work, Metropolis depicts a similar metamorphosis of rural, 18th-century Charlotte, North Carolina into a futuristic urban conglomeration of skyscrapers and sports arenas. Created by video-recording printed images on paper, cut and folded progressively into elaborate compositions, Carter’s videos comment on the politics of hubris and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

Jay Bolotin turns to age-old forms of imaging technology in the creation of his richly layered, digital productions. Bolotin is a sculptor, printmaker, stage performer, and musician, in addition to being a maker of animated “motion pictures.” In all cases he remains at heart a storyteller. Bolotin Woodcut prints formed the basis for his epic The Jackleg Testament, Part One: Jack and Eve, screened in large format in Camera Lucida. This hour-long operatic tale was realized by scanning his prints for character and background elements, and animating them via computer.

Bolotin’s original musical score and libretto combine with his expressionistic visual treatment in a reinterpretation of the Book of Genesis that channels the likes of Shakespeare, Blake, and Brecht. Bolotin’s most recent project, Kharmen, digitally brings to life his elaborate graphite drawings (Illustr. p. 8). Inspired in part

by Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, Bolotin credits as well the stories of Russian surrealist writer Daniil Kharms as source material for the 22-minute video.

“Welcome to the present.”

The precursor to the modern photographic camera is an ancient device known as the camera obscura, a Latin term meaning “dark room” or “dark chamber.” Through optics, the camera obscura captures an image of the outside world and projects it into an unlit interior space.

Camera lucida, with a substitution of the adjective, translates as an illuminated space. The camera lucida exists in material form as another olden aid to depict images of the physical world; here the term serves to characterize our modern, luminous form of image making. Video has been called the default medium of the twenty-first century. Certainly, the proliferation of digital screens of all sizes and applications delivers an encompassing experience to most “first-world” inhabitants. Not only through televisions, computers, and smartphones; we are constantly confronted by security monitors, debit card inputs, highway signage, and arena Jumbotrons, all streaming video images of various intents. In the same way that artists in previous eras appropriated oil paint, printing, ceramics, and other media from their original usage, artists today claim video for new aesthetic and conceptual purposes. We have indeed transcended Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase, “The medium is the message.” For a generation reared on video, this “new” technology is no more dominating or determinative than a paint brush or pair of eyeglasses. The future is now. Welcome to the present.

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COLLECTIONS

1072 SOCIETY CAMPAIGN EXCEEDS 2016 GOAL

80 $96,434 FIFTEEN DONORS

TOTAL RAISED

Information on the 1072 Society Class of 2017 is forthcoming.

To find out more, contact Cindy Cox, membership officer, at 334-844-3005.

PHOTOGRAPHS ACQUIRED

Recent acquisition pictured above: Walker Evans (American, 1903–1975), Fish Market Near Birmingham, Alabama, 1936, Unsigned, from Ives-Sillman portfolio printed under the artist’s supervision in 1971, Gelatin silverprint, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University, 2016.1.05

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ANDY NASISSE

Andy Nasisse (American, b. 1946) Green-Eyed Jug / Purple-Eyed Jug, 2003 Whiteware ceramic 11 ½ x 7 ¾ x 6 7/8 inches Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University; Porter∙Price Collection (Ronald C. Porter ’71) 2015.26.26

Nasisse states that he is interested in “the tension between opposites; between light and dark; male and female; between expansion and contraction; good and evil; organic and geometric; ration and intuition; mind and body; night and day; between our conscious lives and our subconscious self; between matter and spirit.” His works’ distinctive surfaces derive

through methods he developed that bring out clay’s natural qualities in the processes of shaping, drying, shrinking, glazing, and the dynamics of intense heat. Nasisse uses the primal forms of figure, landscape, and vessel as platforms for thoughts about the human condition. He describes his figures as we see in this dual-faced jug “as part of a family of images that find their way through my hands into the outer world.

At their best they present an enigmatic expression, somewhere on the edge between whimsy and fear.” (For additional information, see andynasisseart.com) In December 2015, JCSM accessioned a gift of 34 works of art from collectors Ron Porter and Joe Price, of Columbia, South Carolina. Dr. Porter, a retired physician, is an undergraduate alumnus of Auburn—he punctuates our phone calls, emails, and personal visits with a hearty “War Eagle!” The pair’s decadeslong passion for art has resulted in a distinctive private collection with a focus on figurative ceramic sculpture; but their wider ranging interests have led them to significant acquisitions of both two- and three-dimensional art in many other

media, including glass, wood, painting, prints, and jewelry. Knowing of our nascent collection of ceramic art, Dr. Porter and Mr. Price wanted to help us move that collections area forward, which they are now accomplishing in a major way.

Among the group of objects in last year’s gift are a large number of teapots by contemporary craft artists. These will complement and greatly enhance our present Dana King Gatchell teapot collection, transferred from Auburn University College of Human Sciences, which features older works including service pieces by George Ohr, Sadie Irvine, and numerous European and Asian producers. The teapots and other objects in the Porter/Price collection will rotate on display at the museum throughout the coming months. But teapots are only one part of the story. Their generous initial gift and others to come include remarkable examples of non-functional ceramics, metalwork, and multimedia sculpture in addition to utilitarian decorative art.

Collections | FALL 2016

SPOTLIGHT

A welcome addition to JCSM’s permanent collection is the Janus-like Green-Eyed Jug/Purple-Eyed Jug, by Andy Nasisse, one of two vessels by the artist recently donated by Ron Porter and Joe Price.

Nasisse is emeritus professor and former head of the ceramics department at the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. He now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. An important figure in contemporary ceramics production and instruction, he is also a curator, author, and collector of art and craft. Examples of Nasisse’s highly expressive ceramic art are held in major public and corporate collections both in the United States and abroad, and portions of his collection of folk and outsider art, gathered over decades, now reside at the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia.

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a Le

By Charlotte R. Hendrix

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egacyy OF SUPPORT CONTINUES

For Dr. Ralph B. Draughon Jr. ’58, supporting Auburn in both words and deeds is truly a proud family tradition.

As a 10-year-old, a Sunday dinner conversation with someone like Dr. George Petrie at his childhood home—the President’s House—made a lasting impression on Draughon. “At a time when children were to be seen and not heard,” said Draughon.

“Dr. Petrie asked me what I was reading, and I told him I was struggling with Sherlock Holmes. He shared that The Hound of the Baskervilles was his favorite.”

Draughon explained Petrie is widely known for penning The Auburn Creed and bringing football to town; but, he was also credited with inspiring many students to become

historians, at what was then an agricultural and mechanical institute. Draughon said in that moment, he too experienced Petrie’s charisma and was deeply affected by the fact that this well-known figure took a serious interest in him and did not just comment on how much he’d grown, like other adults.

Draughon went on to complete his Bachelor of Arts in history at Auburn and doctorate in southern history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Draughon experienced much of Auburn’s history during his time as a son and a student; in fact, one could say, “he wrote the book.”

A Legacy of Support Continues || FALL FALL 2016

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“The museum will use these funds long into the future to further develop its collection of paintings, prints, and pottery related to Alabama and the southern part of the United States.”

He is the co-author of Lost Auburn: A Village Remembered in Period Photographs, whose first publication of 20,000 copies with NewSouth Books sold out. He serves on the Alabama Historical Commission Board and is a member of the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation.

He taught at the University of Georgia, established a research center at the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, Stratford Hall, served as curator at the Historic New Orleans Collection, and acted as historical advisor to a major national archaeological firm.

He has also written about and lectured on another name known to the Auburn Family and the football faithful—Coach John Heisman. In his research, he highlights not stats but Shakespeare, as Heisman was a professional actor.

“He organized the first dramatic group on the Auburn campus, the A.P.I. Dramatic Club,” he said. “The excuse was to raise money to pay off the football team. He produced shows in Opelika and in Auburn above Toomer’s Corner.” Draughon has said in previous interviews that he found documentation of Heisman’s dramatic side in a scrapbook belonging to the wife of a chemistry professor.

“In my own research, I delight in manuscripts of long ago, particularly personal letters,” said Draughon. “I want students of tomorrow to discover how captivating old letters and documents can be. They bring the past alive.”

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Through an estate gift, Draughon is supporting both the Auburn University Libraries and JCSM. The museum will use these funds long into the future to further develop its collection of paintings, prints, and pottery related to Alabama and the southern part of the United States.

“I just don’t want students and general public to neglect the artists who are working here,” he said. “It is gratifying that, for example, potters who were ignored for years and are now very collectible. Self-taught artists are appreciated.”

Draughon, who is also a donor to the museum’s annual 1072 Society, said that he would like for the museum to have a strong southern collection and that he was pleased that the university has a place to exhibit art connected to Auburn and Alabama. He said he also hoped the collection could one day include works by artists featured in major museums, noting the significant support required to develop such a collection.

The senior Draughon also played a role in collection building, as his son said he was instrumental in the acquisition of JCSM’s first collection. “My father was very proud of his association with Advancing American Art. He read the federal catalogue and always thought it was not only an important acquisition for Auburn, but a feather in his cap,” he said. “His office negotiated the sale with federal officials.” The acquisition records were among his father’s papers that he donated to the Ralph B. Draughon Libraries.

“My father struggled for years to have a first-rate library—one, he joked, that the football team could be proud of. I think he would agree today that the museum is also such a source of pride.”

Draughon supports JCSM because he feels the museum is an important element for the educational experience. “The museum has an important place in the university’s present and future. It’s very meaningful to be a part of that for me. It’s such a classy outfit, for one thing, and it’s so nice that the University of Alabama doesn’t have one!”

Spoken like someone who truly believes in Auburn, and loves it.

K

K

TOP LEFT: Draughon pictured with a work by Grant Wood titled Honorary Degree, a gift he made in honor of his father, Auburn University President Ralph B. Draughon, Sr. ABOVE: Frank Applebee, founding chair of the art department, captured this view of Auburn’s campus near Samford Hall, ca. 1930–40, around the same time Dr. Draughon, Sr. began teaching at API.

“The museum has an important place in the university’s present and future. It’s very meaningful to be a part of that for me.”

A Legacy of Support Continues || FALL FALL 2016

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PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

A Little Art Talk

Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers

SELECT WEDNESDAYS, 12 P.M. Join us for a focused look at a single work of art. A Little Art Talk lasts about 15-30 minutes, leaving ample time to drop by the café for lunch.

Attendees will get free iced tea or coffee when they dine in the café.

SELECT THURSDAYS, SEPT. 1, OCT. 13, AND NOV. 10, 5 P.M.

Presenters may include Auburn University students and faculty, docents, visiting artists, and museum staff.

A Little Lunch Music SELECT THURSDAYS, 12 P.M. On Thursdays at Noon from September 1 to December 15, make a lunch date with our region’s finest musicians. A Little Lunch Music is an informal, come-and-go performance presented by JCSM and coordinated by musician Patrick McCurry. You can sit in and listen to the entire performance, dine in the Museum Café from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., browse the Museum Shop, or explore the galleries.

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FILM@JCSM SELECT THURSDAYS, SEPT. 8, SEPT. 29, AND NOV. 3, 5 P.M. FILM@JCSM stands for “Fostering Interdisciplinary Learning through Movies.” The 2016 fall semester programs are scheduled in conjunction with Camera Lucida.

This project is co-sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, a state program of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

JCSM brings in contemporary filmmakers to meet with students and museum guests for a special screening of their film. The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers is a program of South Arts. Southern Circuit screenings are funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

Natasha Trethewey OCT. 6, 5 P.M. Natasha Trethewey will read her work and present the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize 2016 honoring the late Alabama poet, Jake Adam York (1972-2012). The Auburn Witness Poetry Prize is annually awarded by Southern Humanities Review to recognize the best poems of witness by a poet in the United States. Trethewey, York’s teacher and friend, is the judge in this year’s competition. She is the author of four collections of poetry: Domestic Work (2000), Bellocq’s Ophelia (2002), Native Guard (2006), for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and Thrall (2012), as well as the nonfiction collection Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, composed of documentary poetry, essays, and letters. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Georgia, a Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing from Hollins University, and a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A former Auburn University professor, she now serves as the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University and director of their Creative Writing program. Trethewey was appointed the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States in 2012, serving two terms and ending her term in 2014. She was the first African American named to the position since Rita Dove, appointed in 1993. Also in 2012, she was named the Poet Laureate of the state of Mississippi, where she grew up in the coastal town of Gulfport.

This reading is funded, in part, by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and Alabana State Council on the Arts.

Pictured above (l. to r.) are Dan Albergotti, Natasha Trethewey and the late Jake Adam York. To learn more about Natasha Trethewey, see our feature on page 30.

Third Thursday Poetry Series AUG. 18, SEPT. 15, OCT. 20, NOV. 17, DEC. 15; 6:30 P.M. A new lineup of visiting poets to our area is slated for the 2016 fall installment of the Third Thursday Poetry Series.

Summer Art Clubs Our Art Club series continues this summer. Topics include weaving, painting, collage, and bookmaking. Parents are asked to join in the fun for Artypants and stART! K-12 Art Clubs are funded by a City of Auburn K-12 Arts Education Outreach Grant.

State of Create—Rising 7th–12th graders Friday sessions continue through August 5 State of Create is an exciting drop-in art club for teenagers. With the support of experienced staff members, we’ll explore challenging materials, professional techniques, and new art forms. Come join us each Friday (except for July 1) from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Artypants—Rising K–2nd graders Saturday sessions continue through August 6 Those smarty arty kids have plenty to do at JCSM on Saturday mornings!

ArtyPants gives your child the opportunity to explore a wide range of materials, make new friends, and create their own art. Come join us each Saturday (except for July 2) from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. stART!—Rising 3rd–6th graders Saturday sessions continue through August 6 For the growing learner, stART! gives your child the opportunity to expand their knowledge of materials. Students will begin considering more advanced applications of the elements of art such as color, line, and shape, as well as the principles of design including harmony and balance. Come join us each Saturday (except for July 2) from 12:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Online registration, additional program details, and future art club dates can be found at jcsm.auburn.edu. For information, contact the education department at 334-844-3486.

www.

Visit JCSM.AUBURN.EDU for complete program listings. Our monthly E-MUSE is the best way to stay current with JCSM programs and events. Sign up today at jcsm.auburn.edu.

This program has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Program Highlights | FALL 2016

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“I see how the past holds us captive, its beautiful ruin etched on the mind’s eye.”

Natasha Trethewey

poet’s profile

By Emma Hyche, guest contributor

The most striking quality of Natasha Trethewey’s poetry is its sheer elegance— how its understated narratives, carefully controlled descriptions, and deliberate syntax all contribute to produce moments of quiet epiphany. She blends free verse and traditional forms, deploying odes, ballads, and sonnet sequences with equanimity. Trethewey’s poems examine the individual in the historical context from which they are inseparable. Rita Dove, who chose Trethewey’s Domestic Work for the 1999 Cave Canem prize, described this phenomenon aptly in the

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collection’s introduction, where she stated: “Trethewey eschews the Polaroid instant, choosing to render the unsuspecting yearnings and tremulous hopes that accompany our most private thoughts— reclaiming for us that interior life where the true self flourishes and to which we return, in solitary reverie, for strength.”

Domestic Work, which examines the lives of working class African Americans in the early 20th century, featuring occasional appearances by Trethewey’s family members, blends exteriority and interiority, using rich narrative and

evocative detail to bring the intimate human struggles of African Americans across history vividly to the surface.

As The New Yorker noted, “Trethewey’s writing mines the cavernous isolation, brutality, and resilience of AfricanAmerican history, tracing its subterranean echoes to today.” Her work interrogates the past, disallowing any easy escapism with lines like “my father calling to me/from the back–luring me/to a past that never was. This/is the treachery of nostalgia.” Through her work, Trethewey teaches us both how to understand the

past and how to reconcile ourselves to the ties with which the past binds us still.

As she writes, “I see how the past holds us captive,/its beautiful ruin etched on the mind’s eye.”

Though known foremost for her poetry, Trethewey published the nonfiction collection Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2010.

The book describes her pilgrimage home to North Gulfport, Mississippi to chronicle the state of the Gulf Coast and its people five years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Part of Beyond Katrina deals with Trethewey’s brother, incarcerated for a drug offense committed in post-Katrina desperation.

Through the correspondences between Trethewey and her brother, Trethewey said she realized that “…his story could speak for many stories of people who are less visible, whom we don’t see struggling—the stories we may not know, about recovery and the choices people make when they have no jobs or they’ve lost everything.” As frequently occurs in Trethewey’s work, the larger narrative of loss is seen in microcosm through the personal stories of Trethewey’s own friends and family, which are emblematic of greater narratives of injustice and deprivation, the likes of which still continue to unfold a decade after Katrina.

While her work plumbs the intersections of personal history and national history, these intersections are, for Trethewey, present in her very body.

As the daughter of a black mother and a white father (a marriage illegal in 1965 Mississippi, where her parents married), biracial identity becomes a source of inspiration. Biracial identity is a lodestone for Trethewey’s work, even as it places her, as she describes in her poetry, in a cultural limbo. Rather than disavowing that aspect of herself, her poems explore, in turn, her own Mississippi childhood, her relationship with her father, and, in her collection Bellocq’s Ophelia, the life of an imaginary mixed-race prostitute named Ophelia photographed by E.J. Bellocq in nineteenth-century and early

twentieth-century New Orleans. In addition, her latest collection, Thrall, takes the reader from the heyday of the Spanish empire to the founding of the United States, a journey throughout which historical intricacies are shrunk to their most basic, human level. Thrall contains several poems engaging with portrait art of the eighteenth century that depicts mixed-race families, specifically fathers and daughters.

Through this prism, Trethewey examines a relationship both bittersweet and conflicted, breaking open “this history/that links us–white father, black daughter–/even as it renders us other to each other.”

The poetry of Natasha Trethewey is vital, and more necessary than ever during the waning days of a biracial presidency and the throes of a tumultuous struggle for the determination of racial identity in America. Trethewey is truly a poet of our times–and for all times.

EMMA HYCHE is a senior majoring in English-Creative Writing at Auburn University.

Enlightenment

By Natasha Trethewey

In the portrait of Jefferson that hangs at Monticello, he is rendered two-toned: his forehead white with illumination — a lit bulb — the rest of his face in shadow, darkened as if the artist meant to contrast his bright knowledge, its dark subtext.

By 1805, when Jefferson sat for the portrait, he was already linked to an affair with his slave. Against a backdrop, blue and ethereal, a wash of paint that seems to hold him in relief, Jefferson gazes out across the centuries, his lips fixed as if he’s just uttered some final word.

The first time I saw the painting, I listened as my father explained the contradictions: how Jefferson hated slavery, though — out of necessity, my father said — had to own slaves; that his moral philosophy meant he could not have fathered those children: would have been impossible, my father said.

For years we debated the distance between word and deed. I’d follow my father from book to book, gathering citations, listening as he named — like a field guide to Virginia — each flower and tree and bird as if to prove a man’s pursuit of knowledge is greater than his shortcomings, the limits of his vision.

I did not know then the subtext of our story, that my father could imagine Jefferson’s words made flesh in my flesh — the improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites — or that my father could believe he’d made me better. When I think of this now, I see how the past holds us captive, its beautiful ruin etched on the mind’s eye: my young father, a rough outline of the old man he’s become, needing to show me the better measure of his heart, an equation writ large at Monticello. That was years ago.

Now, we take in how much has changed: talk of Sally Hemings, someone asking, How white was she? — parsing the fractions as if to name what made her worthy of Jefferson’s attentions: a near-white, quadroon mistress, not a plain black slave.

Imagine stepping back into the past, our guide tells us then — and I can’t resist whispering to my father: This is where we split up. I’ll head around to the back.

When he laughs, I know he’s grateful I’ve made a joke of it, this history that links us — white father, black daughter — even as it renders us other to each other.

Poet's Profile | FALL 2016

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TEEN S MUSEUMS

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By Rebecca Bresler

“

There is comfort in making art. Through exploring different types of art, students­—including myself—find that there is always something that

”

they are good at. For me, it wasn’t drawing or painting, but sculpture.

I was only able to find that out because of the Teen Takeover program at JCSM. Knowing that there is something you are good at, that you

actually can create something you are proud of, it gives you confidence.

—Alexis Ayers,

16-YEAR-OLD ARTIST

JCSM continues to have great success in establishing Auburn’s art museum as a pivotal resource for the East Alabama community. JCSM’s place as the only university art museum in the region presents the museum’s K–12 program staff with the rewarding, albeit challenging, task of fostering an appreciation for and understanding of art by providing highquality programming.

Engagement with the junior and high school audiences traditionally takes place through the summer art club series, State of Create. Education curators expanded programming for these students by hosting Teen Takeover. Educators at the museum invited high school-age students to take part in an all-night art making experience, which culminated in the creation of a twogallery exhibition at the museum. Students were charged with creating as much as they could during a 12-hour period and were given complete control over their artwork. The purpose of the program was to create a unique exhibition that showcased the creativity of the adolescents in our community and to help participating students develop their personal artistic styles and take ownership of their artwork.

On May 26, 2016, following the second installment of Teen Takeover, staff members and participants were filled with pride. The months of hard work and 24-plus hours without sleep had been well worth the effort, as demonstrated in the beautiful teen-generated artwork that now hung on the walls of the museum’s Louise Hauss and David Brent Miller Audubon

Galleries. The teens had far exceeded the staff’s wildest expectations!

Education curators have turned the focus to further broadening our engagement with adolescents. Formed in the fall of 2015, JCSM’s Teen Council serves as a guiding voice for new museum programs for teenagers. Adolescents want and need opportunities to learn through creative expression and without fear of ridicule. JCSM’s programs appeal to teens’ desire to work independently, while still maintaining connections with valuable mentors. Perhaps most importantly, adolescents are inherently social. Teens are much more likely to get involved with activities if they know that their peers and friends are also participating. The programs are also a great opportunity for students of this age to meet new people from other schools.

The eight members who constitute the Teen Council were selected based on their willingness to serve as leaders and their prior participation in museum programs, including State of Create sessions and Teen Takeover. Council members have a unique opportunity to engage with and appreciate art in a museum environment, while developing their leadership skills, collaborating on conceptual directions for future programs, and learning more about how museums operate.

And they enjoy the fun and collaborative experience of coming up with original ideas about programming and seeing their ideas come to fruition. They are proud to be council members, as they believe that sharing art with their peers is an important part of our culture and that art should be available to all students. In the Teen Council members’ own words, “Art allows people to explore without judgment or expectations. Students find comfort in art and through exploring different ways of making art, discovering new skills and gaining confidence. We want more people to know about the museum and its programs.”

We want to continue to make great progress in expanding our K–12 offerings here at JCSM. These museum programs utilize current museum exhibitions as supplements to the hands-on activities we offer, creating a more dynamic learning experience. It is evident from looking at the growing popularity of our K–12 programs that these opportunities are in high demand and genuinely appreciated by participants and the greater Auburn community alike.

We plan to continue working with the Teen Council to provide engaging programming for Auburn’s artistic teens.

“We have received nothing but positive feedback from our Teen Council members.

They appreciate being part of something larger that impacts their community.

Teens Teens& inMuseums Museums | FALL 2016

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OUTCOMES

This digital work by Hannah Wellbaum, Untitled, received a Best in Show award.

YOUR SUPPORT MATTERS: #NOFRAME In JCSM’s first juried digital exhibition for 6th-12th graders, educator curators feature seven digitally produced artworks in #NOFRAME. You can visit the online gallery by going to jcsm. auburn.edu, selecting exhibitions from the menu, and navigating to the #NOFRAME logo.

Department of Art and Art History assistant professor Jessye McDowell served as one of the jurors for the digital exhibition.

Along with retired Auburn City School art teachers Betsy Logan and Monteigne Mathison, McDowell reviewed nearly 80 submissions.

“I didn’t foresee the variety of approaches to digital making,” said McDowell. “Although there was a preponderance of digital photography, students were also making stop-motion animation and pretty sophisticated manipulated images.” She added that she and her fellow jurors discussed how the pieces were made and the amount of work required to produce. “We also considered whether the artist was using a creative or artistic approach to their message, rather than one more akin to graphic design or advertising. I do look for work that reflects a creative approach to technology, rather than a transfer of traditional art making practices to the digital sphere.”

It was the opportunity to advance young people’s creativity with this medium that inspired John Oliver of Cameragraphics, Inc. to support #NOFRAME as a JCSM Business Partner.

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Cameragraphics, founded in 1974, is a full-service photography shop providing sales and service of photographic equipment and supplies. In addition, Cameragraphics offers a professional print lab, printing wallets to posters, canvas gallery wraps, and fine art reproductions. The business is also home to the Villager Custom Frame shop, described by Oliver as Auburn’s finest conservationquality custom frame shop, with over 40 years of experience.

“We try to share our passion for photography through education to our patrons,” said Oliver. “We strive to help them understand the photographic qualities, styles, and techniques needed to capture moments in time in their own artistic way.”

Oliver said that he enjoys art experiences in our community, ranging from JCSM to the Jan Dempsey Community Art Center to the Opelika Performing Arts Center and performances at local schools.

“The community is simply lucky to have such a resource in the JCSM,” said Oliver. “Not many communities can boast such an asset. The museum is a place for education, helping us to understand different eras, movements, styles, and techniques of art and culture. I think that is why the community should support the museum, so it can continue to improve and educate others.”

Education curators plan to include this installment of #NOFRAME as an ongoing exhibition on the museum’s website.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Alexandra Combs, Springtime Showers, received a Best in Show award

Cameragraphics, Inc. and Villager Custom Frame Shop are both located at 1625 E. University Drive, Suite 103, in Auburn.

The JCSM education department and Teen Council hosted SpringBoard, JCSM’s first juried art exhibition and event for teens (8th–12th grade students) in Lee County. The competition concluded with a one-night exhibition of the winning works of art here at the museum. The SpringBoard event, held on April 15, included the announcement of the winners and distribution of prizes, in addition to artmaking activities, light refreshments, and music for the teens. The ten program winners have also been invited to this year’s Teen Takeover, bypassing the application process.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FEATURED ARTISTS: BEST IN SHOW: Alexandra Combs, Springtime Showers

BEST IN SHOW: Hannah Wellbaum, Untitled

1ST PLACE: Juyoung Kim, Untitled

1ST PLACE (6TH AND 7TH): Catherine Jun, The Cookie Bear (Animated Video)

3RD PLACE: Jessica Zhu, Untitled

2ND PLACE (6TH AND 7TH): Jackson Welsh, Stick Man Fails (Animated Video) 1ST PLACE (8TH AND 9TH): Lauren Dallas, Bird Nest

2ND PLACE: Arden Torres, Untitled HONORABLE MENTIONS: Shannon Brevard, Untitled; Juyoung Kim, Untitled; Elizabeth Clardy, Untitled; Arden Torres, Untitled; Gigi Casadaban, Untitled; Jessica Zhu, Untitled

2ND PLACE (8TH AND 9TH): Shaylen Robinson, Llama 1ST PLACE (10TH - 12TH): Elizabeth Chenier, Untitled 2ND PLACE (10TH - 12TH): Anne Hays Wright, Untitled HONORABLE MENTIONS: Gabbie O’Donnell, Untitled;

Gibeom Lee, Idea and Creativity

SPRINGBOARD WAS MADE POSSIBLE THROUGH A GENEROUS DONATION BY ROBERT B. EKELUND JR. AND URSULA’S CATERING. Outcomes || FALL FALL 2016 2016 Outcomes

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| JCSM Teen Council Members

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GALLERY

| K–12 Education Curator Andrew Henley and SpringBoard winner Juyoung Kim

| Students enjoy JCSM’s photobooth at the Auburn University Department of Art and Art History Exhibition

| Art Changing Lives Program participants, caregivers, and students

Gallery | FALL 2016

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MEMBERSHIP

GIVING DAY 24 HOURS. 20+ PROJECTS. ONE BIG FAMILY.

CURATED JOURNEYS, ARTFULLY ARRANGED JCSM is proud to partner with the Museum Travel Alliance (MTA). MTA is a consortium of museums whose patrons and members are passionate about cultural travel. As a member benefit, you’ll have access to a curated selection of privileged travel opportunities led by renowned scholars and curators.

To learn more about Museum Travel Alliance, call 855-533-0033 and tell them that you are a member of Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art, Auburn University. You may also visit museumtravelalliance.com or email trips@ museumtravelalliance.com. For membership questions, contact Cindy Cox at 334-844-3005 or cindycox@auburn.edu.

NOV. 29, 2016 Auburn University’s Tiger Giving Day is set for Nov. 29, 2016. Following Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Tiger Giving Day is the university’s version of Giving Tuesday, a global day dedicated to giving back. JCSM will once again select a project to advance our mission.

In 2015, JCSM exceeded our fundraising goal and was the first university unit to fully fund its project. Let’s keep on (tiger) giving.

Watch for our announcements online and via our E-MUSE!

a work of RENTALS

For rental venue information, contact Lauren Horton

334.844.3488 | laurenhorton@auburn.edu | jcsm.auburn.edu/facility-rental ©2015 Photography by Dianna Paulk (www.diannapaulk.com)

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Out of the Box is on view through October 2, 2016. Here, a young visitor discusses details of the sculpture Kominy-NBS Explore with Out of the Box artist Heath Matysek-Snyder.

Gallery | FALL 2016

ART CHANGES LIVES

JCSM BRINGS ARTISTS & VISITORS TOGETHER

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901 S. COLLEGE ST. | AUBURN, AL 36849 JCSM.AUBURN.EDU | 334-844-1484

ADMISSION Admission is free. A $5 donation is greatly appreciated.

MUSEUM HOURS Monday: Closed, tours by appointment only.

Tuesday–Saturday: 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

Extended Hours: Thursday until 8 p.m. & Sunday 1–4 p.m.

For café hours and menu, visit our website.

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New memberships & renewals

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jcsm.auburn.edu/join