Acknowledgements
women artists, and was the featured speaker at its opening when it traveled to Guilford College.
Over the last few months, it has been my great pleasure to help prepare for this exhibition as part of my work study in the Guilford College Art Gallery. In the process of creating this Gallery Guide, I’ve had the opportunity to learn about Adele’s art work and her life as an artist and teacher. Looking at her art inspires me to think about my own past and journey, which includes memories of my grandmother and how I carry part of her with me everyday. I hope the discussion questions I have framed will help you to experience Adele’s art in a deeper way as they have for me. Emily Henderson ‘14
Weaving together the text panels for this exhibition has been like my final Guilford College reflection paper! My art journey is constantly reinventing itself continually revealing new layers and possibilities. In some seasons my painting is directly inspired by the natural world, in other times symbols and iconography and art capture my imagination. Either way I always look for the metaphors in the work to express discoveries and make sense of my life. I want to honor and thank Guilford College colleagues, staff and students, both past and present, who challenge and inspire me as I continue to become who I am. Adele Wayman
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May Stevens (b. June 9, 1924) is an American feminist artist, political activist, educator, and writer. She was one of the artists in “Crossing the Threshold” and a visiting artist and speaker at Guilford College during the run of the exhibition. Her lithograph, Waiting, is in the Permanent Collection of Guilford College Art Gallery. I-Hsiung Ju (1923 – 2012) was Professor of Art at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. He was one of the few Chinese artists able to blend Chinese and western style, technique, and idiom to produce a unique form of painting that is both modern and traditionally Oriental. As he often said, "a Chinese artist is not only a painter, but also a poet and a philosopher." Adele brought him to Guilford College in 1978 and again shortly before his death in 2011, when he gave a demonstration workshop as part of the Zen and Zen Art course that Adele taught with Eric Mortensen. Hung Liu (b. 1948 Changchun, China) immigrated to the United States in 1984. Her paintings and prints often make use of anonymous Chinese historical photographs, particularly those of women, children, refugees, and soldiers as subject matter. Liu's paintings - large, drippy, and washed with layers of linseed oil - can be seen as critiques of the rigid academicism of the Chinese Socialist Realist style in which she was trained, as well as metaphors for the loss of historical memory. Hung Liu was a visiting artist and speaker at Guilford College in 2005 and one of her paintings, Rice Culture II, was gifted by her to the Permanent Collection. Kitty Hubbard ’87 is a Guilford art alumna and an associate professor of photography at State University of New York at Brockport and Delta College. She is a widely exhibited and admired artist, who has participated in Alumni Art Exchange events and was visiting artist in 2008.
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Visiting Artists Adele Wayman Invited to Guilford College: Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s. She was a lively participant in the vibrant artistic and literary milieu of the times. She was a visiting artist and speaker at Guilford College in 1979. Leo Steinberg (July 9, 1920 – March 13, 2011) was an American art critic and art historian. Author of important works about contemporary art, but also Renaissance art, particularly Michelangelo; he was controversial and influential with challenging ideas about sexuality and symbolism. He was a speaker at Guilford College in 1980. Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923) visited Guilford College three times in 1982, 1985 and 1989. She is one of the most influential feminist artists. Her print femmage, The Twinning of Adam and Eve, is in the Permanent Collection of Guilford College Art Gallery. Mary Beth Edelson (b. 1933) is an American artist and pioneer in the Feminist art movement, deemed one of the notable "first generation feminist artists." She was also active in the civil rights movement. She has created paintings, photographs, collages, murals and drawings. She spoke at Guilford College, and assisted by students, created a mural in the Student Health Center, then in the basement of Founders Hall in 1991. Bernice Steinbaum was a much admired gallery owner, first for many years in Soho, NYC, and for the past 12 years, in Miami, FL. She is now retired from the Wynwood art gallery scene in Miami where hers was one of the first serious galleries. She was innovative and supportive of women artists and artists of color; both Miriam Schapiro and Hung Liu exhibited with her. In 1998, she curated the exhibition, “Crossing the Threshold,” an important exhibition of older 7.
Table of Contents Acknowledgements About the Artist Discussion Questions Courses Adele Created Visiting Artists Adele Invited
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Courses Adele Wayman Created that have been Central to both her Teaching and Art:
About the Artist Adele Wayman, the H. Curt and Patricia S. Hege Professor of Art, will be retiring in May after a 40-year career at Guilford.
Her exhibition at Guilford includes
watercolors, oil paintings and mixed-media altars that
Giotto and Dante, an art history, religious studies and literature course team taught with Beth and Mel Keiser Chinese and Japanese Painting, art history course taught in 1990 and 1994
explore a variety of themes, including nature, spirituality, feminism and cultural intersections. Decades of teaching, she suggests, have enriched her art-making practice. “As I look back over my 40 years at Guilford College, making art and teaching are inextricably linked,” Adele says. “The passions and aspirations that inspired me to create art found their way into my teaching, and interactions with my students and the courses I created nourished my own art. “Delight in interdisciplinary perspectives, intimate conversations with artists of many persuasions, women artists and feminist spirituality, intersections between gender and race, Chinese and Japanese painting, Zen Buddhism, nature, symbolism, personal spiritual journeys
Tale of Genji, art history and literature course team taught with Beth Keiser Honors: Women/Image 1991 Honors: FYE: Look, Draw, Write 1993 Honors: Image/Women/Men 1994 FYE (First Year Experience) : Look, Paint, Write 1998 FYE (First Year Experience) : Look, Draw, Write 2001
and finding one’s creative voice have all energized both
Modern Stories of Art, art history,1999, 2001
my art and my teaching.”
Sacred Images, Altars and Rituals, IDS 401(Interdisciplinary Studies Senior Capstone) 2002, 2004 and 2006
While at Guilford, Adele traveled to Japan on a faculty travel grant provided by Charles E. Merrill Jr., and directed study abroad programs in Italy and Greece, 1.
Zen and Zen Arts, art and religious studies course team taught with Eric Mortensen, 2011
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New directions A shift from painting to making altars is one of many Adele made during her art career. Have you recently taken a new direction in your life? What motivated the change?
which led to new developments in her art. She brought
Art making process Consider Adele’s painting technique in terms of brushstroke, manipulation of the paint and texture. Some of this is achieved through the use of paint sticks, which are like giant crayons made of paint and wax. How do the surfaces add to the paintings as a whole? How does Adele use space in her paintings? For example, look at the many frames within frames within her paintings, or the way space is constructed with linear and atmospheric perspective, along with a variety of vantage points.
creative endeavors.
notable visiting artists to campus, including Miriam Schapiro, Hung Liu and I-Hsiung Ju, who contributed to the vitality of Guilford’s art program and inspired her own
Adele grew up in Greensboro and attended Vassar College, where she earned her B.A., cum laude, in European history.
Her studies continued at the Art
Students League, the Corcoran School of Art and the Tyler School of Art in Rome. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from UNC-G and was an artist-in-residence at Yaddo and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Her art has been exhibited nationally and internationally in invitational and juried exhibitions.
Altars Think about the spiritual significance of altars. Adele sometimes uses the more traditional form of tables as altars, but also considers her wallmounted collage installations as altars. What do you think the spiritual significance is of the altars in this exhibit? If you created your own altar, what would you place on it? Why? How would you use your altar? 5.
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Discussion Questions These questions are offered as a springboard for you to explore some of the themes in Adele’s art. Start by finding works of art that speak to you; then read the questions and see what relationships there are between your responses and the art. Feel free to discuss your response with others. Symbolism and Personal Iconography What objects are your treasures? Why? How do they tell your story? When you were 10 years old, what objects had meaning to you? Past and Present How has your past affected your personal development as an individual? How do you remember and celebrate experiences, people or places? How do you keep the past present? How does it influence your life today? Nature Compare Adele’s nature scenes. How has her painting changed over the years? For example, compare the older paintings of nature in the glass cases to the more recent ones in the main gallery of flowers and water. Are there consistent elements, and what shifts are there in style and medium? Observe how closely she looks at nature, for example, the details in the flower petals or moss on rocks.
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Cultural Intersections As a painter, Adele has frequently quoted the work of other artists. Look for influences or quotations from Chinese and Japanese painters, fabric patterns from Native American weaving, Paul Cézanne, Remedios Varo, Hung Liu, Artemesia Gentileschi, to name just a few. Do you draw inspiration from cultures outside your own? Do you have images from these cultures in your life or where you live? Feminism Feminist art and ideas have inspired a lot of Adele’s work. Did you know that as recently as the 1960s the work of women artists was not visible in art history textbooks, art museums or galleries? How do you feel about that? Do you think peoples’ attitudes about women artists and images of women are different today? Do you identify with certain communities formed by gender, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity? How do these communities shape your beliefs, interests and self? Spirituality and rituals Has your spiritual practice developed or changed over time? What role does it play in your life? If you do not consider yourself spiritual, are there ways that you connect with nature or mystery? What kinds of rituals do you have in your life?
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