ELEMENTS
Technology isn’t a replacement for standing in front of a painting, sculpture, etc., that takes up your whole peripheral.
POSED TO THE NEW YORK ART DISPLAYED AT KAUFFMAN GALLERY
Tangible, relatable, natural, unifying, broad—all concepts expressed through the artwork loaned to Shippensburg University’s Kauffman Gallery from the Chelsea-based Nancy Hoffman Gallery during the Earth, Air, Fire, Water exhibit this winter. 34
SHIPPENSBURG UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
Earth, Air, Fire, Water displayed varied mediums, including watercolor, acrylics, oil, graphite, and sculpture.
Each semester, Michael Campbell plans trips to New York City with his art and design students where they digest about three dozen art galleries in one trip. During one of these trips nearly twenty years ago, he met Sique Spence, gallery director at Nancy Hoffman Gallery. Soon after, Campbell asked Spence to judge an exhibit at Ship, and the two have maintained a working relationship since. This semester, Spence helped Campbell bring a little New York City to Shippensburg. In just over a year, they planned and executed an exhibit for Kauffman Gallery with nearly thirty pieces from nationally recognized artists. “The beauty about this exhibit is the title was a metaphor for connections. You can talk about this in different disciplines,” he said. “The ultimate goal was that there was something for everyone in this gallery. This is like walking into a gallery in New York City.”
Accessible Art Students today can find anything online—images of the Sistine Chapel, prints from Andy Warhol, and pieces from the Nancy Hoffman Gallery. Campbell said technology certainly provides students greater access to more resources. However, it also makes it harder for students to connect with artwork in a more personal way, he said. “Technology isn’t a replacement for standing in front of a painting, sculpture, etc., that takes up your whole peripheral. (These galleries) can easily hang something that’s 15 feet square—we’re not accustomed to viewing something like that,” he said. Over the years, Campbell has noticed it’s a challenge to get students on the New York trip. Some students can’t afford it, others don’t have the time, and some don’t see the value. So, he floated the idea past Spence to curate an exhibit of Nancy Hoffman art at Kauffman and bring these pieces to the Shippensburg community. “What’s unusual is to have a professor like Michael Campbell come into your gallery and say, ‘You can do anything you want.’ That’s a gift to us,” Spence said. “We had so much fun with this.” Campbell wanted his students and the community to experience the quality and skill of professional artists represented in one of the art capitals of the world. When he, Spence, and Nancy Hoffman first discussed the exhibit, they strived to illustrate three things—the content of the work, which could be literal or conceptual; the skill level and competency of the artists; and the scale of the work. “When you’re standing in front of that painting, it’s different than looking at it on an iPad, iPhone, or computer screen,”
