ALUMNI ART EXHIBITION

BY FRANCES RUSSELL ALLEN ’10, VISUAL ARTS TEACHER

IF YOU HAVE TRAVELED through the Upper School and you have not wandered upstairs, you have missed an opportunity to stumble into a different world. The Trinity Art Gallery (TAG) is located on the second floor of the Upper School. The Trinity Art Gallery hosts five to six shows a year. One of the exhibitions this fall was the Fifth Annual Alumni Show, featuring work by alumni as well as past and current faculty, including TCA’S first art teacher, Wally Linebarger. In conjunction with the closing reception on December 8, alumna Lael Sale Burns ’97, sold some of her fine art and ceramic goods.

This exhibition allows students to see what past faculty and alumni are doing, educating them on professions such as filmmaking, graphic design, illustration and animation. It also acts as a space to invite past students to exhibit their work and reconnect with former teachers and peers. It is our hope to inspire continued artistic growth as well as connect artists throughout different generations.

One of our most recent alumni, Jordan McFarlane ’19, is finishing her final year at Texas A&M and will be working at Blue Print Gallery as a gallery assistant upon graduating, having interned there this past summer. Being one of the youngest artists featured in the show, her watercolor series centers around pop-culture references, such as past and present celebrities from Taylor Swift to Elvis. This crowd favorite invited young and old to come together to converse.

Adria Warner, current faculty member and TCA alumna of the Class of 1995, created a series of 12 ceramic and fiberbased colanders with accompanying spoken poetry. This body of work uses metaphors to wrestle with the human condition in relationship to our spiritual longings to grow in Christ. Titles like ‘Overwatered,’ ‘Drought’ and ‘Herbicide’ allude and give reference to the concepts that she illustrates. To hear the spoken word, please scan the QR code provided.

Former TCA art teacher Chong Chu (1994–2002), created a series of 100 drawings during the COVID-19 pandemic as a daily discipline to cope with the stresses of this unusual time in all of our lives. This work meditates on Psalm 100. Chong has developed his own artistic vocabulary of metaphoric images that illustrate God as constant Gardener. It is in these drawings where we find references to pruning, death, decay, growth, rebirth, sowing and cultivating. These images were a positive exploration for him as he found himself in isolation during time. Going back to these truths of God as our Gardener offered hope and the realization that growth would be restored.

Part of the goal of the gallery is to be a bridge to the community. Chong Chu’s Psalm 100 drawings exemplified this. The Trinity Art Gallery was able to host a group from Brookhaven College, where Chong now teaches, and communicate biblical truth to our visitors through the themes evident throughout the exhibition. It is our hope to be a conduit of salt and light for others outside of TCA.

We hope that this exhibition will encourage support and future contribution from artists, both those working as art professionals and others who continue to be dedicated to their craft. We look forward to engaging with many more artists in the future. We have found that there are a number of current TCA family members who are artists, and the TAG is planning an exhibition for next year. If you have family members who would like to be involved, please contact our gallery director, Frances Allen, at fallen@trinitychristian.org.

[1] Jordan McFarlane ’19, Modern Iconoclasts; [2] Collaborative between David Connolly ’93, Jonathan Millet ’84, Adria Johnson Warner ’95, Rachel Dobrey, Christen Scheeval, Anita Horton and Jimmie Hudson; [3] Abby Coronado ’20, East and West; [4] Kimberlea Krueger Bass ’91, Film Roll; [5] Carrie Garoutte Kunkel ’00, Still Life in Bloom; [6] Jasmine Chock ’17, Toe Cake; [7] Chong Chu, Psalm 100; [8] Adria Johnson Warner ’95, Uprooted Colanders

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SCAN THE QR CODE TO HEAR THE ACCOMPANYING SPOKEN WORD

Alumni

Kimberlea Krueger Bass ’91 Lindsay Crawford ’94 Ali Otstott ’94 Lael Sale Burns ’97 Rob Gregory ’00 Jennifer Thornton Moreman ’00 Nate Henderson ’02 Katie Baker Babb ’07 KJ Johnson ’11 Haley Moore Pendleton ’12 Jes Fort ’13 Emily Hardesty ’13 Collin Schuster ’16 Jasmine Chock ’17 David Dembicki ’17 Jordyn Goodman ’18 Caroline McClay ’18 Brie McCracken ’18 Jordan McFarlane ’19 Caroline Millet ’19 Abby Coronado ’20 Leah Kegerreis ’21 Aly Bayliss ’22

Former TCA Student

Lori Brennan (1981–83)

Former Faculty

Chong Chu David Connolly ’93 Jimmie Hudson Wally Linebarger Mary Morgan Tiffanie Philllips Mutlu ’89 Judith Seay

Current Faculty

Carey Estrada Carrie Garoutte Kunkel ’00 David Goerk Hank Harmon Laura Henderson Adria Johnson Warner ’95, Jonathan Millet ’84 Frances Russell Allen ’10 Nikki Stinson