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Message from the Director
Art at UGA: A Brief History
Perpetual Instantaneous:
Visiting Artist Michael Fried
What is an Art School?
Legacy Legacy: Ron Arnholm
Speaks the Language of Type
Faculty Roundup
The Circle of Giving
The Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries
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Legacy
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n e W S F R o M T H e l a m a r d o d d s c h o o l o f a rtugau n i v e r s i t y o f g e o r g i a
A R T . U G A . e D U
Also of note, improvements to Sculpture, Jewelry and Metals,
and Interior Design facilities will start this summer. Still there is
much to do to ensure quality programming and state of the art
facilities for the entire School of Art on the Athens campus as well
as the campus in Cortona, Italy. In the midst
of much excitement about the new ceramics
building, the School of Art remains committed
to the value of community that quality facilities
provide. The academic breadth of the School of
Art is a defining strength of Lamar Dodd. The
capacity to work together in close proximity will
ensure creative and intellectual synergy inherent
in our diverse programming.
The 09–10 academic year began with an
impressive solo exhibition by Professor Scott
Belville. Many emerging as well as established
artists and scholars visited campus to give lec-
tures, seminars, workshops and critiques. One
notable visiting scholar was Dave Hickey,
MacArthur Fellow, contemporary critic and cul-
tural gadfly. Hickey gave a provocative critique to
the 2010 MFA students, discussing their diverse
work in the spring MFA show with gritty banter
and humor. Stuart Horodner, artistic director of the Atlanta
Contemporary Art Center, also counseled students this academic
year, offering valuable professional guidance and mentoring to
the School’s emerging artists. We said farewell to Dodd Professor
Paul Kos in December who built an artistic community and an
enclave of petanque enthusiasts that embraced civic engage-
ment. Hallways, stairwells, ceilings, bathrooms, vending machine
niches, and windows were filled or covered with work by students
who also exhibited in the School of Art galleries
along with established contemporary artists such
as West Coast artist, Arthur Gonzalez.
The closing celebration of the 40th anniver-
sary of the Cortona Study Abroad Program was
staged in Atlanta at the Chastain Arts Center with
an exhibition of work by School of Art faculty
who taught the Cortona Program. Active alumni
mounted an exhibition that was greeted by an
enthusiastic crowd of more than two hundred sup-
porters that drove through harsh winter weather
to celebrate one of the nation’s best study abroad
programs. Alumni in Atlanta are to be recognized
and commended again for the tremendous work
that they did for special events this year.
Julian Cox, photography curator at the High
Museum in Atlanta, juried the first School of
Art student exhibition. Being the first “Salon de
Refuse” the exhibition generated a response with
attitude from energized students who participated.
Three of our distinguished faculty members will retire in
2010 with a combined record of more than 100 years of commit-
ted service to the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the University
Soon we will be celebrating a new ceramics facility planted less than a five-minute walk north
of the main art building on River Road. Construction on the $2 million building to house
undergraduate and graduate ceramics is underway with an opening date of fall 2010.
message
from
the
director
ALUMni in
ATLAnTA ARe TO Be
ReCOGniZed And
COMMended FOR
THeiR TReMendOUs
WORK THAT THeY did
FOR sPeCiAL eVenTs
THis YeAR.
n e W S F R o M T H e L A M A R D o D D S C H o o L o F A R T A T U G Ap
ag
e
michael f. adamsPresident University of Georgia
garnett s. stokesDean Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
georgia strangeDirector Lamar Dodd School of Art
chris hockingAssociate Director Lamar Dodd School of Art
asen KirinAssociate Director Lamar Dodd School of Art
thom houserAssociate Director Lamar Dodd School of Art
alan flurryNewsletter Editor Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
suzi Wong Director of Development for the Fine and Performing ArtsFranklin College of Artsand Sciences
Julie spiveyDesigner and Assistant Professor Lamar Dodd School of Art
sara Kay alreadBFA ’09 Graphic DesignDesign Assistant
lamar dodd
school of art
university of georgia
270 river road
athens, georgia
30602
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art.uga.edu
uga
TOP: LAyoUT DRAWInG AnDABOVe : ARCHITeCTURAL RenDeRInGoF THe neW CeRAMICS BUILDInG
of Georgia. Director of the Cortona Program, Rick Johnson,
Professor Judy McWillie, and Professor Frances Van Keuren will
transition into new opportunities with much deserved ven-
eration for their myriad accomplishments in teaching as well as
research and creative activity. They have served this institution
with integrity and generosity and improved the lives of countless
students over four decades. Please consider a personal note thank-
ing them for their tireless contributions.
The second School of Art graduation ceremony this May fea-
tured Atlanta’s distinguished visionary arts leader, Fay Gold, as
the commencement speaker. Since 1980, Fay Gold has run one of
the most prestigious contemporary art spaces in Atlanta. By con-
vincing such artists as George Segal, Robert Rauschenberg, Irving
Penn, Cindy Sherman, Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe
to exhibit at her gallery, she succeeded in putting Atlanta on the
national radar. The major driving force behind a multitude of
private and corporate art collections, Fay Gold continues to wield
great influence on behalf of emerging regional talent. We wel-
come her as an inspiration for our newest graduates.
With great excitement and anticipation, I draw attention to
a new initiative spearheaded by Dr. Asen Kirin, the Georgia Gaze
Project. Kirin has shepherded the School’s response to the uni-
versity’s mandate as a land grant university to serve the state of
Georgia. Building on successful visits to the School of Art by high
school students and civic leaders from small towns in Georgia,
Kirin is now facilitating the Georgia Gaze Project. The project is
a collaborative effort between the School of Art and the Archway
Partnership, a division of the Office of the Vice President for
Public Service and Outreach. In its initial phase School of Art
faculty member Michael Marshall and his students will photo-
graph people and places in the following counties in Georgia:
Colquitt, Washington, Glynn, Clayton, Hart, Sumter, Pulaski,
and Whitfield. One of Kirin’s goals is to have the High Museum
showcase our students’ work to delight the eye and the mind of
thousands of visitors from Georgia and elsewhere.
Alumni and friends of the School of Art are critical to our
national leadership in preparing future artists, designers and
scholars. Your active engagement in shared stewardship of the
School will make a difference in a student’s educational experi-
ence and future opportunities. Consider becoming an active
partner of the School of Art in some capacity such as the Take a
Seat campaign when choosing to make a gift to the School. One
can honor the accomplishment of earning a degree, recognize an
important teacher, remember a friend, thank a family member or
highlight a favorite artist. Recently, Bernini, Eva Hesse and our
own Richard “Ole” Olson joined many other greats in our large
auditorium. Working together we can ensure that the School of
Art will continue to nurture creativity and critical thinking in
a community of future artists, designers, scholars, teachers and
architects of new career paths and pursuits as innovative life-
long learners.
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Art at the University of Georgia A Brief History
The systematic study of the fine visual arts at the University arrived in the academic year 1925–26, when the catalog listings for Home economics listed several classes in the ‘Related Art and Clothing Group’, including a two-hour credit class in “Drawing and Designing” and a companion two-hour class in “Advanced Design”. These offerings would be joined in the 1928–29 catalog by classes in “Water Color Painting”, “Applied Design”, “Pottery”, and “History and Appreciation of Arts”, the last course encompassing three terms, and taking up, in turn: Prehistoric, Ancient, and Classical Art; early Christian and Medieval Art, including Italian Renaissance; and the art of northern europe and America.
A PL A C e O F FO CU s A n d i n T e L L e C T UA L i n Q U i RY, A PL A C e O F sYn T H e s i s A n d O U T R e A C H ,
A n d U LT i M AT e LY A PL A C e W H e R e A RT i sT i C e X P R e ss i O n C A n F i n d n U RT U R e A n d G RO W T H .
A November 1927 issue of the Georgia Alumni Record (Vol. iii,
No. 2) presented an article noting the creation of a “Chair of Art.”
The article reported that the initial placement of the chair of fine
and applied arts was in the State College of Agriculture, rather
than “the University proper.” Both were in Athens at the time,
though the “University proper” lacked the funds to get the new
program up and running, while the College of Agriculture, with
its ability to draw on federal dollars, had the extra funds to begin
the program.
The program was officially transferred to the University
following the reorganization of 1932. Over the next several years,
classes in art were added to the curriculum, but a fundamental
change arrived in the 1935–36 school year, when the degree pro-
grams were modified to include Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees with
Majors in both Art and Music. The major in art required eight
courses, and an additional four art elective classes.
This was the academic framework found by
Lamar Dodd when he became first head of the Art
Department in academic year 1936–37. University
President Harmon W. Caldwell made a commit-
ment to bring Dodd to the University of Georgia
first as artist-in-residence because he recognized
that it was necessary for the university to offer first-
rate programs in the fine arts if Georgia was ever
going to move to the top tier of national universi-
ties. Caldwell’s point man in bringing Dodd from
Alabama to Georgia was Hugh Hodgson, the man responsible for
a parallel (if slightly earlier) growth of the Music Department at
the University.
Dodd brought great passion to the job of leading the
University’s art program into the creative and scholastic fore-
front. Under his guidance, a robust program of guest lecturers
began in the late 1930s, as did a program of obtaining a collection
of contemporary art, including representative works from the
students involved in the department. All of this was undertaken
to enlighten the people of Georgia and the Southeast as to the
importance of art and its practice and appreciation in the lives of
the citizenry.
The first few years of Dodd’s tenure saw the expansion of the
curricular offerings, supplementing the continued fine work in
decorative arts by Annie Holliday and Mildred Ledford through
the hiring of Alan Kuzmicki and Earl McCutcheon in the 1941–42
school year. That same year the emergence of strong programs
in printmaking and ceramics (McCutcheon in particular would
energize the ceramics program well into the mid-1970s). Those
early years also brought renowned muralist Jean Charlot to
Georgia. He served not only as an artist-in-residence but also an
author and director of a series of murals that graced both the
School of Commerce and The Fine Arts Building.
This new program needed a home. The original home for art
classes at the Chancellor’s House (which once stood on the site
of the present-day Main Library) gave way in the early 1940s to
the University’s Fine Arts building, designed as a space for Music,
Theater, and the Visual Arts. This would be home to classes, and
also a place for exhibits and shows, all designed to raise the profile
of the fine arts in and around Athens. At a cost of $450,000 (in
that moment, the costliest building ever built at the University),
it was dedicated on May 31, 1941.
As the program grew in the early 1940s so did the organiza-
tions and institutions that surrounded the arts. The honorary fra-
ternity for art major, Kappa Pi, was founded and the Art Student’s
League experienced rapid growth. Also the Art School introduced
an annual auction of work by both student and faculty that was
designed to raise fund and the consciousness of Georgians to the
importance of an appreciation of art as a fundamental compo-
nent of a quality liberal arts education.
BY G i L B e RT H e A d, M . A . ‘ 10
d O d d B RO U G H T G R e AT
PA ss i O n TO T H e j O B O F
L e A d i n G T H e U n i V e R s iT Y ’ s
A RT P RO G R A M i n TO
T H e C R e AT i V e A n d
s C H O L A sT i C FO R e F RO n T.
n e W S F R o M T H e L A M A R D o D D S C H o o L o F A R T A T U G Ap
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Late in the 1940s, under the sponsorship and oversight of
Alfred Heber Holbrook, the first Georgia Museum of Art would
emerge to share space in the old Library building (today, the
Office of the President). The building would be home to the
Georgia Museum of Art from 1948–1996.
The 1950s would be a time of growth for the program, and
also an era of controversy as some forms of modern art found
slow acceptance at uga. Perhaps the most contentious piece of all
was the Iron Horse, created by uga sculptor Abbott Pattison. After
several defacements, the sculpture was removed from public view
at Reed Hall and placed in a field overlooking Georgia Route 15 in
Oconee County.
The clash with the “modern” was not over, nor was the growth
of the program. The Art School was so successful that by the late
1950s, the department was again in need of a new home. By 1960,
work had begun by the Atlanta firm of Toombs, Amisano, and
Wells on a new $900,000 home for the visual arts programs. The
design was revolutionary. The building was opened to natural
light, had large areas dedicated to formal and informal exhibition
spaces, and studio design was a dominant feature. Formally dedi-
cated on January 21, 1963 with a speech by John W. Gardner, the
building variously branded ‘the ice plant’, ‘that monstrosity on
Jackson Street’, and ‘Dodd’s Folly’ was home to 800 students a day,
and was for a while one of the most visited buildings on the UGA
campus. Indeed, the edifice so reflected the spirit of Dodd that it
would be renamed in 1995 as the Lamar Dodd School of Art.
As the 1960s drew to a conclusion, not only was the art depart-
ment in Athens flourishing, but UGA was moving into more inter-
national environs with the commencement of the Studies Abroad
program in Cortona, Italy, in 1970. This would be only the first of
a number of UGA foreign residence programs that over the last 40
years have become central to the teaching, research and outreach
missions of the University.
Even as continued robust growth of the holdings at the
Georgia Museum of Art would lead to their taking up a new East
Campus residence in 1996, by the early 2000s it was obvious that
the dispersed programs of the Lamar Dodd School of Art (housed
in seven separate locations) also needed a new home in which the
shared synergistic space could propel the various programs of the
school into the future. Work was begun on the East Campus struc-
ture in 2006, and by 2008, over 1,200 students, staff and faculty
had a new $39 million home. Though not all programs joined in
the move from the Jackson St. facility, the East Campus structure
reunited many of the formerly isolated areas of study. It serves
today as the central space for the creative energies of the ldsoa,
a place of focus and intellectual inquiry, a place of synthesis and
outreach, and ultimately a place where artistic expression can find
nurture and growth.
Lamar Dodd’s observation in 1946 that “One’s study is never
finished” certainly guided his leadership of the art program of
Georgia and has also been absorbed as a guiding philosophy by
the faculty, staff, and students of the Lamar Dodd School of Art
ever since. g
ABOVe : CHAnCeLLoR’S HoUSe , on THe PReSenT SITe oF THe MAIn LIBRARy on noRTH CAMPUS.FAR LeF T: VISUAL ARTS BUILDInG, WITH JACkSon STReeT CeMeTeRy In FoReGRoUnD.neAR LeF T: F Ine ARTS BUILDInG.
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In October, the Lamar Dodd School of Art welcomed art historian,
critic, and poet Michael Fried as part of its Visiting Artist and
Scholar series. I joined the School of Art’s faculty in Art History
last spring, and among the most exciting and impressive aspects
of my new artistic and intellectual community at the Dodd is the
year-long program of critical encounters with remarkable thinkers
and makers of art. My colleagues in art history gave me a generous
welcome when they put forward my nomination of Fried for this
year’s art scholar talk. Michael Fried is Professor of Art History and
Humanities at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
From my first studies in art history his ideas and
methods have been both model and challenge for me
as I research and write across the fields of Modern art,
film and dance. I hoped that his career-long breadth
not only as an art historian, but also as a contemporary
art critic, and creative poet would generate both the
excitement and opposition for which he has come to
be known. I knew that our art history program would
benefit from his presence, and that I, myself, would
relish the time with him, but with the manifesto-like
title of his most recent book, Why Photography Matters
as Art as Never Before (Yale, 2008), I knew we could
surely count on a certain other area’s notice too! As it
turned out, there was full attention during his three-
day visit. From his afternoon seminar, to his individual
critiques with MFA students, to the full house at his
evening lecture, I witnessed with delight the engaged
and demanding student body of the School of Art.
Michael Fried first began publishing his ideas on art
in 1961; and it is no exaggeration to say that conversa-
tions, which he initiated in his earliest writings, are still
vibrantly under discussion nearly a half-century later. His first
years as a critic were encouraged and shaped by an early appren-
ticeship with Clement Greenberg, that giant of mid-century
art criticism, whose evaluative and formal method of criticism
Fried has shared. But Fried also developed his ideas in the 1960s
through close relationships with some of the most important art-
ists of the 20th century, including Frank Stella, Kenneth Noland
and Anthony Caro.
It was in the sphere of these artists that he wrote perhaps
his most well known piece of art criticism. His 1967 essay, “Art
and Objecthood,” was written in response to the emergence of
Minimalism as a dominant strategy alongside Modernist painting.
Fried sensed that Minimalist art’s emphatic presence in space, its
shifting temporality, and its critical position to remain an object,
created a real-time, contingent and individual experience for the
viewer that outweighed any meaning inherent in the work itself.
As interesting as this might be, as committed as Minimalism’s
practitioners might be, for Fried, this wasn’t working in the realm
of art. Art for him should, like his Modernist paintings, need no
viewer to fulfill its significance, should continuously regenerate
itself complete so as to keep the viewer in a state of presentness.
Fried assigned to Minimalism the non-art status of being literal-
ist and theatrical, and from there, battle lines were drawn. His
argument is of course complex and nuanced and therefore as
often misread or misunderstood as not—certainly it’s been
oversimplified, as it must be here. But to this day in my courses
and in scholarly debate, this 1967 essay retains incredible potency.
It is an essay that really must be attended to in any discussion of
painting and sculpture of the 1960s; and its judgments against
literalism and theatricality continue to underlie and to check any
endorsement or critique of the relation between art and beholder
in Modern art.
As a professor of art history and humanities, Fried has worked
in the dialectical role of art historian and critic. Though these
are two quite separate endeavors in his experience, we can none-
theless follow the convictions Fried articulated about art and
beholder in the critical context of 1960s into his career-long
historical scrutiny of beholding in art since the Enlightenment.
His first major book in art history Absorption and Theatricality:
Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (Chicago, 1980), was
the first book I remember reading after determining to follow a
career in art history—this was my first conscious model for art
historical scholarship, and remains for me a lasting example of
how to look, research and argue. As it turns out, any student who
studies Modern and Contemporary Art at Georgia can’t help but
be indirectly influenced by him as well. Dr. Isabelle Wallace and
I were each directed in our doctoral studies by two of Michael
Fried’s first students. I guess this makes our students generation
three who will learn from and to battle with his legacy.
Perpetual InSTAnTAneoUSneSS
STILL IMAGe FRoM AnRI SALA’S “LonG SoRRoW ”, 2005. SUPeR 16MM HDV. CoURTeSy MARIAn GooDMAn GALLeRy, neW yoRk .
for critic michael fried, KeePing the vieWer in a state of Presentness is the Primary significance of any artWorK.
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Perpetual InSTAnTAneoUSneSSsummer 2010
William itter and Philip ayers
gallery 307
opening reception June 4, 6–8pm
artist’s talk in the gallery
in coordination with thinK tanK
fall 2010 eXhiBition season
Drawing: Contemporary Approaches
Kathleen mcshane & Barb Bondy
gallery 307
on view: august 16–september 14, 2010
reception: august 20, 2010 7–9pm
The Other Side of the Mask
thom houser: installation & Photography
gallery 101
on view: august 16–september 14, 2010
reception: august 20, 2010 7–9pm
Aaron Wilson and Tim Dooley: Installation & Printmaking
gallery 101
on view: september 20–october 19, 2010
reception: september 24, 2010 7–9pm
Ceramic Faculty Exhibition
gallery 307
reception: september 24, 2010 7–9pm
Student Juried Exhibition
gallery 307 + orbit galleries
on view october 25–november 9, 2010
Bfa eXhiBition season
BFA I: Drawing and Painting + Ceramics
gallery 307
on view: november 12–29, 2010
reception: friday, november 12 7–9pm
BFA I: Art X + Sculpture
gallery 101 + lobby gallery
on view: november 12 – 29, 2010
reception: friday, november 12 7–9pm
BFA II: Photography + Printmaking/Book Arts + Fabric + Jewelry/Metals +Graphic Design
gallery 101, 307 + orbit galleries
Plaza gallery + Bridge gallery
on view: december 3–13
reception: friday, december 3 7–9pm
december 17 commencement
sPring 2011 eXhiBition season
Photography by Jim Fiscus
gallery 101
on view: January 14–february 9, 2011
reception: January 14, 2011 7–9pm
Cortona Faculty Exhibition
gallery 307
on view: January 14–January 28, 2011
reception: January 28, 2011 7–9pm
Dodd Chair Exhibition
gallery 307
on view february 4–february 24, 2011
reception: february 4, 2011 7–9pm
Photography Fellow Exhibition: June Yong Lee
gallery 101
on view: february 18–march 9, 2011
reception: february 18, 2011 7–9pm
BFA Scientific Illustration
gallery 307
on view february 28–march 11, 2011
reception: tBa
MFA Exhibition
gallery 101, 307, orbit galleries
on view: march 21–april 12, 2011
reception: friday, march 21st, 6–9pm
BFA I: Graphic Design, Jewelry/Metals,Photography, Printmaking
gallery 101, 307, orbit galleries
on view: april 15–april 22, 2011
reception: friday, april 15 7–9pm
BFA II: Art Education, Sculpture,Drawing/Painting
gallery 101, 307, orbit galleries
on view: april 21–april 29, 2011
reception: friday, april 22 7–9pm
BFA III: Interior Design, Fabric Design
gallery 101, 307, orbit galleries
on view: april 30 – may 6, 2011
reception: friday, april 30, 7–9pm
may 14th graduation
visiting artists and scholars2010–2011
Nick Coveseptember 19–23, 2010
Donald Lipskioctober 10–14, 2010
Lola Brooksnovember 7–10, 2010
Claudy JongstraJanuary 2011
Janet Koplos, Criticmarch 28–30, 2011
Jas Elsner, Art Historianapril 7–10, 2011
Folkert de Jongapril 10–14, 2011
Exhibition Schedule2010–2011
Two books followed Absorption and Theatricality—Courbet’s
Realism, (Chicago, 1990) and Manet’s Modernism, or the Face of
Painting in the 1860s, (Chicago, 1996)—to form a trilogy that
traces the development of a particularly modern struggle in paint-
ing, one which I might crudely summarize as a struggle to get
around the fact that even the most genuine paintings are made
by someone with the knowledge that they will be seen by others.
Fried’s books demonstrate that at best, the self-consciousness of
this fact can interfere between creator and beholder, and thereby
distract from the ideal of an authentic expression and reception.
At worst, it may encourage in art a kind of pandering to the viewer
in an empty theatrical way.
The trilogy traces this concern from the 18th through the
19th centuries in France, but Fried’s oeuvre also include stud-
ies of 19th-century painting in Germany and America with
books on Adolf Menzel and Thomas
Eakins. He has published three
books of poems, most recently in
2004. Add to that scores of essays—
and frequent appearances in jour-
nals such as Art Forum and Critical
Inquiry—on topics that range from
Caravaggio to Jeff Wall.
This range of intellectual inter-
est explains the topic of his book,
Why Photography Matters as Art as
Never Before, which turns attention
to yet a new medium and a new cen-
tury, but it shows the characteristic
integrity with which he attends to
and carefully labors to communicate
the endeavor of art making. Fried is
a thinker and writer whose investi-
gations and arguments begin and
end with his convictions in front of
works of art. At the School of Art, his
lecture on artist Anri Sala’s “Long
Sorrow,” a 13-mintue video work that includes disorienting and
vertiginous perspectives of jazz-artist Jemeel Moondoc playing
his saxophone from a building ledge high above Berlin. Fried
screened the 13-minute video work and then carefully described
the entirety of the video loop through an exquisitely detailed,
even poetic account of what he had seen. We were then asked
to hold the weight of the work’s presentness as he endeavored
to come to terms with the artist’s statement that in this piece he
wanted to capture “the intention to make music.”
For those studying today, in an era of shifting virtual person-
alities, up-to-the-second status updates, and play-by-play narra-
tion of even our most trivial daily experiences via mobile phone,
Fried’s method is a reminder what rewards are to be won by a
sustained involvement in a single work of art, by asking what it is
we should want from the experience of art, and by demanding to
know how and why good art strikes us as such. g
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WHAT IS An Art School?BY A L A n F LU R RY
Early in the summer of 1952, the designer George Nelson received
a call from a painter with a connection to a school in Georgia,
Lamar Dodd. Nelson, one of the leading forces in the advent of
American Modernism, had heard of Dodd but initially resisted his
invitation to come down to Athens for a day or two of talk, “with
no particular assignment.”
Lamar Dodd, head of the Department of Fine Arts at the
University of Georgia had recently received a grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation, funds he could dispatch as he pleased,
without administration approval. He wanted to use the grant to
import someone who would stimulate, if not provoke, his depart-
ment. What transpired is a little-known episode in UGA history,
one that had wide ramifications at the time and continues to
reverberate today. Bringing in some of the nation’s foremost
leaders in mid-century design opens up many questions. Among
them: were mass design and manufacturing techniques transfer-
able to education?
The Department of Fine Arts at UGA in the 1950’s was a
large department, arguably one of the strongest in the country.
Although the department was very popular with students, very
few of them pursued art careers after graduation. Nelson:
and like similar departments at other universities its functions are
widely varied. The majority of the student group consists of under-
graduates taking art as a major, not as a rule with any intention of
making it a career, but simply because they like it. Many of them are
girls who believe it will help them as future homemakers, presum-
ably by improving their taste in decoration. Each year a sizable group
comes in from the department of home economics, no doubt for the
same reason. A small percentage of the students, particularly those
in textiles and ceramics, go onto establish careers in these fields. But
essentially the department is one which turns out laymen interested
in the arts rather than professionals.
So Nelson agreed to come to Athens to spend a couple of days
in the department and give a lecture. Not without classroom
experience, having taught architecture at Yale and Columbia, the
teaching of painting and sculpture were yet new to Nelson:
As a necessary part of the discussions I was to have with the faculty,
a tour through the various classes was arranged. Everything I saw was
familiar: courses in theory, classes in drawing and painting, classes in
design, craft workshops for weaving, screen painting, ceramics and
so on. At this point several uneasy thoughts came to mind. Here was
a place functioning exactly like any art school, but it was supposed to
turn out nonprofessionals. All art schools, obviously, turn out one or
the other, but what seemed a little odd was the lack of visible differ-
ences between the two kinds of instruction. To the outside observer, it
seemed that there was possibly a confusion in both methods and objec-
tives. Does it make sense for a girl whose main ambition is to become
a homemaker to pretend for four years that she is aiming for a career
in sculpture or painting? Perhaps it does, but isn’t the real problem to
foster understanding and creative capacity so that these qualities could
be employed in any situation? And if this were the real problem, how
would a school go about meeting it? Is intensive instruction in drawing
and modeling the best way? Or is this method used simply because it has
always been the art school method?
Discussions followed and difficult questions were broached
directly with the faculty. Nelson reports that the responses were
“quick and intelligent” and that a sentiment developed for
re-examining these objectives and concocting some experi-
ments in educational techniques, an attempt to expand the
evaluation though without any idea what these techniques might
be. Undeterred, Nelson agreed to come back in the fall. Dodd
suggested the formation of a small advisory committee; Nelson
asked him to invite the noted American designer Charles Eames.
At the Fall meeting, Eames and Nelson repeated the earlier
routine of visiting classes and asking questions:
Now that we had asked the basic questions, it was perfectly clear
that much time was being wasted through methods originally devel-
oped for other purposes. For example, one class was finishing a two-
week exercise demonstrating that a given color is not a fixed quan-
tity to the eye but appears to change according to the colors around
it. In a physics class such a point would have been made in about five
minutes with a simple apparatus, and just as effectively. We cited
this example in an effort to establish a principle by which teaching
effectiveness could be evaluated. We suggested that if a school knew
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continued on page 10
Editor’s Note: Details of this
story are taken from a report
by George Nelson, “Problems of
Design” Whitney Publishing, 1957,
and “George Nelson: The Design
of Modern Design” by Stanley
Abercrombie, MIT Press, 1995.
The Art X experiment, the 1950’s, the first-ever multimedia project, Lamar Dodd, George nelson, Charles eames, and UGA
fairly precisely what it wanted to communicate, a yardstick could be
used for checking its methods. The yardstick was a clock. In other
words, given the intention of communicating something specific,
the shortest time taken to do this-without loss of comprehension or
retention-represented the best method.
At this point storm warnings began to go up. Were we propos-
ing to apply time–motion studies in the painting studio? Maybe, we
retorted, such schools as this had no business teaching painting. The
discussion became an argument, then a free-for-all.
That night, Nelson and Eames discussed the turmoil that had
arisen based on what they considered to be rather innocuous
proposals. The designers’ intuition here to widen their thinking
cannot be overstated; instead of getting defensive, rejecting or
countering the faculty’s confusion and uncertainty,they embraced
it as their own. They saw through the confusion to what they
perceived as the essence of the subject — communication. There
had been a breakdown, but instead of an end they perceived this as
a beginning. Communication itself was the key, and the medium,
to what they were trying to say. The next day, the two proposed to
make a presentation, of a specific example of their thinking, in
the form of a sample lesson for an imaginary course, promptly
labeled “Art X.”
Eames and Nelson requested a third member of their commit-
tee, the textile designer Alexander Girard, for the preparation of
the lesson. Eames and Nelson left Athens with the idea to develop
high-speed techniques for exposing the relationships between
seemingly unrelated phenomena.
No small number disciplines in academia are presently wres-
tling with the multifarious impacts of complexity upon their
subject matter, its study and dissemination. Holism and complex
systems are buzzwords across academia. Recognizing the impor-
tance of a holistic approach is an acknowledgement of the many
complex interrelationships that envelope any systematic study
or intellectual pursuit. Whether it is economics, engineering,
or art education, any one subject has an inherent connection to
history, biology, language and a dozen other disciplines of which
a general familiarity must be gained as a point of entry to special-
ization. These relation-
ships are the skeleton for
our body of knowledge.
So the integrated,
holistic approach that
began as the definition
of modern ecology—
also at UGA, by the way —
has become an essential
part of the way we assimi-
late and transmit knowl-
edge between teacher
and student, practice and
practitioner. These inter-
relationships are at what
Eames and Nelson were
hinting at these interrela-
tionships. Being the inno-
vative thinkers they were,
they just invented a differ-
ent way to show it.
With their charge to
develop high-speed tech-
niques for exposing rela-
tionships between unrelated phenomena, their tools would be
films, slides, sound, and narration. With the subject of the
imaginary lesson to be ‘communication’ Eames, Nelson and now
Girard divided up the task into the packages that could be devel-
oped separately. That art itself serves as a kind of communication
was not lost on the group, searching for opportunities among the
broadest possible subject.
Five months later the “Art X” company met in Athens, burdened
with as much equipment as a traveling medicine show. There was
a 16-mm. projector handling both film and magnetic sound. There
were several tape recorders. There were three slide projectors, three
screens which filled the end of the auditorium, cans of film, boxes
of slides, and reels of magnetic tape. Girard’s exhibit arrived in a
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THAT ART iTseLF
seRVes As A Kind
OF COMMUniCATiOn
WAs nOT LOsT On THe
GROUP, seARCHinG
FOR OPPORTUniTies
AMOnG THe BROAdesT
POssiBLe sUBjeCT.
series of mammoth packing cases and he also brought a collection
of bottles of synthetic smells, to be introduced into the room via the
air conditioning system at various points in the show. Seventy-two
hours later when we had staggered through the first creaky perfor-
mance, we found that it took eight people to run it.
What had happened during the months of work was that our ideas
had outstripped technical resources. As an example, while running
off some slide sequences, it occurred to us that two slides run at
once could illustrate certain contrasts. We liked the simultaneous
projection so much that we tried three slides and found ourselves
with a kind of poor-man’s Cinerama on our hands. But to carry out
this simple notion required three projectors, three screens and a
magnetic tape playback.
What was the show about? Any multi-media project that is
more than a series of stills and sounds cannot be described but in
its own terms. Take for example the short section relating to the
idea of ‘abstraction’:
A slide goes on the screen, showing a still life by Picasso. A narra-
tor’s voice identifies it, adds that it is a type of painting known as
“abstract,” which is correct in the dictionary sense of the word,
since the painter abstracted from the data in front of him only
what he wanted and arranged it as he saw fit. The next slide shows
a section of London. The dry voice identifies this as an abstrac-
tion too, since of all possible data about this area, only the street
pattern was selected. Then follow other maps of the same area,
but each presents different data-routes of subways, location of
garages, etc. The voice observes that each time the information is
changed, the picture changes. The camera closes in on the maps
until only a few bright color patches show; the communication
is now useless to the geographer, but there is something new in
the residue of colors and shapes. Then a shift to a distant view of
Notre Dame, followed by a series “which takes you closer and closer.
The narrator cites the cathedral as an abstraction-the result of a
filtering-out process which has gone on for centuries. The single
slide sequence becomes a triple-slide projection. Simultaneous
exterior views change to interior views. Organ music crashes in as
the narration stops. The interior becomes a close-up of a stained
glass window. Incense drifts into the auditorium. The entire space
dissolves into sound, space and color.
Nelson related that though this portion took perhaps only four
minutes, a very complex communication had been completed.
Pre-existing biases, swift adjustments, unexpected juxtapositions
were all brought to focus on the concept, in a way that may have a
required a lecturer an hour to explain. It is important to note that
these were not employed in making art or teaching of the making
of art but in teaching art.
The students in the equation are the primary constituents.
And what do we know about them? They mostly do not become or
intend to become artists. So what should they be taught?
The Nelson-Eames-Girard experiment was no doubt based in
the optimism of the era — an outlook that infused so many of
their designs, with a confidence that students could be at once
dazzled, entertained and cultured with educationally-oriented
technology. The idea seems certainly naïve, if not intentionally
so, in the internet age.
But the project is more than a remnant, as the number of
students streaming into Art X classes in ldsoa each term, with
nary an idea about George Nelson, surely attests. They are making
things, even if part of what they make is questioning whether it
is necessarily art. They are cross-purposing ideas with objects and
artifice in ways that traverse mediums — whether it is blogs or
films or photos or iPhone apps. While not engaged in exactly the
same activites the trio outlined fifty-plus years ago, the boundar-
ies and relationships plus the constraints they place on an art
school have kept us all asking what might still be the essential
question that Lamar Dodd himself brought them down to ask:
What is an art school?
For George Nelson, the last word:
Art X said its piece in an industrial vernacular because industry has
given us more and better ways to say things than we had before. The
pictures, which flickered across the multiple screens were made by
machines, developed by machines and projected by machines. The
voices, music and sounds were electronically recorded, amplified
and played back. But it was people who said the words, wrote the
music, and made the final statement. This is why there is no need to
be afraid of our tools-even in education. The teacher may become
less visible in the new classroom, but he will still be there. g
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MICHAEL OLIVERI, CHAIR
Q: Are you teaching students to become artists?Oliveri: Not always. Some of our art students become professional artists, but they were going to do that anyway. ArtX is about visual communication and thinking creatively. The goal is to inspire students to see the creative potential in many disciplines once they leave the BFA program. They pursue a range of professions in architecture, medicine, product design, and digital media at some of the best graduate programs across the country. One of our student got into the very prestigious industrial design school at Stanford. And still many go on to pursue their MFA while others after the ArtX BFA program go straight to work in media related profes-sions. Our students leave with strong art and design knowledge, but mostly they leave with the ability to problem solve using a broad vernacular.
Q: So, they’re not becoming digital media specialistsor installation artists?Oliveri: Maybe, but that’s a small percentage of the students that pass through. For most of the students they take what they learn in this unique program and apply it to whatever they choose to do. My question is; what can we do to increase and expand their approach to life? How can we better prepare them for what the world needs and what it’s becoming. We live in a world where the problems are not being solved by specialists but by collectives of many disci-plines. We are increasingly seeing industry seeking the unusual suspect for employment.
Q: So we should have a degree program where we do this?Oliveri: Yes. Absolutely. Our program is a great compliment to the many other programs we have at Lamar Dodd. It provides a place for the creative students who do not define themselves by the medium but by ideas.
Q: Are those other disciplines still important for an art school?Oliveri: Yes, very. The art department provides a strong foundation where students develop a work ethic, skill sets and historical context. ArtX focuses on the evolution of ideas into form through conceptual direction and skill development.
Q: Communicating an idea like that sounds a lot like what Nelson and Eames were up to all those years ago. Is that he best way for us to connect the two eras?Oliveri: Time has made the connection. We currently live in a world full of visual commu-nication. What our predecessors did was combine Art and Engineering giving us a stylized process. It’s why Apple grows stronger every day and the PC workhorse falls behind. We desire beauty whether it’s in a mathematical equation, computer code, sculpture, painting, or household product. We are only continuing what they started and expanding our idea about how and to whom we are teaching art. There will always be those who continue on to be fine artists. It’s those other students, the majority, who are committed to their creativity but want to apply it outside the art world and into the world at large. That’s why we as an institution should be concerned with them. I think what Nelson, Eames and Girard did enhanced the potential of the artist, and awakened the world to the power of visual communication. They turned up the visual volume on conversation, and we hope to turn it up more.
2010. ART X: EXPANDED FORMS LAMAR DoDD SCHooL oF ART
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Ron ARnHoLM SPeAkS THe LAnGUAGe oF TyPe, VISUAL STRUCTURe AnD SUBTLeTyIn the present era, far more than ever before [where typing on
computers is the standard operating procedure for practically all
formal communication and most design tasks], most everyone
has become familiar with fonts and the choices available to us
to help, hinder, strengthen or emphasize what it is we’re trying
to say. But for some, maybe a relative few, fonts have long been a
primary concern. For an even smaller number, they have been a
preoccupation. For Ron Arnholm, they have been a passion and
a calling. Through them he has been able to do what so many wish
for and so few are able: to build a legacy. Legacy Serif, Sans
Serif and Square Serif, that is. The ITC® Legacy® family was
designed for the International Typeface Corporation, part of
Monotype Imaging. Introduced sequentially
beginning with the first two in 1992, with the
Square Serif and Serif Condensed in 2009,
Arnholm’s Legacy family of fonts has won plau-
dits and accolades the world over. Most recently,
the Legacy Square Serif was among the winners
of the TDC 2010, the thirteenth annual type-
face design competition sponsored by the New
York Type Director’s Club. Only 16 entries out of
176 submitted from 29 countries were selected.
Arnholm’s entry, selected as a “Judges Choice,”
will appear at the front of the TDC 2010 section
of the annual showcase Typography 31. He will
receive a certificate of Excellence in Type Design
this summer, when the TDC Awards Exhibition
opens in New York, to travel the United States, Canada, England
France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Russia and Spain. Arholm’s
discussion of his entry reads, in part:
Rounding out my ITC Legacy family is the square serif version,
begun as pencil sketches on tracing vellum. I worked alternately
over specimens of the serif and sans, with the square serif concept
being my hypothetical interpolation between the two styles.
Final sketches, scanned and brought into Photoshop for editing,
allowed me to work in a manner similar to that of pre-computer
days, before moving to Fontographer.
As an undergraduate at the Rhode Island School of Design
in the late 1950’s, Arnholm came of age at the height of post-
war design innovation. The energy of automation and mass
production, though still a function of the human hand, was fresh
upon the minds of young artists. As a youngster he was enthralled
as he watched his brother Charlie letter signs and trucks, making
a perfect O in one stroke, or hand stripe a fire engine or antique
car, making perfectly straight lines with a long dagger brush. He
worked as a sign painter during his high school years and became
initially interested in type through the industry publication Signs
of the Times, which featured an article each month about the
analysis of a typeface.
While still an undergraduate, Arnholm had his first typeface—
of over 100 to date—accepted by Photo-Lettering, Inc., a mainstay
of the advertising and design industry in New York since the 30’s.
The man who bought the type, Ed Rondthaler, went on to become
one of the founders of ITC (International Typeface Corporation).
In 1980, Arnholm was commissioned to re-design the head-
lines for the new design format of the Los Angeles Times, and in
1985 to re-design their classified type, the world’s largest classified
advertising section. “It took two years to complete, but they were
able to get the paper out a lot quicker with the new font in place
instead of the many they were using previously,” he recalls. All the
while, he was putting together ideas for what would become his
legacy—the designs for the first Legacy Sans and Serif in the 1990’s
that today are a family of 35 fonts.
“The new typefaces add up to what I would call a typographic
tour de force,” writes Monotype Imaging Director of Words and
Letters Allan Haley in the introductory press releases formally
adding the Legacy Square Condensed families to the company’s
ITC collection. “The designs are not only extremely handsome
but also highly versatile for a broad spectrum of creative projects.”
Arnholm went to graduate school at Yale, where he studied
with Paul Rand, the graphic designer known for his corporate
lettermark for IBM as well as the original UPS logo. During this
time he was putting together a kind of unified theory of visual
structure, an ongoing project that helps him and his students
begin to envision, understand and communicate about design. His
syllabus for the last six years has included a handout that Arnholm
hopes to expand into a book: Envisioning Vision: A Vocabulary and
Syntax for Visual Structure and Subtlety.
And therein lies a clue to other passion of Ron Arholm—
a student of visual information and as a professor in the ldsoa,
a conveyor of his insights and passion to generations of students.
legacyLEGACY
T H RO U G H T H e M
H e H A s B e e n
A B L e TO d O W H AT
sO M A nY W i s H
FO R A n d sO F e W
A R e A B L e : TO
BU i L d A L eG A CY.
“It’s so readable, that’s the beauty part of it.”
BY A L A n F LU R RY
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“Everybody knows about using fonts now, and they know that
you can condense them, but are unaware of the subtleties of spac-
ing between letters, words and lines of type,” Arnholm says. “The
problem today is that in today’s world everything visual is happen-
ing at the same time and often at warp speed—and as an educator
I have to slow everything down and point out the subtleties. A
seventy-second of an inch, which is a point, is important in typog-
raphy. Graphic design—and typography in particular—is really all
about nuances. I must get the students to see.”
Arnholm briefly introduces his students to the vocabulary,
which he believes is the key to design: understanding visual struc-
ture. The eight-word lexicon encompasses all of the content that
can be seen—the components of visual reality: space, threshold,
mass, color, semblance, contrast, transition and affect. The lack
of neutrality connoted in the last term is also important, and
Arnholm notes that almost all perceptions have some sort of affec-
tive or emotional tone.
Most of the elements are also given qualifying states, e.g., mass
can have size, shape, texture and density; semblances are objective
or non-objective. When the elements are combined, a syntactic
structure starts to come into view: for instance, “an objective sem-
blance would be a similarity of images of Elvis, or apples; a non-
objective semblance would be a similarity between colors, shapes
or textures,” Arnholm explains. “As well there are different kinds of
transition; a scanned transition, in which it is the eye that moves,
rather than what we are seeing—as in reading—or a serial transi-
tion, as with a photograph or drawing of a row of dominoes as they
begin to fall sequentially.”
And while devising methods to talk about design benefits the
teacher and the students, Arnholm is also convinced on the point
of working by hand to get a feel for what you are making. “I don’t
start on a computer,” Arnholm says of sketching out a new type-
face. “For me the most important tool for conceptualizing isn’t a
computer, but paper, pencil and eraser. I have to feel the letter in
my hands, and have instant feedback to what is happening visu-
ally,” he says. Working on existing specimens of the sans and serif,
he sketched the essential components of the square serif over five
days on vacation in 2005.
Listening to Arnholm talk about his type can sound like poetry,
as he describes seeing nuances in the fifteenth century type of
Nicholas Jenson, on which the roman is based, and how it influ-
enced the design of the square serif version:
I decided to go in this direction,
having no idea that it would result
in a final design that in text sizes
looks more like the original Jenson
model than the Legacy Serif itself
does. All serifs are unrounded and
asymmetrical. The lowercase foot
serifs are much longer on the right,
with minimal bracketing; the left foot serif is slightly tapered,
much shorter and with much greater bracketing. This serif treat-
ment, while it resembles that of the Jenson model, is actually
crisper, since my serifs are unrounded, becoming slightly softened
when reduced to text size.
At a microscopic level, the infinite number of serif corners
in a sentence or paragraph, help to create a very strong edge
definition for the baseline, x-height and cap height, to an
extent even greater than the Jenson model itself. This, plus the
serif asymmetry, the humanist stress which creates interlacing
between letters, the two degrees of bracketing and the subtle
tapering of some serifs, produce a forward momentum and
a feeling of warmth and humanity. And all of this prevents the
font from being too crisp. The sentences are like braided rope
or cable, other square serif examples more like a chain; the square
serif is like music, and other styles more like the mere repetition
of sounds.
After 46 years at UGA, Arnholm remains energized about
design. He teaches his students by theory and example, and that,
in the age of the computer, some of the most important and subtle
parts of the equation are often formed by hand. g
T H e P RO B L e M
i s T H AT i n
TO d AY’s W O R L d
eV e RY T H i n G
V i s UA L i s
H A P Pe n i n G AT
T H e s A M e T i M e
A n d O F T e n AT
W A R P s Pe e d.
aBove : Ron ARnHoLM.far lef t: ARnHoLM’S DeSIGn FoR BRoWn THRASHeR BookS IMPRInT, UGA PReSS. near lef t: ARnHoLM’S LoGo FoR AMeRICAn TUBe AnD ConTRoLS.
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Associate professor of Art Education Tracie Costantino is the
recipient of a 2010 Richard B. Russell Undergraduate Teaching
Award at the University of Georgia. Three Russell Awards are made
each year to recognize excellence in undergraduation instruc-
tion by faculty members early in their careers. Awardees receive a
$5,000 cash award from the Richard B. Russell Foundation.
Isabelle Wallace and Nora Wendl were recipients of the
secac 2009 Award for Outstanding Exhibition and Catalogue of
Historical Materials.
Wallace received a Center for Humanities and Arts Subvention
Grant from the Wilson Center to subvene the cost of publish-
ing the anthology she is co-editing with Jennie Hirsh, Assistant
Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art, MICA: Contemporary
Art and Classical Myth, forthcoming Ashgate, 2010.
Visiting Artist and Assistant Professor, Didi Dunphy exhib-
ited variations on her “Playscape” installation works including
see saws, skateboards, rockers and vinyl graphic designs this
past fall at the Roy C. Moore Gallery at Gainseville State College
and this Spring at the Dalton Gallery at Agnes Scott College
in Atlanta. “Limitless” at the
Dalton Gallery will include new
works created with the technol-
ogy of laser etch and cut acrylic.
Didi is a panelist this Spring at
gmoa, which includes a screen-
ing of new film, “Who Does
She Think She Is?” and Emory’s
Art Criticism Conference. The
new Professional Practices class
is hosting a dozen guests from
various creative fields such as
intellectual property law, textile
design, public art policy, web
branding, grant writing and
many others.
Professor James Barsness
had a solo exhibit of five elabo-
rate and large scale paintings at
Catherine Clark Gallery in San
Francisco this past April entitled “Dharma Bums” Barsness will
have a solo exhibit at the George Adams Gallery in New York City
this coming October.
Two ldsoa faculty members have been awarded Fulbright
Scholar grants for fall 2010. Professor Diane Edison, chair of
drawing and painting, has been selected as a Fulbright Scholar
grantee to Bulgaria. The title of her grant is “Portraiture Re-defined:
Interdisciplinary Influences on Teaching Beginning Courses.”
Edison will work alongside colleagues in the Fine Arts Department
of New Bulgarian University in Sofia and conduct research on the
Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov and the fresco portrait images
found in the monasteries of Bulgaria.
Associate professor and co-chair of Art Education Richard
Siegesmund has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar Award to
teach at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland,
during the 2010 fall semester.
Siegesmund’s work in Dublin will include a course based on
his book, Arts-Based Research in Education: Foundations for Practice;
a second course based on community arts. The first of two public
lectures will focus on his work with the national art and design
curriculum, ThinkTank; and a second public lecture based on the
aesthetic thought of John Dewey and its foundation to arts-based
research methods in the social sciences.
Assistant Professor Julie Spivey’s design for the 2008 and
2009 issues of the School of Art newsletter has won various
design awards including most recently a 2009 case iii Special
Merit Award from the Council for the Advancement of Education.
Spivey and Associate Professor Alex Murawski’s collaborative
work on a promotional poster for the annual Blind Willie McTell
Blues Festival in Thomson, Georgia was recently published in
Print magazine’s Regional Design Annual and was exhibited in
Illustrators 51, the annual exhibition of Society of Illustrators in
New York.
In November, three pieces designed by Spivey’s students,
including an original project design, were published in The New
Graphic Design School by Quarto Press, London.
Professor Stephen Scheer has been accepted into the Artists
& Scholars Residency Program at the American Academy in Rome
for July 2010. Scheer will serve as visiting artist, shooting photog-
raphy on location of historic architectural sites and monuments
in a contemporary context.
Eight images by Scheer have been selected for featured article
on his involvment with “Street Photography” for the London-
based magazine Publication in May 2010.
Scheer is also contracted for a three-picture feature in the
upcoming book Horizontal New York by Maria Hamburg
Kennedy, designed by Richard Padisco, to be published by Rizzoli
International in spring 2011.
Associate professor Tad Gloeckler has been selected as
the Spring 2011 Artist in Residence in the Interdisciplinary Arts
Residency Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arts
Institute in Madison, WI. Responsibilities during the residency
include teaching an interdisciplinary arts studio class culminating
in a presentation/performance of student work, a presentation of
his own work at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art with
an associated public workshop, and participating in an artist’s
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FACULTy Roundup
ASSoCIATe PRoFeSSoRoF ART eDUCATIonTRACIe CoSTAnTIno
Who can resist the allure of the circle?
Circles are perfect: 360 degrees of precisely
equal angles that manifest radiant beauty in
the guise of geometry.
Circles evoke balance, harmony, con-
nectedness, closure. They symbolize full-
ness, and paradoxically, emptiness. A circle
has no beginning and no end.
As a fundraiser at the University of
Georgia, I often hear “circle” as a metaphor
in conversations with donors. They allude
to it in relation to their charitable impulses,
“Suzi, I’m so excited. In making this gift,
I feel as if I’m coming full circle.” Or “I’m
writing this check because I want to com-
plete the circle.” Or “I wouldn’t be where I
am today, if it hadn’t been for uga. Can you
help me circle back to honor my teachers?”
Alumni use these very words to indi-
cate that their gift is a way of “giving
back.” In giving back to their alma mater,
they are actually giving thanks. Thanks
for courses that provided knowledge and
skills to launch successful careers. Thanks
to professors whose dedication provided
memorable teaching, and whose eccentrici-
ties and character provided unforgettable
role-modeling. Thanks to classmates and
roommates, whose friendship enriched the
college years with interpersonal learning
and emotional warmth.
Often, the alumni who give most
ardently are the ones who have benefited
from scholarships, themselves. They
appreciate how their life was transformed
through education and how their dreams
were realized through the help of a gift. I
love listening to donors’ stories about how
remarkable, unexpected acts of generosity
opened doors to otherwise-unattainable,
life-changing learning experiences.
Rick Johnson, now Associate Professor
of Art and Director of the Cortona Program,
went to Cortona for the very first time as a
student. This spring he received the Richard
F. Reiff Internationalization Award in re-
cognition for his lifelong work at and for
the Cortona Program. At the presentation,
he talked about his initiation to Italy and
recounted a conversation with his teacher
and then-department head, Lamar Dodd:
LD: You should study in Cortona.
You’d learn a lot there.
RJ: Sir, I’d like to go, but I can’t afford it.
It costs $750.00 (…a lot in the 1970s)
LD: Well, how much do you have?
RJ: I think I can scrape together $250.00.
LD: All right. Let’s see if this will help.
Dodd took out his check book and
handed Rick Johnson $500.00, and THAT
has made all the difference, not only for
this student turned artist turned profes-
sor turned director, but for the Cortona
Program and all the faculty and students
who have been there under his leadership.
Travel scholarships continue to make
a huge difference and are needed more
than ever. In the global society, today’s
art students must have access to interna-
tional education to acquire the linguistic
and cultural sophistication of their peers
in other disciplines. Anyone who has lived
abroad knows that the experience radically
changes us; it affects our understanding
not only of the world and that “foreign”
country, but also of ourselves, our sense of
identity. Recently, an alumnus called to ask,
“How much is a plane ticket to Costa Rica?
I’ve heard that the ldsoa is starting a new
Maymester program there. I want to help
give someone that opportunity because
studying in another country changed my
life!”
Testimonials like this richly illustrate
the arc or path of the “circle of giving.”
And here’s how to travel the circle of
giving: keeping in mind that there is no
end and no beginning, let’s begin at the top
of the circle (or 12 o’clock). We see that the
spirit of generosity prompts the donor to act
or make a gift. The gift, itself, produces an
amazing opportunity for someone or some
group. That opportunity enriches the life
of the beneficiary, creating a deep sense of
appreciation or gratitude. And that gratitude
generates the spirit of generosity, again.
No matter where you start on the circle
of giving, you take part in something that
never ends. As you give back, you give to
the future. What you give as a remem-
brance of things past becomes your legacy…
and someone else’s bright beginnings. The
circle of giving keeps giving. g
how to participate in the arts with a gift to the lamar dodd school of art
the circLeoF GiVinG:A MEDITATION
ON GENEROSITY
G e n e r o s i t Y
GiF
t
o p p o r t U n i t Y
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1 Send a check to make a tax-deductible gift any time through the year. Make
check out to the Arch Foundation or UGA Foundation, LDSOA.
LDSOA General Fund
Art Building and Equipment Fund
Purpose or Area (i.e. scholarships, ceramics, visiting artists)
2 Visit our website: www.art.uga.edu and click on “Make a Gift” to see a
menu of options of ways to benefit the school; then, follow the links to
make a secure, on-line gift
3 “Take a Seat” in the auditorium; your name (plus class year, business, etc.)
will be engraved on a pewter name-plaque to be installed on the arm of
the seats in the LDSOA’s state of the art lecture space. Seats may also be
named in honor of or in memory of a friend, mentor, or loved one. Some
of our seats have been named in honor of donors’ favorite artist. When you
visit www.art.uga.edu, check the “Take a Seat” option under “Make a Gift.”
New name plaques are installed at graduation each year.
4 Contact Suzi Wong, Director of Development for the Fine and Performing
Arts, to ask about making gifts of stock transfers, insurance policies, pledges,
estate plans, etc. If you would like to discuss the possibility of making a
major gift (such as a scholarship or professorship or naming a gallery),
please contact Suzi: (706) 542-9867 or [email protected]
5 If and when you are called by UGA fundraisers during its annual phone
campaign, exercise your option to designate your gift to the Lamar Dodd
School of Art.
s u m m e r 2 0 1 0p
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In my second year as Gallery Director I was thrilled to see attendance expand
and diversify, as each art reception became an event for visual dialogue and a
gathering for the exchange of ideas. No less impressive were the string of student
exhibitions, particularly the BFA Exit Shows and a stellar MFA Exhibition in the
spring. Our inaugural Juried Student Exhibition was a huge success with a large
student participation in both submissions and the organization of the show.
The juror was Julian Cox, Curator of Photography at the High Museum and
featured over 100 works representing every studio practice. The resulting show
was well attended, well-received and reminded me of the thriving community
that we inhabit at River Road.
The Fall 2010 Exhibition Season opens with Drawing: Contemporary
Approaches, a showcase of artists who push the boundaries of conventional
mark making. Michigan-based artist Kathleen McShane stretches tradition with
physically unexpected works conveyed with an intrepid and witty attitude,
while Canadian Barb Bondy’s work is informed by the intersection of science,
art, and philosophy as a graphical dialogue with the human mind and brain.
Running concurrently in Gallery 101, Thom Houser’s site-specific installation
The Other Side of The Mask explores contradiction and self-deception. He
employs still and video images, built environments, sound and original poetry.
During October, the dynamic printmaking duo of Aaron Wilson and Tim
Dooley will bring their “Printstallation” and collaborative spirit to Athens.
Widely exhibited and celebrated printmakers, they are known for their
THe LAMAR DoDD SCHooL oF ART
GalleriesRevolving exhibitions of interactive media, large-scale
painting, and magical ceramic sculpture were some of
the many highlights of the 2009–10 Gallery Season.
PHILIP AyeRS Now ThaT we are here , 2007 oIL on CAnVAS, 48 X 36In.
BY j e F F R eY W H iT T L e
sculptural and experi-
mental approach and
an ongoing dialogue
with contemporary
culture. In celebration
of the opening of our
new ceramics facilities
on River Road this fall,
we will be showcasing
the work of ceramic fac-
ulty past and present.
And later in the fall we
are pleased to have the
second annual Juried Student Exhibition, juried by Stuart Horodner, Artistic
Director at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.
In Spring 2011 The Lamar Dodd School of Art Galleries are proud to host
the photographic works of Jim Fiscus. Fiscus is an award-winning photographer
and pioneer in digital imaging. Voted International Photographer of the Year
for 2006, Jim Fiscus has had work featured on two communication arts covers
and was named #1 on Campaigns 2008 list of top photographers in the United
Kingdom.
The ldsoa Galleries always seek to showcase technical mastery, provocative
investigation, and art that speaks to our time. Our Galleries strive to create a
direct discourse between innovative contemporary artists and the University
and Athens audiences, especially with our students as they make their own
contributions to this ongoing dialogue. g
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