A self-guided tour, Contemplative Forest Art Walks is a series of mindfulness meditation stations in the Ford Center Forest. Each station is marked by a hand-painted, nine-foot-tall banner installed among the trees.
Public reception free and with refreshments on (Wednesday) July 31 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Short remarks by artist Anne Befflel, Professor in Visual and Performing Arts, about the project at 6:15 p.m.
More information and a map can be found at www.annebeffel.com
Associate Professor of Theatre in Visual and Performing Arts, Trish Helsel, will be offering a week of puppetry workshops in partnership with the Copper Country Community Arts Center and sponsorship by K. C. Bonker’s the week of August 12-17.
The workshop is the culmination of research and work made possible from a REF grant. The Puppet Project is an initiative to introduce and establish the art of puppetry into our local culture through education and performances.
Students of all ages will learn to construct and manipulate various types of puppets. With themes provided by local poets Hugo Gordillo and Kelsey Carriere, the puppets will come to life telling stories of plants, animals, and music!
Classes are carefully designed for the age groups/school grades designated. Please register your child for the appropriate group. Grades are “rising,” meaning the grade they will enter this fall. A parent or guardian must be present for classes and the recital for children younger than Kindergarten age.
Classes are offered in the Ballroom at the Copper Country Community Arts Center, 126 E. Quincy Street, Hancock. Dress for mess! We recommend you bring a water bottle, especially for longer sessions.
The Saturday Recital (and rehearsal) will be at Michigan Technological University, in the McArdle Theatre, 2nd floor of the Walker Arts and Humanities Center. Wear dark clothing to make your puppets stand out better!
Registration:
To Register, go to the SDC Ticket Office or register online.
Registration fees cover materials and instruction and vary by age group.
$20 – Toddlers: Monday/Wednesday 9:15am – 10:00am
$20 – Preschool (3-4 years): Monday/Wednesday 11:00am – 12:00pm
$20 – K-2nd Grade: Monday/Wednesday 1:00pm – 2:30 pm
$25 – 3rd-5th Grades: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday 9:00am – 11:00am
$25 – 6th-8th Grades: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday 1:00pm – 3:00pm
$25 – 9th-12th Grades: Monday/Wednesday/Friday 4:00pm – 6:00pm
$30 – Adults: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday 6:00pm – 8:00pm
All registrants must sign a Michigan Tech waiver form.
For more information, contact Trish Helsel: (906) 487-3283, helsel@mtu.edu
The department of Visual and Performing Arts announces its semi-annual student showcase, “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” featuring works of art created in Project Learning Lab by Michigan Tech students.
Project Learning Lab is an innovative arts classroom based inside Rozsa gallery b. The exhibition runs through 8 p.m. today (April 22).
The works on display were created by students in Lisa Gordillo’s Traditional Sculpture Studio. Students from many campus disciplines are represented, including business, math, engineering and theatre. Students in the class study sculptural traditions from around the world, and create three-dimensional works using those traditions as a guide.
This year, the class focused on Guatemalan cultures, and created barriletes (giant kites), nawales (personal symbols informed by the Mayan calendar) and Estelas (large carvings).
The student artists are:
Congratulations to
Visual and Performing Arts Assistant Professor, Lisa Gordillo, who was named as a finalist for this years Distinguished Teaching Award.
The William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning recognizes outstanding contributions to the instructional mission of the University. Based on more than 50,000 student ratings of instruction responses, ten finalists have been identified for the 2019 awards. The selection committee has solicited comments from students, staff, faculty and alumni to aid in deliberation.
The process for determining the Distinguished Teaching Award recipients from this list of finalists also involves the additional surveying of their spring classes. The selection committee makes the final determination of the award recipients. The 2019 Distinguished Teaching Awards will be formally announced in May.
Celebrate Michigan Tech’s student artists and spend a relaxing evening enjoying artworks created in Visual Arts courses.
The exhibit will be in a open-house format from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday (April 19). The exhibition will be in two locations — the hallway galleries outside of Walker 209 and the Studio for Here and Now, G04W Wadsworth, across from the WMTU studios.
This event is free and open to the public.
The Department of Visual and Performing Arts and the Rozsa Center invite you to join local and regional creative thinkers for a conversation on art, literature and other ideas.
This “salon-style conversation” will take place in the Rozsa lobby before Friday’s (April 12) performance of Tech Theatre’s production of “Sunday in the Park with George,” a musical based on the creative life of Georges Seurat.
This event is part of the gallery exhibit, Salon!, bringing together the spring musical and the spring gallery exhibit in a public conversation.
Salon Conversation, with guest speakers, 5:30-6:30pm in the Rozsa Lobby; Gallery Reception, 6:30-7:30pm, Rozsa Gallery A-Space
Edzordzi Agbozo, poetry
Jared Anderson, on arts and collaboration
Linda King Ferguson and Dr. Tomas Co, on painting
Libby Meyer, music
M. Bartley Seigel, poetry
Dana Van Kooy, on plantations, colonialism, art, and literature
With music throughout by Mike Christianson and Superior Wind Symphony students.
For the Deans’ Teaching Showcase, Dean David Hemmer has selected Lisa Gordillo, assistant professor in Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).
Gordillo was nominated by VPA Chair Jared Anderson, who applauded the many interdisciplinary collaborations she has initiated to publicly exhibit student art, especially around campus.
Anderson highlighted a wide variety of projects,” ranging from artistic design for windows that would reduce bird-window collisions to carving and casting sculptures based on traditional models in partnership with the Materials Science and Engineering Department.”
Gordillo teaches a wide variety of courses including traditional sculpture, contemporary sculpture, art + design, scenic art and illustration, and advanced sculpture. All of these make important contributions to the general education program, the visual art minor and the major in theater and entertainment technology.
Lisa leads a very collaborative environment where students are encouraged to explore creative solutions to problems while creating beautiful art. Her curriculum uses gallery b in the Rozsa galleries as an interactive classroom space where students create art right where it will be installed for public exhibition.—Jared Anderson
In addition, barriletes (patterned after traditional Guatemalan barriletes) made by students in the Traditional Sculpture course are currently displayed in the Rozsa Center lobby.
Gordillo’s highly hands-on approach with a focus on exhibition is very popular with students as she was named a finalist for the 2019 Distinguished Teaching Award, her third time as a finalist in the last four years.
Gordillo also connects her teaching with a much broader artistic context in her role as director of the Rozsa Art Galleries. Recently, the exhibition, Salon!, opened in Gallery A in the Rozsa Center. This show brought together work from more than 30 artists and writers from around the world. Gordillo worked with student painters to transform the gallery into a space that was inspired by the salons of the late 19th century.
Dean Hemmer summarizes Gordillo’s impact by saying, “I am grateful to have colleagues like Lisa. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting two magnificent shows that she curated in the Rosza Art Gallery. For the many students involved in putting these together, learning extends far beyond the classroom. Faculty like Lisa enliven Tech every day.”
Gordillo will be recognized at an end-of-term luncheon with other showcase members and is now eligible for one of three new teaching awards to be given by the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning this summer recognizing introductory or large class teaching, innovative or outside the classroom teaching methods, or work in curriculum and assessment.
Lisa Gordillo (VPA) received an award for “Best Three-Dimensional Work,” for her piece “Las Cordinada/The Coordinates,” as part of the 2019 North Dakota Human Rights Arts Festival.
The piece, which was first developed on Michigan Tech’s campus as part of Gordillo’s 2017 Rozsa Gallery exhibit, “ChickenBus,” travelled through North Dakota during the human rights festival this spring. Gordillo’s sculpture commemorates 26 of the 440 Mayan villages that were destroyed during Guatemala’s 30-year genocide, which was partially funded by the United States.
Gordillo worked with her collaborator and partner Hugo Gordillo to develop the piece, which is composed of plaster casts of human hands, and a wall text that lists the villages destroyed and the actions taken to destroy them. The piece will be on display through March at the High Plains Fair Housing Center in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Assistant Professor Lisa Gordillo, Visual and Performing Arts, received an award for “Best Three-Dimensional Work” for her work of art, “Las Cordinadas/The Coordinates,” as part of the 2019 North Dakota Human Rights Arts Festival. The work of art, which was first developed on Michigan Tech’s campus as part of Gordillo’s 2017 Rozsa Gallery exhibit, ChickenBus, traveled through North Dakota during the human rights festival this spring.
Professor and public artist Anne Beffel (VPA) will hold an open studio event from 6 to 8 p.m. today (Nov. 28) in the Studio for Here and Now in the basement of Wadsworth Hall (G04W), across from WMTU.
At a 6:45 p.m. presentation, Beffel will discuss a public art and meditation walk in an urban forest she and the City Meditation Crew installed in Shoreline, Washington.
Beffel says, “Meditation Circuit is a series of meditation stations along a pathway marked by public art work. Each station offers a mindfulness-oriented activity intended to support well-being. Explore: listening; walking; even using cell phones as tools for meditating on colors in an urban forest. Meditation Circuits demonstrate the power of meditation and the value of public art.”
Meditation Circuit is inspired in part by the City Meditation Crew project, “Many Colors of Green,” in fall 2017 at Hamlin Park in which community members walked meditatively and contemplated their park using their cell phones as tools for attentiveness.
More information is available online.