Category: Art

Sarah Fayen Scarlett (VPA) joined former colleagues from the Chipstone Foundation to receive the Wunsch Award for Excellence in American Arts.

Scarlett worked as a curator for Chipstone for seven years before joining Tech’s faculty in Visual and Performing Arts. Chipstone promotes original research and innovative education programs in material culture studies within universities and museums. The Wunsch Award is honoring Chipstone’s exhibition program at the Milwaukee Art Museum, scholarly publications, online initiatives with ArtBabble and immersive programming for college students interested in publicly-engaged scholarship about art and design.

From Tech Today.

AMERICANA WEEK 2015
MASTERPIECES OF RARITY AND HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE TO BE OFFERED ACROSS THE SALES OF IMPORTANT AMERICAN FURNITURE, OUTSIDER AND FOLK ART, SILVER AND CHINESE EXPORT ART

New York – Christie’s is pleased to announce that Americana Week 2015, a series of auctions, viewings and events, will be held from January 16-26. In all, Americana Week 2015 will offer over 520 lots and is expected to realize upwards of $6 million. In conjunction with the sales, Christie’s will also host the third annual Eric M. Wunsch Award for Excellence in the American Arts on January 21, honoring Arnold Lehman and The Chipstone Foundation.

Read more at Christie’s Press Center.

Lisa Johnson, MFA
Lisa Johnson joins the Department of Visual and Performing Arts from the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory.

Johnson received an MFA and an MA with a focus in sculpture from the University of Iowa.

Johnson has been involved in projects like Place-Map-Place, Trench(era), The Eva Luna Project and Kotcich. She also has experience with digital, audio and video production; performance development; woodworking; figure modeling; plaster casting and mold making; and papermaking.

Read more at Tech Today.

With the sun shining and the mounds of snow disappearing, it is starting to feel like spring–just in time for Earth Day. Today is Earth Day and Michigan Tech is celebrating with activities all week long, including a Lake Superior Celebration and a rainforest reptile show.

The Lake Superior Celebration, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center, will feature hands-on activities, a new PBS video on the Great lakes Stewardship Initiative, school-community projects, local foods, “Wildflowers of the UP” by Bob Wild and the “Water’s Edge Art Exhibit.”

A new PBS video will be aired at the celebration. It features local participants in the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative. The event is free and open to the public and all are welcome. The Lake Superior Celebration is sponsored by the Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative and Michigan Tech’s Western UP Center for Science, Mathematics and Environmental Education.

Read more at Tech Today, by Erika Vichcales.

Awards 2014

BEST IN SHOW
MTU President’s Award
“Tori Gate with Great Eastern Sun” by Sue Stephens

FIRST PLACE 2D
MTU Provost’s Award
“Threads” by Renée L. Michaud

FIRST PLACE 3D
MTU Dean’s Award
“Five Minute Egg” by Russell Prather

COMMUNITY CHOICE AWARD
WINNER
“Pondering” by Ray Lahikainen
RUNNER UP
“Land of Opportunity, Grand Rapids” by Jessica Vitale

SECOND PLACE 2D
“Coastline” by Julie Benda

SECOND PLACE 3D
“GMO Deer Swan Box” by Lindsey Heiden

HONORABLE MENTION
“The Gap” by Donald Kilpela
“Coon Valley” by Michele Tuccini
“Dance of the Incubus #8” by Greg Green

This is the last week to see the show, purchase artwork, and cast your vote for the Community Choice Award. Please visit!

Ashley Kirklen from TV6 highlighted the Great Lakes Showcase in a live segment.

Watch the YouTube video “Ashley at Rozsa Center.”

The Great Lakes Showcase enters last week

“There’s a community choice award, so anyone who’s been into the exhibition can vote on their favorite piece. I will count all the votes at the end of the show and we’ll announce the community choice award on our website” says showcase coordinator, Sarah Scarlett.

Read more at Upper Michigans Source, by Ashley Kirklen.

World Water Day is observed on March 22. This year, Michigan Tech is hosting a week of events, March 20, 26-27, 2014. This year’s theme is “Water and Energy.”

Events include a film, lecture, poster session, panel discussion, and art exhibit, featuring the topic of gas from shale hydrofraccing.

March 20- April 23, 2014
Water’s Edge Art Exhibit
Great Lakes Research Center (1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors)
Featured Artists:
Amy Arntson, Joyce Koskenmaki, Bonnie Peterson

Learn more at the Michigan Tech Center for Water and Society.

World Water Day Sponsors:

Center for Water and Society (CWS), Lake Superior Stewardship Initiative (LSSI), Keweenaw Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (KUUF), Keweenaw Land Trust (KLT), Sustainable Futures Institute (SFI), Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC, Visual and Performing Arts (MTU), Finlandia University. Partial funding provided by the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) through a grant from the Johnson Family Foundation for a Let’s Talk About Water event.

World Water Day Activities Focus on Fracking

World Water Day was started by the United Nations to raise awareness about the problems surrounding water on our planet. The world is more than 70 percent covered in water, yet less than 1 percent is available for people to use.

Read more at Tech Today, by Erika Vichcales.

Art Exhibit at GLRC Focuses on Water

The Water’s Edge Art Exhibition celebrates artists Amy Arntson, Joyce Koskenmaki and Bonnie Peterson now through April 23. The artists use paintings, prints and textiles.

Koskenmaki and Peterson will attend a “meet the artists” event on Wednesday, March 26, at the Great Lakes Research Center from 7:30 to 8 p.m. The public is invited to attend.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Center for Water and Society, Great Lakes Research Center, Finlandia University Gallery and the Sustainable Finlandia Committee, and Visual and Performing Arts at Michigan Tech.

Read more at Tech Today.

“World Water Day Exhibition: Water’s Edge” at Great Lakes Research Center celebrates three artists

The Water’s Edge Art Exhibition celebrates artists Amy Arntson, Joyce Koskenmaki and Bonnie Peterson. The artists use paintings, prints and textiles.

Koskenmaki and Peterson will attend a “meet the artists” event from 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, March 26, at the Great Lakes Research Center. The public is invited to attend.

Water’s Edge is the brainchild or Dr. Noel Urban, Michigan Tech professor of civil and environmental engineering. Urban wanted to juxtapose art with the campus-wide celebrations of World Water Day, including lectures, poster sessions and other events, because art can help bring important ecological issues to light. Anne Beffel, Michigan Tech professor and Visual and Performing Arts Department chair, and Carrie Flaspohler, Finlandia University Gallery curator and director, teamed up with Urban and curated the exhibition. Beffel and Flaspohler agree that these are three amazing artists, each with her own way of paying attention to and translating the cultural and ecological qualities of this element.

Read more at Keweenaw Now.

Sadashi Inuzuka’s transcendent ceramic art is celebrated for exploring the overlap between the natural world, science and society. Over the past 20 years, Inuzuka has exhibited his work to national and international audiences.

After having been deemed legally blind, Inuzuka was discouraged from pursuing a career in the arts, but he used his visual impairment as a motivation to reach out to other disabled individuals and to help develop their own artistic identities.

Inuzuka has been awarded a University of Michigan Thurnau Professorship, the highest award for undergraduate teaching. Inuzuka is considered a pioneer in the design and implementation of community engagement courses. He has created courses that enable students to see first-hand the role art can play in social change.

At Michigan Tech, he will help students move beyond their perceived creative limitations in an open, brown bag luncheon discussion. He will share images of his diverse artwork to help lead the discussion. The event is free, and all are welcome, Monday, March 17, from 12 to 1:30 p.m., Walker 202.

Inuzuka will also meet with Michigan Tech students in courses such as Creative Ceramics, Art Appreciation and Creative Drawing.

He will discuss his current artistic endeavors, especially “Whaletown” Project, at a lecture free and open to the public on Tuesday, March 18, from 7 to 8 p.m. on at the U. J. Noblet Forestry Building G002.

Support for the visit comes from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs.

Telling his story through clay

Chronicling his journey as an artist, renowned ceramist Sadashi Inuzuka took students and others at Michigan Technological University from the first time he touched clay as a student in Vancouver until now during an open discussion Monday.

“The first time I touched clay, something went through my body and I said, ‘this is it.'” Inuzuka said. “I didn’t know anything about art but I knew I wanted to make something.”

Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Meagan Stilp.