Department of Art + Design,
Art History, Art Education

News

Keep up with the latest news in the Department of Art + Design, Art History, Art Education. You can also find information on upcoming events.

• Events

Amanda Burnham Solo Exhibition

Dorsch Gallery in Miami, FL will be featuring a solo show of Amanda Burnham's drawings and wall installations entitled "Marginalia." The opening is September 12th, and the show runs until October 3rd.

Design for the Common Good

Jan Baum, Bridget Sullivan and Jessica Ring, Department of Art+Design, presented the following papers at the Annual Design Education Summit: Design for the Common Good sponsored by the UCDA, University and College Design Association. The conference was held at Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama May 28-30.

Teaching Design in Second Life: Institutional, Program and Course Level Implementation Strategies, Jan Baum and Bridget Sullivan

Teaching Interactive Media and Object Design using Web2.0 technologies and Second Life, Jan Baum and Bridget Sullivan

Fostering Community, Connections and Change Through Green Mapping, Jessica Ring

Design and Social Entrepreneurship, a.k.a. Design Like You Give a Damn, Jan Baum

Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Winner

Art + Design faculty member, Dane Nester, and the Baltimore Development Cooperative, were awarded the 2009 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize of $25,000. at the Baltimore Museum of Art on Saturday, July 11, in conjunction with Artscape. Mayor Sheila Dixon presented at the awards ceremony.

Good News from Sculpture

The University of Delaware has invited student and faculty sculptors from T.U. to install large scale works in a Botanical Garden on the campus. T. U. sculptors have joined U. D. sculptors in a the combined outdoor exhibition. Exhibitors include T.U. students Jonathon Davis, Erin Hallock, Kevin Lichtfuss, David Redfern, and William Walker. Also exhibiting are faculty members Leigh Maddox and Jim Paulsen. The opening reception for the exhibit is May 7th , 4 to 6 pm.

The Maryland Federation of Art in Annapolis recently hosted an Emerging Artist Exhibition.
Sculpture student, David Redfern, received Best in Show, a $200 award.

Erin Hallock and Kevin Lichtfuss, also sculpture students, had all of their works accepted. Additional T.U. students accepted into the exhibition were Jamie Hofmann-3rd place-$100 award, Genevieve Bisby (MFA program), William Borja, Kelly Duncan, and Katie Huff.

Presidential Pastries

On April 1, 2009, Nancy Siegel, Associate Professor of Art History presented the lecture: An Appetite for Politics: Women as Culinary Activists in the Early Republic. This talk explored concepts of national identity and patriotism associated with women’s reappraisal of recipes in American cookbooks prior to and after the Revolutionary War. Recipes for Election cake, Independence cake, and recipes hailing the efforts of important political figures such as Washington cake, Franklin gingerbread, and Franklin buns were discussed.
In conjunction with Nancy’s presentation, and to celebrate a great historical moment, an Obama President’s Cake Competition was held. Professional bakers as well as faculty, staff and student organizations entered the competition. The Art History Club and Professor Susan Isaacs won prizes for their cakes.

Honor’s Students’ Exhibition

Metals + Jewelry and Interdisciplinary Object Design students, Karen Kerno, Lizzy Hanner, and Johann Haydon, will showcase their Departmental Honors Projects from April 28- May 8, 2009 at the Towson Commons Gallery, Pennsylvania and York Roads in Towson. Please join us in supporting and celebrating the success of our students at their opening reception on Saturday, May 2, 2009 from 6-9pm.

Karen Kerno’s collection explores the constant change people experience over a lifetime. Interactive objects help individuals cope with inevitable changes in emotion, belief, or control. Some of these forms are wearable accessories while others are mechanisms to be held, pulled, squeezed, and stretched by the user. Johanna Haydon’s collection investigates ideas of comfort and healing through wearable objects made from a wide range of materials such as tea and aloe, which evoke healing, soothing, and calm. Lizzy Hanner’s collection explores the small secrets we all, sometimes unknowingly, keep. This collection includes a range of objects from containers to wearable objects.

Karen Kerno and Lizzy Hanner have been invited to make oral presentations on their Honors Projects at the Annual Student Research Expo on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 in the University Union. Karen and Lizzy both received undergraduate research grants in support of their Departmental Honors Projects.

Kaitlin Manning To Give COFAC Commencement Speech

Art History major, Kaitlin Manning, has been invited give the Towson University COFAC Commencement speech in May.

An Appetite for Politics

Dr. Nancy Siegel presented a lecture, " An Appetite for Politics: Women as Culinary Activists in the Early Republic," to a full crowd in the Student Union's Chesapeake Room on April 1, to support the accompanying Presidential Obama Cake Competition. The Art History Club and Dr. Susan Isaacs won prizes in the cake competition.

Dr. Nancy Siegel Awarded Fellowship

Dr. Nancy Siegel has been awarded a research fellowship from the State of New York to support her project, "'To Elevate the Mind': Female Instruction, Women Artists, and the Hudson River School." This will be part of a book project, The Cultured Canvas: A Social History of American Landscape Painting. She will begin her work in NYS after her research fellowship at Yale this summer.

Watershed: Bridget Z. Sullivan Solo Exhibition at School 33

Through close observation presented in a form reminiscent of a naturalist’s journal, the mixed media digital work of Bridget Z. Sullivan reveals the artist’s search for meaning through her observation of life. Sullivan provides her viewers with intimate views of Nature using photography and scanography, and using water based pastels she draws and writes directly on her large digital prints. School 33 March 12 - April 11 The gallery is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 10 AM—4 PM , Thursdays from 10 AM—7 PM, and Saturdays 12—4 PM. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Kim Cadmus Owens Exhibitions

Kim Owens has three digital projected “paintings” accepted into the Texas Biennial 2009 in Austin. The exhibition dates are March 6–April 11, 2009. Owens is also a part of the group exhibition American Landscape: Urban/Rural at Artspace111 in Fort Worth, Texas, from March 7–April 19, 2009.

Fantastical Imaginings

Dr. Susan J. Isaacs, Professor and Area Coordinator of Art History, curated the exhibition Fantastical Imaginings, which originated at the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts. The traveling exhibition features the work of fourteen artists and will appear at Loyola College’s Julio Fine Arts Gallery from February 19–March 28, 2009.

Amanda Burnham to Attend ThinkTank 4 Conference

Amanda Burnham was selected for the "Emerging Educators and Administrators" award and fellowship to attend the ThinkTank 4 Conference this June at the University of Georgia.  This award includes all of her expenses, including travel, registration, and meals.

Stuart Stein to Exhibit at Goucher College

Associate Professor Stuart Stein is one of four artists who contributed to the site-specific exhibition Respond at the Rosenburg Gallery at Goucher College. The exhibition dates are Monday, February 2, through Sunday, March 8. Stein's work, Jump, Fall, orchestrates many variable elements into a rhythmic whole; it seeks an overall consistency of traditional mark making within a digital format. Each print represents a chronological stage of the creative process, as well as represents a larger process, and each print reflects its place in the larger whole. All of the wall work appears in a context of tree forms, which contrast the changing nature of man-made forms found throughout the work. The title of the piece reflects the themes—creation vs. destruction, growth vs. decay, nature vs. invention—exposed in the work.

Arts Council Award Winners

Congratulations to part-time faculty Laura Amussen, David Page and April Wood, recipients of 2009 Maryland State Arts Council Awards for Sculpture.

Jenee Mateer Exhibition

Photography professor, Jenee Mateer, is exhibiting in the group exhibition, "Travel Exhibit: Where Have You Been? " January 16 through March 9, at the Towson Arts Collective.

Shin-Yeon Jeon Exhibition

Adjunct faculty member, Shin-Yeon Jeon, will be exhibiting her work, "Transformation" at the Glenview Mansion Art Gallery, Glenview Mansion at Rockville Civic Center Park, MD, February 1 - February 24, 2009. She will also lead the discussion, "Brush Mark on Clay Surface", at the NCECA (National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts) 2009 conference in Arizona on April 9th.

Maggie Gourlay Exhibition at School 33 in February

Maggie Gourlay, graduate painting student, will exhibit work on the second floor gallery space at School 33. The exhibit runs the month of February, and the opening is February 20th.

Scholarships Available

The Department of Art + Design, Art History, Art Education is offering exceptional opportunities for students in the arts with scholarships in two categories: Environmental Initiatives and Social Change. The intent of these scholarship awards is to recognize currently enrolled Art + Design, Art History, Art Education majors who wish to further their knowledge, skills, and ideas related to environmental concepts, concerns, and initiatives or current societal issues and initiatives. Applications will be reviewed and juried by departmental faculty members annually, typically in the fall semester. These scholarships are not need based; they will be awarded on the strengths and merits of the application materials and proposed project. These scholarships are open to full-time undergraduate Art + Design, Art History, Art Education majors who will be enrolled full-time the summer or semester after the scholarship is announced. The scholarship will be applied to tuition. No direct checks will be awarded. Application Deadline: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 by 4:00 pm.

Jim Condron Exhibition

Paintings by Jim Condron will be exhibited at The James L. Pierce Gallery at Green Spring Station from January 12 through February 20, 2009.

Jan Baum will have her jewelry and metal work published in 500 Pendants + Lockets, published by Lark Books.