Time to Catch up 2

Kate Bonansinga, the Director and Curator form the Rubin Center at the University of Texas, El Paso was our first visiting critic for the semester. Her visit was part of the Academy's Critical Studies Program which worked collaboratively with the Ceramics, Fiber, Metals, and Photo Departments. She was here for a week and worked with us in various ways. The first component was a public lecture titled "Making it Relevant: The University Art Museum in the 21st Century". Each morning that Kate was here she also led a seminar about the theatricality of art museum exhibitions for selected students from the sponsoring departments. The last day of the seminar they visited the Detroit Institute of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit to see how these institutions demonstrated the topics of the seminar. Each afternoon she spent with one of the sponsoring departments meeting with students and critiquing work.

The next week brought Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo, the collaborative installation and architecture team called Lead Pencil Studio. Fiber collaborated with Architecture to host LPS and after they presented their lecture they met individually with students from each department to critique work. Architecture and Fiber have had student collaborations in each of the past two years and this was a great opportunity to make that connection on another level.

Most recently we have been fortunate to have Jane Lackey and Anne Wilson presenting solo shows in the area. On Saturday November 7 Jane Lackey presented a gallery talk at Lemberg Gallery and on Sunday the 8th Anne Wilson spoke about her work at Paul Kotula Projects. On the following Monday and Tuesday we were glad to host Jane Lackey for individual meetings with each Fiber student and a follow- up discussion before she left.

The next few weeks bring a more focused studio work schedule with weekly critiques and individual meetings between each student and me as we work towards Third Semester Reviews and final critiques.