School of Fine Arts

KU fine arts faculty elected to national arts commissions

Two KU fine arts faculty members were elected as members of national arts associations.  Larry Mallett, chair of the department of music and dance, was recently elected to the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) Commission on Accreditation.  Lois Greene, f’65, g’71, professor of design, was appointed to the commission on accreditation for the National Association of Schools of Art & Design (NASAD). 

NASM is the national accrediting agency for music programs in higher education in the United States. Over 600 music programs in the nation's universities and colleges are accredited by NASM. Professor Mallett has been a NASM visiting evaluator for 15 years and has administered music and dance programs for 20 years. He has presented at several NASM annual meetings on the topics of faculty evaluation and tenure, middle management, developing leadership in music, non-traditional music students and communicating about music in the academy.

NASAD is the national accrediting agency for art and design disciplines in higher education programs in the U.S.  Approximately 248 art and design schools are accredited by NASAD.  Professor Greene represented KU as the institutional voting member for NASAD for four years, was a member of nominations committee for three years and has presented papers at the NASAD national conference on the topics financial management and emerging technology in art and design. She has also participated in NASAD workshops, panels and accreditation visits.  Greene has administered design programs at the University of Kansas for 32 years.

“We are very excited about professor Mallett’s and professor Greene’s appointments,” said Steven Hedden, d’64, g’69, PhD’71, dean of the School of Fine Arts.  “The election of our faculty members to these national arts commissions is a clear signal of the respect they have earned from fellow executives.”

For more information about these appointments, please contact the department of music and dance at 785-864-3436 or the department of design at 785-864-4401.

KU installation artist explores power of touch for New York gallery show

Carol Ann Carter, KU professor of art, opened “Touch: The Appetite of Skin,” a multimedia installation, Dec. 3 at the G.R. N’Namdi Gallery in New York City. The exhibition continues through Jan. 7 and will move to the N’Namdi gallery in Chicago Jan. 27. In April, the show moves to Detroit.

The exhibition title takes its name from Carter’s latest work, a video montage of still and animated images in which the artist uses skin as a metaphor for the soul to explore the strength of our sense of touch to affirm caring, a need for connection and a search for personal and cultural redemption.

Saralyn Reece Hardy, c’76, g’94, director of KU’s Spencer Art Museum, says, “Carol Ann’s work hovers somewhere between a cinematic collage and a glacier melting in your heart.”

A new genre artist, Carter began her professional career in printmaking and drawing and now uses computer technology to create digital drawings and construct video pieces that flow with images, movement, performance, music and narrative.

Technological tools not only allow Carter to incorporate physical materials and objects in her art but also permit her “to combine, juxtapose and annotate in ways I could not achieve solely by hand. I subsequently learned that it was possible to animate my still images, to speak a new language and expand their audience,” she says.

“This is work that involves … many voices new to each other — both human and technological.” The process results in inspired connections, Carter adds.

Themes in Carter’s work include reclaiming integrity, beauty and grace within elements that are frayed or separated — often symbolic of hope that has been abandoned, distressed, battered or scarred.

“I stretch across pitted surfaces to join new seams, cross former boundaries, to bind, mend and form new wholes. Nothing is only about itself. … I create scenarios in which dialogues among objects, personal experiences and stored memories can take place. My creative impulse arises from tensions inherent in those dialogues.”

Carter’s “Touch” incorporates work of composer Kip Haaheim, KU assistant professor of music, who designed the sound; dancer Patrick Suzeau, KU associate professor of dance, who choreographed his performances; and technical advisers and editors Joshua Kendall, c’05, j’05, and Isa Kretschmer, c’02, who edited and created visual treatments.

She dedicated her exhibition to the late Al Loving, “a fine and gentle artist who touched countless of us deeply and who encouraged my work for over 25 years.” He died this year.

Carter has shown her work nationally and internationally in individual and group exhibitions in Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York City and Luebeck, Germany.

Born in Indianapolis, Carter has a bachelor’s degree from the Herron School of Art of Indiana University and a master’s from the University of Notre Dame. Her research awards include a National Endowment Individual Artists Award; a Lilly Foundation Open Faculty Fellowship for research in Nigeria; a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral for Minorities Fellowship; a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Stockholm, Sweden; and a Kansas Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. In 1995 she was the Langston Hughes Visiting Professor at KU. Before joining KU’s School of Fine Arts faculty in 1996, Carter taught at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind.; Penn State University and the University of Michigan.

More information about G. R. N’Namdi Gallery and the exhibit is available online www.grnnamdi.com.

KU music and dance department rings in the holiday season with 81st annual Holiday Vespers concert

KU’s music and dance department in the School of Fine Arts presented the 81st annual Holiday Vespers concert at 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Dec. 4 at the Lied Center of Kansas.

This popular holiday event for the community is one of the longest-running continuous holiday concerts at a college or university in the country.  This year’s program featured the KU Symphonic Choir, the KU Symphony Orchestra, the Celebration Ringers from the First United Methodist Church in Lawrence, Sharim Netzim (Singing Hawks) and the KU Chamber Choir.  These groups performed such holiday classics as Joy to the World, Chanukah, O Chanukah and Sleigh Ride, to name a few.  Against the Grain, an undergraduate men’s barbershop quartet from KU, also performed seasonal favorites. 

In addition, this year’s program featured three works composed by KU graduate students.  Amy Luckenbill, m’03, currently working on a DMA in choral conducting performance, conducted Huron Carol, a French folksong, performed by the KU Symphonic Choir.  Dan Forrest, a DMA student in composition, created Never a Brighter Star, which was performed by the KU Symphonic Choir and Orchestra.  DMA composition student R. Douglas Helvering composed the work Magnificat, which was performed by the KU Symphonic Choir and Orchestra.

For more information about the 2005 Holiday Vespers concert, please contact the department of music and dance at 785-864-3436.

Visit the School of Fine Arts Web site for more information.