The Art of Giving: Beard Scholars at the Georgia Museum of Art

(left to right) Joseph Litts, Linda Beard, Victoria Ramsay and Larry Beard

The stereotype of southerners is that they move, think and speak slowly, but people who think that haven’t met Dale Couch. Come to the offices of the Georgia Museum of Art any day and you will see Couch, the museum’s curator of decorative arts, practically running around the museum, talking a mile a minute. Recently, Couch has been accompanied by two people just as lively as he is: the museum’s new Beard Scholars, Joseph Litts and Victoria Ramsay.

Earlier this year, Drs. Linda and Larry Beard—major supporters of the Georgia Museum of Art and its decorative arts initiative—made a commitment to establish this scholarship as a paid position for undergraduate interns in the museum’s Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts. Linda Beard is a member of the museum’s Decorative Arts Advisory Committee and the Executive Committee of its Board of Advisors. She is also a distinguished collector and connoisseur of Belleek porcelain, and works from her collection are on long-term loan to the museum, where they constitute a popular display. Professor Larry Beard is also a scholar of the arts and is an able associate in the Beards’ quest to improve the learning experience in the decorative arts.

Beard Scholar Joseph Litts discusses a chair

Litts and Ramsay are the first students to receive the scholarship, which runs through the 2017–18 academic year. Both of them have demonstrated a strong commitment to the study of the decorative arts. The field focuses on useful objects (furniture, silver, ceramics, textiles et al.) that transcend their function through design, craft, ornament or inherent beauty.

The Beards said, “It is an honor and privilege for us to encourage the work and research of outstanding students in the decorative arts. These scholars represent the absolute best of those students who are passionate about the arts. Their work and aspirations bode well for the future of the decorative arts.”

Litts previously studied history as an undergraduate student at Clemson University. He interned at the museum in the summer of 2015. In the summer of 2016, he attended the summer institute at the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, an in-depth, practice-based program that focuses on the decorative arts and material culture of the early American South. Ramsay is an undergraduate UGA student majoring in English and history, with an emphasis on British and Irish studies. She attended the University of Georgia at Oxford program, at Trinity College, for 6 weeks this summer studying English literature. 

Beard Scholar Victoria Ramsay shows
Linda and Larry Beard some of her work

As Beard Scholars, Litts and Ramsay are tasked with a variety of responsibilities, from visiting donors to digging through antiques shops to writing research articles. The program fosters a more intensely educational, hands-on experience than they would get in a classroom alone. 

When asked what he hopes they will gain from this position, Couch says, “I hope they realize that following a passionate interest gives fulfillment to life. This program exists first to educate and enrich lives of students, not solely to train future curators. I would be delighted to have my interns go on to be lawyers, professors, stay-at-home mothers and fathers, businesspeople. Good design gives rise to conscious living.”

Litts and Ramsay believe that the scholarship will benefit them by providing an enriching educational experience that allows them to be fully invested in their work. Ramsay said, “This internship has made me realize things about myself that I wouldn’t have
known before. I have found what I am truly passionate about and what I want
to work toward in the future.” Both Beard Scholars have decided to attend graduate school. Litts will be studying art history and Ramsay will study English with the intent of becoming either a professor or an archivist. They advise anyone who has interest in the program and the decorative arts to apply for the Beard Scholarship.

The importance of the Beard Scholarship cannot be emphasized enough. Director of development Heather Malcom said, “The Beard Scholarship establishes the first paid internship position for undergraduates at the museum and serves as a model for programs of its kind that help remove barriers and open doors for talented students. It provides opportunities for students to do original research on material culture that helps tell stories about our shared history and environment. And it will go a long way toward creating and diversifying the next generation of scholars in the decorative arts.”

Information about how to apply for this scholarship and other experiential-learning-focused internships at the museum is available at georgiamuseum.org/learn/internships.

Stephanie Motter
Intern, Department of Communications

Table No. 25: The Georgia Museum of Art at UGA’s Freshman Orientation

Over the summer, eager “baby dawgs” and their parents pour onto the University of Georgia campus for their first official look at the life of a college student: Freshman Orientation. Recognizable by their red lanyards, nametags and red tote bags, the soon-to-be UGA students walk into the Grand Hall at the Tate Student Center to learn about all of the new opportunities the university has to offer. 

UGA Orientation with student
Lawson Boling (right)

Bright and early twice a week, the museum’s communications team and I head to the Tate Student Center for UGA Freshman Orientation. We grab our cart of supplies from a meeting room, ride the elevator to the fifth floor and make our way to table number 25 in the Grand Hall. Ten minutes later, the Georgia Museum of Art table is ready to go.

We stand at attention and either greet students or let them approach us. Accompanying our table are two large banners, a large display of the museum’s Snapcode for Snapchat and an abundance of brochures and publications. When one of us catches the eye of a parent or student, a simple “Hi, how are you doing?” draws them to the table.

Once I have sparked their interest, I hand them a museum brochure or a copy of Facet, our quarterly publication, then give them a quick rundown about the location, current and upcoming exhibitions, the opportunities for students and the fact that entry to the museum is free (which tends to be the most surprising part).

My favorite, yet most challenging, part of this experience is to call out “Follow us on Snapchat!” to the students passing by the museum’s orientation table. I will either get a laugh and some sincere interest, or be blatantly ignored. The museum team gets a good kick out of it, but it works.

All in all, being present at UGA’s Freshman Orientation has been great. If the new freshmen and their parents did not know the museum existed before, they do now. We have met many parents at orientation with interest in our collection, exhibitions, opportunities for their child or children and questions about that strange poster in the middle of our table. The incoming students love the Snapchat poster and show enthusiasm for opportunities for student involvement at the museum.

Morgan Tickerhoof
Public Relations Intern

New Exhibition: “Before the March King: 19th-Century American Bands”

"Grandfather of the March King", Patrick Gilmore (1829 - 1892)

The Georgia Museum of Art opened a new exhibition to the public last week, “Before the March King: 19th-Century American Bands.” The exhibition focuses on American bands in the era before the “March King,” John Philip Sousa, and is open until the beginning of the year (Jan. 3, 2016).

The exhibition features many portraits of famous band directors, woodwind and brass instruments, non-military local bands and artifacts such as broadsides advertising performances by local bands and national events. Famous band directors featured in this exhibition range from cornet player Alonzo Ford to the “Grandfather of the March King,” Patrick S. Gilmore, who was an inspiration to Sousa.

Stereoscopic view of a concert hall conducted by Patrick Gilmore in Brooklyn, NY.

Instruments displayed in the exhibition include bugles, cornets, euphoniums and over-the-shoulder horns. The exhibition has a variety of photographic portraits that show the many types of bands that played in the early to late 19th century, such as military, newsboy and all-female bands. Artifacts include souvenirs from the National Peace Jubilee in 1869 and the World Peace Jubilee of 1872 (conducted by Gilmore) and sheet music covers.

An All-Female Band in the 19th-Century

All the objects in the exhibition come from the collection of UGA Performing Arts Center director George C. Foreman, who will give a gallery tour of it this Thursday (October 22). The public is invited to attend this free event, with champagne, coffee and cake at 5 p.m. and the tour at 6 p.m.

MFA Candidate: Zipporah Thompson

“'Cosmic Motherland’ is a bizarre exploration of the futuristic primitive, echoing the ideals and aesthetics of afro-futurism through a psychic, primordial landscape referencing mystical darkness, dream worlds and the cosmos. Dreaming, explored by Jung as a childlike state, correlates to beliefs concerning the primitive and its ties to the infantile. Jung also describes as adults our continuous desire to return to the womb, as home and source of sustenance and life," says Zipporah Thompson about her installation at the Georgia Museum of Art. 

Thompson uses an array of fabric and materials of varying color and texture to create this landscape of Cosmic Motherland. From a distance this mystical display has a ritualistic feel. In high contrast against the museum walls it is powerful while each individual piece calls for closer examination. These textiles form together in chaotic medley of experience for the subconscious. 

She continues that "The primordial, surrealist landscape of Cosmic Motherland echoes the cosmos, with its simultaneous potential for creation and destruction. The ever changing states of chaos and metamorphosis are present within the work. These objects are involved in a ritual of shape-shifting and evolution, and echo the inner workings of the womb, as well as the mind."

Thompson is interested in the process of creating such a diversity of compelling materials and colliding them together in one unified collective. Much of the meaning remains unknown yet mysterious to the viewer, beckoning more questions and causing them to search within themselves for their own sacred connection to another world.

"Alchemy, ritual, sacred places, other worlds, and subtle energy are explored within the work, in an effort to reconstruct narratives concerning identity, belonging, and the spiritual,” says Thompson.

Her work will be on display in the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://www.zipporahcamille.com

MFA Candidate: Lily Smith

A jewelry/metals student, Lily Smith says, “I’ve always been really interested in work that goes on the body. . . . I’ve also worked a lot with fabrics in undergrad and grad school.”

She uses the term “jewelry” loosely as work that goes on the body and talks about the body. She combines the ideas of jewelry with those of garment and fashion, finding an interest in the colliding of fields. For her piece that will be in the Georgia Museum of Art, she combines hand-dyed silks and thinned-down silicon with added pigment painted on fabric to create the textures of fleshy forms. The result is a wearable piece that recalls the feel and form of different parts of the body.

She explains her interest is not only in work that goes on the body but also is about the body. The garments she creates mimic natural forms of the human form but are exaggerated. With a skin-tone color palette and materials that resemble skin as much as worn fabrics, she makes voluptuous plump forms that hang around the figure when the piece is worn.  

“This work talks about our standards of beauty and the ideal female figure. They're like dresses but rather than accentuating a thin figure they're fatty forms with multiple breasts and bellies, celebrating the fact that maybe that can be just as beautiful as a thin more fit person. Celebrating the curves and the fat and flesh in general,” she says.

Her creations take beauty to a richly authentic level with their yearning to be seen and felt. These garments continue to evolve with her interest in the process of making as well as the intrigue of the final state. They hold the viewer captive while evoking feelings about their own personal connection to the human form.

Smith’s work will be shown at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://handgrownjewelry.weebly.com/lily-smith.html

MFA Candidate: Louisa Powell

Trapped in Our Maps

Louisa Powell is a sculpture candidate interested in creating structural systems that explore spaces. Often starting with a single form, she lets the work transform itself and grow according to the space. Although most of her work is site-specific, for her show at the Georgia Museum of Art she had to find a way to be more flexible, creating it outside of the installation space. The idea for this work started with a bookshelf. 

“I have since decided to remove the actual bookshelf from the equation, but my form has boundaries and cut-outs in it that reflect its relationship with the bookshelf,” explains Powell. 

She says she hopes to do a second small piece that will interact with the architecture of the hallway outside the gallery. She wants it to be an iteration of the gallery sculpture and to react to the particularities of the site in which it is installed. 

Starting out as an environmental design student and earning her undergraduate degree in this field, Powell took her love for design and moved toward a deeper exploration of form. Preferring to work with her hands over the computer, her passion for installations took root and flourished. 

Powell currently has an installation on display at Creature Comforts. Previously she showed one of her installation pieces at the Bulldog Inn show, using the room to present an expansive breadth of shapes and organic forms. 

To see her newest installation, attend the Georgia Museum of Art’s “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://louisapowell.com

MFA Candidate: Joe Camoosa

Joe Camoosa paints with the need to create and express a feeling that lurks underneath the surface. He explains that there is a collective subconscious, something that can’t be found in looking at other sources of material or art. Rather, it is something that he must find within himself. He hopes viewers will be lost within the maze of color of his paintings and transcend into a world of their own, the way he has with some of his own favorite paintings.

He recalls a feeling he experienced with a specific work that really called to him, with an inexplicable need to be looked at. This experience inspired him to create that type of interaction for viewers, even when he cannot understand his own work. He aims to take them to a place where time freezes and all else is forgotten within the labyrinth of his creation.

With a variety of media, including acrylic, oil and even house paint, Camoosa is fascinated with the process of painting and how paints visually react to each other. He starts out with an abstract shape or pattern and continues adding to it as the canvas calls him. He treats his pieces as puzzles that must be solved by either adding or taking away until he is satisfied with the feeling it produces. When it is difficult to tell if a painting is really finished, he may step away and come back to it later to continue working. In the end, he leaves it up to viewers to interpret the content for themselves.

With the continuous layering of vibrant colors, his paintings create a battlefield of visual entrapment. He puts the canvas to the test to see how much it can hold as he works intuitively throughout the space. Camoosa takes full advantage of the chance to create what hasn’t been seen before, creating paintings that are fun, captivating and truly mesmerizing.

To see Camoosa’s work visit the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://joecamoosa.com

MFA Candidate: Luke Underwood

     

Relaxed and non-aggressive aren’t normally the expressions on the faces of tough wrestlers, but what about when they aren’t in a match? Luke Underwood, a former wrestler himself, found an interest in portraying male wrestlers after practice.

“I had been shooting the action of practice, but I didn’t find it to be interesting beyond a Sports Illustrated-type photo, where it was all about the sport. I was more interested in what they wanted to show me in the slow process of the portrait. . . . They started off initially with their stances and facial expressions much more stern,” explains Underwood.  

His work over the past year has had to do with masculinity and how it is represented in photographs. Underwood has documented his contemporaries, other artists, and friends displaying the ways they may not be in the same phase of adulthood as their fathers were at the same age. Continuing to explore the idea of masculinity, he found an interest in making portraits of wrestlers. 

He says that the point of wrestling is not necessarily to be the best wrestler but rather to test yourself and persevere. It was difficult initially for the wrestlers to pose in a way that did not aim to affirm their toughness further.

“I was trying to get at the idea of showing them as something more than what they were doing as performers on the mat,” says Underwood. 

He had to balance what they were trying to get across with what he wanted to get out of them. His aim was for them to look softer than how most people would think of them. After continuing to photograph them, he says they began to grow more comfortable and their faces began to soften. As a result, the photographs carry striking truths about masculinity and self-perception. 

Underwood’s photographs will be on display at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

MFA Candidate: Jess Machacek

Jess Machacek says her work “all started with . . . noticing materials that have been made and are supposed to imitate the natural world . . . thinking about constructed nature and constructed landscapes. I started playfully pulling from the absurdities of things that are mass produced, rocks with spray paint, fake plants, and all the textures that people use to museumify our interior and exterior spaces.”

For her show at the museum, she is creating an installation derived from a greenhouse she created for her exit show at the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center. She took these ideas of manmade and constructed nature to create pieces that exemplify the irony of taming nature for our own satisfaction. From the greenhouse piece, she made plaster molds of the windows and created a floor with the same footprint. White astroturf, white handmade rocks, white plaster window molds and a yellow hose are all incorporated.

“So much of it is about the look and the show; my original thoughts within the greenhouse were to stage it in a way that felt like a showroom. A greenhouse is supposed to be a container for keeping things alive and for natural things, like an artificial kingdom,” explains Machacek.

There is so much that humans do to the natural world to contain it and use it for their benefit. The desire to control nature has been present throughout history and into today’s world. Harnessing the idea of the man-made, man-ufactured, and man-ipulated, she intends for her piece to come across as a set-up utilizing the showroom aesthetic.

To see Machacek’s work for yourself visit the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://jessicamachacek.com

MFA Candidate: Mahera Khaleque

from 'Palimpsest to Palimpsestuous'

After growing up in Bangladesh and now having spent many years in the United States, Mahera Khaleque considers herself a diasporic artist. Her state of being present and absent in two distant places is echoed in the logic and structure of her interwoven paintings. Through her art, she feels she can express the culture that is fed through her. Like a filter, she catches moments and images that stick out in her mind and transmits them into her work.

“My bi-cultural status simultaneously permits and forces me to choose one practice over another or blend them on a daily basis regardless of my physical existence in one or the other geographical location,” says Khaleque.

For her upcoming show at the Georgia Museum of Art she worked with the idea of the Palimpsest. A Palimpsest is a manuscript where the original material has been erased and written on top of, though traces of the original show through. 

To execute this idea she layered paint with her dad’s journal entries, historical writings from political figures in Bangladesh, along with other manuscripts. These woven creations are like self-portraits from her subconscious representing her worlds intermingling with the past always showing through. 

Khaleque elaborates that, “While the first reason responsible for overwriting manuscripts reminds me of urban walls occupied with overcrowded posters and writings saturated with natural erosions, the latter reminds me of deliberate efforts in erasing as well as re-writing history throughout the historical timeline.” 

She is inspired by the additive and reductive process of creating and how history can be written and rewritten and covered over to allow for more. People are surprised to find that she works not on canvas but on cardboard. This material gives her art a raw, authentic feel, just like the collage work she creates.

“Depending on my physical existence in one geographical location, some cultural practices from one culture become more dominant over others. Very often I find myself blending them subconsciously in my work as well as regular interactions with my surrounding,” she explains. 

Khaleque tries to convey a sense of absence and loss through her paintings, which comes across in the way the layers may be peeled away to show what remains of the past. Her images show how culture can be seen through individual experience.

To experience these paintings, visit the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://maherakhaleque.com/home.html

MFA Candidate: Anna Gay Leavitt

Fields of Relics and Electricity 

Sherman's March

Having grown up in Georgia, Anna Gay Leavitt has always had an interest in the region’s history. She expresses her connection to the land and curiosity for stories that lie just beneath her feet through the medium of photography. 

Leavitt believes that photography is captivating in the way it deals with time. An image can be preserved and kept as a symbol of a moment, a moment that may have otherwise been forgotten. This physical representation of a memory carries different feelings that are entirely dependent upon our own perception. When a single instance becomes tangible it gains the power to transcend time. 

“As humans, we want so badly to stop time and to hold onto our generally inaccurate memories that we have engineered a process which shows a unique moment in fractions of a second, often represented in a way which is far from truthful,” says Leavitt.

With this mindset, she captures figures immersed in ambiguous environments, longing to last yet fading out. They appear frozen in time and convey a certain nostalgia evocative of the past. Intertwined with the land in a ghostly manner, it is clear they have a connection to the home surrounding them. 

“My current work seeks to explore our relationship to the landscape, the physical earth itself, which surrounds those of us living in this region. Throughout my life, I have contemplated the fact that, at times, I am standing exactly where someone else stood thousands of years before my existence,” explains Leavitt. 

Within the ephemeral scenes, viewers are made aware of their own connection to the past with a feeling of timelessness. Like photography, the land has a permanence that can carry itself through time and uniquely connect with the beholder. Leavitt expresses both a broad collective experience and personal reflection through her photography. 

“These images reference a shared history, but are part of my own personal folklore,” says Leavitt. 

Her photography will be on display at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://annagay.com

MFA Candidate: Allan Innman

Voyage of the Ancient Sea Legs, oil on canvas

Allan Innman has been painting a series he entitles “Flights of Fancy” that is based on childhood make-believe. In previous work, he painted still-lifes of childhood objects and has since begun submerging them in surreal environments where they can interact and be brought to life. 

“I think they wanted to come to life then. I just didn’t give them the permission to. Now, I try to put them in their own world where they exist by themselves. Hopefully they are taking on a new life,” says Innman about his transition into more dreamlike scenarios. 

He says that a lot of it is about trying to imagine himself as a 5- or 6-year-old again. With childhood innocence and make-believe, there are no limits. Any objects can become toys. A lot of the toys he paints are his, but he finds others at places like the J & J Flea Market. 

“I start out with a visual collage or a photograph, and I paint it. While I’m painting, a lot of times my idea completely changes. It’s a lot of documenting, dropping back into Photoshop and collaging on top of that,” says Innman. 

In the laboratory of his studio, these toys come to life, immersed in a fantasy of bright, dreamy colors. Large canvases allow viewers to get lost within the nostalgic yet unfamiliar worlds he creates.

Innman’s paintings will be shown at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://allaninnman.com

MFA Candidate: Andrew Indelicato

                  

Andrew Indelicato creates digital paintings filled with 1980s nostalgia and visual reminiscences of video game images. He uses photoshop to create vibrant prints that reference early computer graphics, neon, glitching, and computer manipulation. He makes gifs and is interested in new media, net art, and cross-platforming.

Colliding color fields with overlapping patterns make his prints bright and compelling. To create these images he seeks inspiration from grids. The idea of the grid is prevalent as a visual component for his work as well as a structural guideline. Whether or not it is shown, he says that it still plays a role in guiding his process.

“When the grid is integrated, it becomes a protagonist, and in other other imagery it is used as a launchpoint. It gives me a set of rules and a structure that I can manipulate from,” he explains.

Music is another influential component of Indelicato’s work. He listens to electronic music and lets it guide him through the development. The music and the repetition of the beat help him determine where to lay certain colors. As a result, his work appears very rhythmic and filled with patterns. 

In order to achieve even more visual vibrancy, he suspends neon over his prints. In his upcoming show he will be installing a six foot tube of turquoise neon over two ten foot prints.  The display will integrate new technology while using two different types of media.

“I have a lot of neon.… It makes everything ‘sexy,’ changes the saturation of the colors, and with nice paper the neon bounces off of the paper,” he says.

Indelicato’s prints will be on display at the “Master of Fine Arts Degree Candidates Exhibition” at the Georgia Museum of Art from April 11 to May 3, 2015.

http://www.andrewindelicato.com

"Emilio Pucci in America" exhibition brings designer back to UGA

Group photo of early Emilio Pucci hostesses uniforms for Braniff. Braniff Airways Collection, History of Aviation Collection, Special Collections Department, Eugene McDermott Library, The University of Texas at Dallas.

Italian designer Emilio Pucci and the world of fashion he belonged to and helped shape may seem to be a universe away from a simple southern college town and the state university that braces it. However, without the inspirations that were borne from his time at the University of Georgia, many of Pucci's pieces and his signature style may not have come to fruition.

The Georgia Museum of Art, in honor of this relationship between Pucci's design work and UGA, as well as the designer's 100th birthday, is hosting an exhibition curated by independent curator Mary Koon entitled "Emilio Pucci in America" from Oct. 18, 2014 until Feb. 1, 2015. It features collaborative pieces from Pucci's work with various American companies and institutions, from flight attendant uniforms commissioned by Texas-based Braniff Airlines to dresses sold at stores like Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue to the patch he designed for NASA's Apollo XV lunar mission.

Pucci came to the United States in 1935 from Florence, Italy, at the behest of his father. He attended UGA for a year as an agriculture and horticulture student, which his father hoped would help with their agribusiness back home. He then transferred to Reed College in Portland, where he began his career in design by creating the uniforms for the school's skiing team. From there, he continued to develop his pieces, and many cite his affinity for American culture, industry, and atmosphere as one of the most influential forces shaping his ready-to-wear clothing.

The Georgia Museum of Art will be offering a number of events in connection to this exhibition. Koon will lead tours of the exhibition on Nov. 7 and Dec. 3 at 2 p.m. The museum's Family Day on Dec. 13 from 10 a.m. until noon will offer the opportunity for children to create Pucci-style ornaments. The Pucci-themed after-party for "Elegant Salute," called "Get Your Pucci On," will take place on Jan. 31, 2015 and will have a fashion show put on by Agora Vintage and music provided by DJs Alfredo and Z-Dog.