Contents

Announcements | Events/Exhibitions | Continuing Notables | Art Education |
Educational, Professional, and Internship Opportunities | About You!

Please don't forget to check the weekly newsletter throughout the semester for important announcements about events and opportunities.  If you'd like to submit an item of interest, please use the link at the bottom of this page.

EH&S Mandatory Safety Training for Studio Holders

Friday, Sept. 7, 9 am – 12 pm, SAB Room 240
Art Safety 9 - 10:15 am
Fire Safety 10:15 - 11 am
Laser 11 am - 12 pm

All studio holders, including faculty are required to attend a classroom Art Safety Safety and Fire Safety training every 5th year with mandatory on-line refresher training in the off-years. 
Laser training is mandatory for everyone that intends to use the laser cutter.

Please contact Sandy Hay (sandy@art.umass.edu) to sign up or for further information. No other Art Safety sessions are scheduled to be conducted until January 2020.
Please be sure to sign in at class to receive credit for taking the training.

Department of Art
Artist in Residence
Joanna Tam

This coming September / October, Department of Art Artist in Residence
Joanna Tam will be making work within the Lee Edwards Gallery,
in the Studio Arts Building. 

Using photography, video, performance, text and installation, Tam's works function as cultural commentary. Her practice examines the issues of migration, citizenship, standardization, construction of national identity as well as the notion of home and sense of belonging.

September 3 - October 10
Lecture: Thursday, October 24, 12 noon, room 240 SAB
*Closing reception in the LEG Gallery TBA

Over 60 individual regional, national, and international artists submitted moving image work responding to the broad theme of CLIMATES. 
Read more here!

September 3 - October 15
Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 7:30 pm
Studio Arts Building Commons

“Creation Myth” Is an in-process expanded media project that explores a fantastical futuristic world born from the impact of climate change and destructive technologies. New collage and moving image work by Colleen Keough.

September 9 - 29
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 14, 5 - 8 pm
MAP Space, EASTWORKS
116 Pleasant St, Easthampton, MA

Dianne McMillan Brannen was born in New York City and is of Caribbean descent. Although studied, she is largely a self-taught artist who continues to explore primitive art in everyday life. About her vision, Dianne says, “My work explores the imagery, symbols and colors of pre-classical and tribal societies when the earth was young. Where living colors and raw textures were interwoven with everyday life. The printing process and works on canvas are in a constant dialogue creating effects that surprise me. The images alter themselves like echoes of intent.”

Tracey Physioc Brockett's large scale, landscape-inspired abstractions and small mixed-media pieces examine physical sensations of space, movement, and states of being. She describes her paintings as confabulations – chancy and quirky. Just like life. Because of what she calls “a hitch” in her brain as a child, she became hyper aware of the world as a random, provisional place. What her perfectly good eyes saw was processed with gaps and glitches, stitched together with made-up material. As Brockett notes, “turns out my brain imagined something very much like the sub-atomic universe.”

September 9 - 27
Opening Reception: Monday, September 9, 5:00 - 7:00 pm
Augusta Savage Gallery
103 New Africa House

Two upcoming shows at Hampden Gallery, plus workshops and critiques!

1:00 - 2:00 pm: Drawn Through Space with Karen Dolmanisth
1:30 - 3:30 pm: Speed Critique for Creatives with curator Suzan Shutan
2:00 - 3:00 pm: Plastic Weaving with Antonia Perez
3:00 - 4:00 pm:  Dynamic Paper Cutting with Susan Knight

Saturday, September 7
Hampden Gallery
For more information and to register, click here!

"Inspired by the study of natural and manmade systems. I blend styles and ideas, with my interest in the hybrid having lead to a crossbreeding of object and painting. The work is often ironic and with oddly connected commentary. I find myself in constant negotiation between working with flatness, like the car-toon black holes that bugs bunny jumps into then retrieves to escape Elmer Fudd, and dimension, as when cotton candy is formed into a solid. The play of light and shadow are used as ominous and ethereal elements in my work, while the materials incorporate found colors and textures that are bold and dissonant, sometimes combined with paint. My starting point is what the material might suggest. The work is tactile and vacillates between abundance and simplicity, ebbing and flowing into organic or geo-metrical patterns that coalesce.
My work is as much about process and visceral transformation, as it is 
driven by a conceptual exploration of our human condition."

September 8 - October 6
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 8, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Hampden Gallery

We are living in a twenty first century of diversification and descent. Art is defying and celebrating traditional systems of structure and process. New forms and material properties create intersections of constructed and found, two and three dimensions, painting and sculpture. Work can be both deliberate and random. The artists explore material, color and form in contemporary art with great skill and manipulation, each constructing a personal and formal language that melds material, dimension and process with resonating forms that rupture our notion of space and how an artwork must function.
MFA alumnus Sean Greene participates in this group show.

September 8 - October 6
Opening Reception: Sunday, September 8, 1:00 - 3:00 pm
Hampden Gallery

Fielding, curated by Department of Art MFA alumna Emily Tareila,uses the plant Goldenrod (L. solidago) as a lens through which to engage the Natural History Collections and the UMass community. The project looks at both human uses and history of the plant, its local history and current presence in the area, and its significance in the non-human sphere and ecology. Fielding consists of a pop-up exhibition in Morrill Science Center with original artwork and selections from the CNS collection, as well as experiential events around campus, from natural dyeing, to plant identification, to cyanotype photography, and more. This exhibition is an outcome of Tareila’s Graduate Assistantship at the UMCA and a pilot project leading to UMCA’s future collaborations with the UMass science collections.

The Fielding exhibition will open to visitors on five Wednesdays:
  September 11, 18, & 25, and October 2 & 9, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 11, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
144 Morrill Science Center 2 South

   New jobs for our Art Ed graduates are as follows:

Ryan Jobb, 2019, art teacher, Boland School, Springfield  
Ellie Trudeau, 2019, underwriter, Hancock Insurance Compan
Nicole Zadykowicz, 2019, art teacher Garfield Middle School in Revere
Shamara Jones- MA-Art, 2018, art teacher, Springfield's Sci Tech High School
Nicole Zadykowicz, 2019, art teacher, Garfield Middle School, Revere

   Transfers to new jobs:

Ryan Lavigne, 2018, art teacher from Millbury Jr/Sr High to Ware Jr Hig
Jane Berroll Kubiek, 2006, art teacher Johnson Elementary School, Natick
Kayla Reno, 2018, art teacher from Springfield to Westfield Intermediate School, Westfield
Caroline Whalen, 2018, art teacher from Glen Cover, NY to Horace Mann School, Melrose
Dominika Bdzula, 2014, art teacher, Dryden School, Springfield
Carolyn Ward, 2015, art teacher, from graphic web design in NYC to North Brookfield Elementary School
Nicole Guzik Giguere, 2013, art teacher from North Brookfield Elementary School to Quaboag Reg. High

BFA Juniors and Seniors who are concentrating in Art Education
have prepared an exhibition of a sampling of art work and lesson plans that they will use when they teach.

Reception: Tuesday, September 24, 5 - 7 pm
Lee Edwards Gallery, Studio Arts Building

Tell us about your summer!  We'd love to hear about internships, study abroad experiences, or anything else related to your art!  You can email us or use the form at the bottom, "To submit to our newsletter".
If you've graduated, please be sure to send us your forwarding email.

The following paragraphs are excerpts from Haley's recent feature in the Daily Hampshire Gazzette. Read the full article here!

"Painter Haley McDevitt, who graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst this past spring, has already made her presence known in the area, from some solo shows at UMass and participation in several group exhibits, most notably in Easthampton, where she served as an intern with Easthampton City Arts.
McDevitt says she’s particularly inspired by art that can convey emotions and inner thoughts. “I find the expressionistic value of art as a method of communication liberating,” she says. “To be able to paint something I can’t necessarily find the right words to say is what defines a successful piece of artwork to me.”

This summer, Kristy worked for artist Molly Hatch in Florence, MA on a commissioned ceramic installation piece. She also recently accepted a position with Laura Zindel Design, a ceramics design studio based in Brattleboro, VT. 

Madeleine Conover will be attending the Tyler School of Art at Temple in Philadelphia as a student in their intensive two year printmaking program. Madeleine was awarded the University Future Faculty Fellowship, and in exchange, she will teach during her second year.  
Her MFA show will be in May 2021!
Madeleine has been an emerging Artist in Residence at Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, California, a Winter Keyholder Resident at Pyramid Atlantic in Hyattsville, Maryland, and a studio art instructor at Red Panda Art Studio in Bethesda, Maryland. 

100 Drawing Challenge
Ryan Jobb

  " I just finished my week at Bennington College in Vermont helping Professor Emeritus Dean Nimmer teach for Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  We taught his class called the 100 Drawing Challenge.  This was my fifth year helping Professor Nimmer teach this class which explores a variety of abstract art techniques designed to motivate the artist and forget the preciousness of materials, allowing students to focus on their creativity, and freedom to take risks in experimentation. 

I finished my B.F.A in Studio Arts and Art Education at The University of Massachusetts Amherst and was hired as a teacher for Springfield Public Schools.  Teaching this class with Professor Nimmer really has changed my life and only affirms my theory about needing a strong role model in the field one wants to pursue.  It is so important to be a mentor and a teacher as it can truly change someone's life for the better." 

Dear Students,

Do you feel that museums do not speak to your experience  – or "got it wrong"?  
Then get paid to be an art critic for the day! No art or museum background required. 

Join Professor Karen Kurczynski and Sid Ferreira from Student Affairs one evening this fall for a small group dialogue about art, museums, and belonging in the University Museum of Contemporary Art (UMCA) at UMASS.

Apply online by filling out a 2-minute questionnaire at this link.

Date: Tuesday, Oct. 29th or Wednesday, Nov. 20th
Time:  5:30 – 8 pm. Free dinner provided.
Location: University Museum of Contemporary Art (entrance in the basement of the Fine Arts Center, at the south end of the pond)
Stipend: $30

This project is supported by a Campus Climate Improvement Grant, the Department of Art History and Architecture, and the UMCA

Paperbark Literary Magazine - Positions available

Paperbark Literary Magazine celebrates the confluences between environmental sciences and the humanities. As a dynamic graduate student team, we publish prose, poetry, artwork, and photography that speaks to sense of place, community resilience, environmental justice, and our role as stewards of the earth

Our magazine is printed annually, with weekly web content and community engagement events throughout the year. Paperbark is seeking graduate students for editorial staff positions (stipend included) and volunteer readers(responsible for reading and reviewing work, as it is submitted)

Editorial staff positions for 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief
       - Managing Editor
       - Submissions Editor
       - Development Manager
       - Distribution & Community Coordinator
       - Special Projects Coordinator
       - Visual Media Coordinator

For more information and full job descriptions, please contact Erin Wnorowski at hello@paperbarkmag.org, and please visit www.paperbarkmag.org.

: This practicum will train you to be a museum gallery educator and guide. You will develop a number of valuable skills you can use in museums and in a wide variety of academic and professional settings.  The course will begin with research into the artist/s and art that you will be introducing to our visitors.

Tuesdays 1:00 - 2:15 pm (2 credits)

To register contact UMCA Education Curator Amanda Herman at aaherman@umass.edu before Tuesday, September 10.

Makerspaces are places where people have an opportunity to explore their own interests; learn to use tools and materials, both physical and virtual; and develop creative projects. UMass Amherst has launched a new All-Campus Makerspace that has multiple openings for “Makerspace Assistants”. These assistants will help set up and manage a new location where students from all over campus in any major can come to work on “maker projects” in a helpful, collaborative setting.

Job Title: All-Campus Makerspace Assistant
Hiring Period: Fall Semester | Hourly Pay Rate: $12.50 | Hours per week: 10
On Campus

View the job posting here!

Upcoming UMass OPD Workshops:

Prizes awarded in the following 6 categories:
Oil Painting, Acrylic Painting, Water Color Painting, Sculpture, Drawing, Pastel 

September 12th | On-Line Submissions Due, 9pm deadline
September 28th - October 12th | Exhibition

Connecticut Digital Humanities Conference
Trinity College, February 28-29 2020
Call for Proposals

Do you have a new DH project? Are you in the throes of one, and unsure of its destiny? CT DH is an opportunity for getting feedback, developing skills, or sharing your work with other researchers and teachers across New England.
Click here to read more about this opportunity.

Proposals are due October 1, 2019.
Presenters will be notified of acceptance by end of November.