Entitled: Saturday Morning
Size: 28 x 19 ¼
Price: $75
Jack DeLoney Art Gallery, (334) 774-6877
www.jackdeloney.com

The Department of Art recently received the generous gift of a Sturges Etching Press from Auburn alumnus and watercolor painter, Jack Deloney who lives and paints in Ozark, Alabama. Mr. Deloney graduated from Auburn's Art Department in 1964 and has been part of the Auburn Family for almost 50 years. After working for a time in commercial art, Mr. Deloney has dedicated himself solely to his own art, particularly watercolors of his childhood memories, for over 25 years now.

The gift of the etching press to the department was something that Mr. Deloney decided he wanted to do to give back to the school that helped him realize his dreams and passions. "I studied at Biggin and I am so glad the press has found a home there. I'm delighted the college accepted the donation and hope that many art students can use it for generations to come."

Mr. Deloney had previously used the etching press to create a monotype from watercolor transfers, a technique he learned while visiting Italy years ago. While he still loves the technique where watercolor is painted on a plexiglass plate and run through the etching press, sometimes two or three times, he says he just doesn't have the time for it anymore. "It's a fine press, a fine press, but etching is very time consuming and I'd rather concentrate on my paintings."

Barry Fleming, professor and head of the Art Department, said that the press will enhance the instructional program for years to come. "The press is over-sized, heavily constructed and is in mint condition. It will be housed in the advanced printmaking studio increasing press-time for the beginning courses and allowing advanced students to work more deliberately and with more complex processes."

When in Ozark, Alabama please stop by his gallery and view his career's work or visit him online at www.jackdeloney.com.

Art in Agricultural: Water: Three States (Phase I)
By Lori Woods

Art and science unite for Water: Three States (Phase I) at Auburn University's Biggin Gallery, which opened August 24, 2009 and runs through September 29, 2009. Art in Agriculture is a year-long series where artists and scientists examine a topic related to agriculture, food, the environment or natural resources, the current exhibition features three artists from the tri-state region of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida whose current works explore themes of water and culture in the Southeast. In Phase I of Water: Three States, Xiaotian Wang, Martha Whittington, and Xavier Cortada not only present aesthetic connections between water, environment, and culture, but seek to collaborate across disciplines in order to affect ecological awareness and change.

When Xiaotian Wang and her family moved to Georgia from China nearly ten years ago, they actively searched for a house next to water. Fung Shui was important to the family and water is an essential element in the ancient Chinese art of balancing energies for health and prosperity. The family ended up next to the Chattahoochee River, which greatly influenced Wang's perspectives on flow and form. When Wang first began her Chattahoochee Immersion project, she wanted to do something with the human body and water, but her idea wasn't defined. After watching the documentary, Flow (Irena Salina 2008), which confronts the issues of our world's dwindling fresh water supply, Wang's artistic and environmental ideas began to take shape. With her photographs and accompanying water quality maps, she exposes the river's pollution and destruction by "exposing" her photographs of an area of the river to water samples taken from the same location. The negatives are then immersed in the corresponding water samples for the chemicals and pollutants to take effect.

"Water plays an essential role in photography," says Wang. "Film and paper have to be properly washed with water. If any step is neglected, the results are imperfect. In this project, I wanted the 'imperfections' to occur during the process. I want a 'damaged' negative like the 'damaged' river." The results are a colorful and abstract set of 30 x 30 inch chromogenic prints that almost look like paintings. Each print is a unique inspiration combining Wang's artful eye and the river's secret distress call. Wang didn't always intend to be an environmental artist, and indeed her previous works were more "abstract and private," but after finishing the Chattahoochee Immersion project, she plans to be more focused on combining art and environmentalism. "I think I will always be an artist and environmentalist, if I can combine art and environmental together, that will be ideal, and I will work hard toward this direction."

Atlanta-based artist Martha Whittington presents moving sculptures based on the practice of dowsing for water. Mechanized rods move and tap in swift motion in a commentary on the old art of divining water sources. Mirrors echo water and rods suggest a new and urgent need for the resource. "These mechanical objects act as metaphors of science and folklore," Whittington explains. "The mirrors on the floor act as pools of water that reflect on the wall blurring the distinction between science and lore or which is real and which is an illusion." The art of dowsing has been long practiced and debated through the centuries, and though most scientists believe it to be a superstition, or act of divination, some practitioners claim its efficacy based on "electromagnetic energies of water and earth." In this installation, Whittington questions our interpretations of what results from our quest for "the truth." In this, Dowsing seems to mirror some of the current political debates surrounding environmental policy and our own experiences and beliefs about the state of our natural world.

Xavier Cortada, painter, collaborative and eco-artist from Miami, wants to find "deeper meaning in our present lives by exploring the paths of those who came before us and our relationship to the natural world." This goal is evident in the Biggin Gallery installation which is part of his ongoing The Reclamation Project. "It reminds us of what our community looked like before all the concrete was poured," explains Cortada. In this participatory art project, originally launched at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach on Earth Day 2006, mangrove seedlings grow in displayed cups of water inside the gallery, which will eventually be planted along Florida's coast to replenish the disappearing mangrove forests "reclaiming an island that was once a lush coastal ecosystem thriving with mangroves." The new seedlings begin their growth in clear, plastic cups full of life-sustaining water and are hung by black binder clips to windows and walls. The seedlings grow, sprouting roots and leaves, giving people something organic to view. Cortada hopes that visitors will return weekly to see the changes taking place and view the evolving display before the seedlings take root in their future home in Florida.

Water: Three States is only the first phase of a year-long series of exhibitions, lectures, discussions, and community projects designed to bring an interdisciplinary approach to some of our most pressing environmental concerns. Art in Agriculture strives to create an intersection of viewpoints that focus on the artistic, scientific, practical, and creative ways that we react to, and interact with, our local ecologies. Professor Barry Fleming, interim chair of The Department of Art at Auburn University and director the department's exhibition and lecture program, described the initiative as "born from the green movement and sustainable living ideas" that are becoming more and more important in our quest to keep ourselves and our environment healthy. Exhibitions are presented in Biggin Gallery, located in Biggin Hall, a cornerstone building of Auburn University campus located at the heart of downtown at Toomer's Corner in Auburn, Alabama.

AUBURN, AL. (Sept 3, 2009) - The Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project (APAEP), in the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University, in conjunction with the Creative Writing Program at the University of Alabama, will be holding a fundraiser on September 30, 2009 at the Bama Theatre in Tuscaloosa.

There will be a happy hour at 6 p.m. followed by the screening of the documentary film The Dhamma Brothers at 7 p.m., and a panel question and answer after the screening. Suggested donations for the viewing are $8 for students and $12 for all others.

The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic tale of human potential and transformation. The film follows the stories of 36 prisoners at the Donaldson Correctional Facility in west Jefferson, County, Alabama, as they participate in a 10-day intensive meditation program. It challenges the assumptions about the nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation.

All funds raised from the screening and sale of APAEP anthologies will benefit the educational programming of this outreach program.

The Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project offers classes in the arts and humanities to incarcerated people in Alabama, and has done so since 2002. APAEP believes that arts and humanities education opportunities provide a foundation for significant human development and that this opportunity is greatly needed for individuals in Alabama's prisons.

APAEP is a nationally-recognized prison arts and education program has been acknowledged by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. APAEP receives funding for arts and humanities programming from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham, and the Support the Arts Car Tag Fund for the State of Alabama, among others.

For more information on the program, visit www.auburn.edu/apaep.

Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project

226 Thach Hall

Auburn, University, AL 36849-5214

For more information, contact: Kyes Stevens

334-844-8946 (office)

334-703-6854 (cell)

334-844-4447 (fax)

AUBURN, AL. (Sept 1, 2009) - The Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project, in the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University, received $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the federal stimulus funds to support artists affected by the current economic situation.

APAEP will use the funds to support artists teaching classes in Alabama prisons, such as Staton Correctional Facility north of Montgomery and Donaldson Correctional Facility northwest of Birmingham, as well as an artist internship in arts administration and community engagement through the arts.

The Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project offers classes in the arts and humanities to incarcerated people in Alabama, and has done so since 2002. APAEP believes that arts and humanities education opportunities provide a foundation for significant human development and that this opportunity is greatly needed for individuals in Alabama's prisons.

"These funds benefit artists as well as the individuals who take APAEP classes," says Kyes Stevens of the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project. "Doing the right thing is never a one- way street, all parties involved grow as artists, but also as people."

APAEP is a program of the Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts at Auburn University. For more information on the program, visit www.auburn.edu/apaep .

Alabama Arts and Education Project

226 Thach Hall

Auburn, University, AL 36849-5214

Contact: Kyes Stevens

334-844-8946 (office)

334-703-6854 (cell)

334-844-4447 (fax)

The CLA Student Services Center (this includes all Advisor and Administrative offices) is moving to 321 Tichenor Hall. We hope to be open for advising in our new offices on Aug. 26. We will be closed on the afternoon of Aug. 21 and all day Aug. 24 and Aug. 25 in order to make the move. Please keep checking your email for updates--as with all moves, there may be some last minute changes to the schedule.

The Department of Communication and Journalism will also be moving back to Tichenor. Please look for more information from the Department.

The College of Liberal Arts, the Department of Art, and the College of Agriculture at Auburn University are pleased to announce "Art in
Agriculture," a year-long interdisciplinary initiative to explore the intersections of art, culture, ecology, and the environment.

The fall 2009 focus of the project deals with a variety of responses to water issues in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Events begin on August 24 with the opening of the exhibition Water: Three States in Biggin Gallery. The exhibition runs through November 10 and includes work by tri-state artists Xavier Cortada, Xiaotian Wang, Martha Whittington, Daniel Kariko, and Andy Behrle.

Working together, a committee from the Department of Art and the College of Agriculture has planned a schedule of themed exhibitions, lectures, a panel-discussion, workshops, and activities for the academic year 2009-2010 that will focus on the practical, ethical, and aesthetic components of issues such as water conservation, gardening, eco-art, and sustainability. Participants include regional, national, and international artists, scientists, writers, and thinkers such as Fabien Cousteau, Xavier Cortada, Xiaotian Wang, Beth Maynor Young, Fritz Haeg, Linda Weintraub, and others.

The project was built on the interests of individuals in art, art history, and agriculture. Allyson Comstock, art professor, remembered when the idea struck her: "One day after my three-dimensional design class, I was going through the trash can and sorting paper and cardboard into the appropriate recycling bins and it occurred to me that most of my students had no idea how much stuff ends up in a landfill."

Comstock and others in art and agriculture began to discuss the idea of an interdisciplinary project focused on the environment that would effectively bring together not only interested students and faculty, but the local and regional community as well.

"The College of Agriculture welcomes this opportunity to partner with the College of Liberal Arts and to leverage our resources. Our goal is to connect with diverse audiences and help the community develop a better understanding of agriculture and its connection with life and the arts," said Richard Guthrie, dean of the College of Agriculture.

Another goal of the committee was to think about the connections between the arts, sciences, and the environment.

"We often focus on the differences between art and science," said Barb Bondy, professor of art, "but they have a lot in common. Both disciplines, for example, study basic materials and employ innovative concepts and approaches in order to gain a deeper understanding of the world we live in."

College of Liberal Arts Dean Anna Gramberg commented: "It is my firm belief that art influences every aspect of our lives. From the clothes we wear to the cars we drive, art is an essential part of the process. Combining art with agriculture for this series is a magnificent way of
showcasing the vitality and beauty of art and nature co-existing."

"The Water: Three States exhibit," added Gramberg, "is a unique opportunity to view the integral roles that art and agriculture play. I hope everyone will visit the exhibit and be inspired to locate the art in their own lives."

An accompanying panel discussion on water issues in the Southeast, moderated by Katie Lamar Jackson of the College of Agriculture, will be held at 5 p.m. (CDT) on September 29 in 005 Biggin Hall. Panelists include Bill Deutsch (Alabama Water Watch), Eve Brantley (Alabama Cooperative Extension System), Xiaotian Wang (visual artist), and Beth Maynor Young (conservation photographer).

A complete schedule of events, including lectures, receptions, and workshops, as well as information about the spring 2010 focus on gardening, can be found at the Art in Agriculture website at www.ag.auburn.edu/ArtinAg.

All events are free and open to the public.

Biggin Gallery Hours:
Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (central time) or by appointment.
Biggin Gallery is wheelchair accessible.

For more information contact:
The College of Liberal Arts at (334) 844-4026
The Department of Art at (334) 844-4373
The College of Agriculture at (334) 844-5887
www.ag.auburn.edu/ArtinAg

By Morgan Stashick and Vicky Santos

On March 30th, the Department of Art hosted the 2009 Fine Art Juried Student Exhibition and the Joyce and Roger Lethander Awards in Art. The Joyce and Roger Lethander Annual Awards in Art are made each spring.  A purchase award is given to a student winner of an annual art competition. Additional awards are made at the discretion of the juror of the art competition. A call for submissions is issued each fall semester.

This year's award winners are:

Joyce and Roger Lethander Purchase Award $750

Sara Woodward

Joyce and Roger Lethander Merit Award $100 each

Elisabeth Ruscin, Andrew Holliday, Daniel Boone, Jeremy Morgan, Aaron LaRoux, Jeremy Morgan, Michael Acuff, Andy McErlean

Department of Art Merit Award $50

Jackie Fisher, Jessica Pearl Bryant, Julia Ann Starke, Maggie Suttle, Jody L. Boda-Newell

The James E. Furr Creative Excellence Award $100 & Community Service through the Arts Award ($100)

Jessica Sabo

Dean's Club Most Promising Student in the Arts Scholarship ($1,000)

Andrew Holliday. Awarded by CLA Dean Dr. Anna Gramberg, nominated by Department of Art Committee

Geri Davis, local artist, Auburn alumna, and long-standing member of the Dean's Advisory Council, finds inspiration for her in art in. . . well . . . everything.

"Just looking at the way the light falls on those columns out there inspires me," she says referring to a retail center visible through a window over my shoulder. "The way the light and the shadows play with each other fascinates me."

Davis recently used her artistic gifts to develop a scholarship fund-raiser for the College of Liberal Arts. She selected nine doors on Auburn's historic main campus and put them together in one beautiful print entitled, "Through These Portals…" The print was advertised in Auburn Magazine and through the College of Liberal Arts' Web site and is still available for purchase by downloading and filling out the pdf, or by calling Melissa Hage, Development Coordinator for the college, at 334.844.1483. The 32x20-inch prints are $49.95 each (plus $5 shipping and handling) and are a collector's item that make great gifts for graduates!

In addition to her obvious passion for art, she is also dedicated to education. Davis graduated from Auburn with a bachelor's degree in Applied Arts. She also has a Master of Science degree in Counseling and Human Development. This unique education combination has made it possible for her to utilize art in a therapeutic and creative manner for her students. She taught art in the Columbus, Georgia area for 35 years and is considered one of the area's foremost art educators.

At an early age, Davis developed a love and a concern for her environment. Art was the most natural way to express her feelings for the beauty of the world she saw. It was also a way to preserve nature in an aesthetic manner. She lectures to groups on "Art as Therapy" and on "The Preservation of Georgia's Endangered Wildflowers."

Davis is primarily a watercolorist, but also works in oil and pen and ink. Her work is displayed in many local businesses and corporations. Nationally, her work is in senate offices in Washington, D.C., and the State Capitol of Georgia.

In 2000 she won the Georgia Watercolor Society's Membership Award. Her artwork was also selected to tour the State of Georgia with GWS and in 2001 she won an Honorable Mention in the GWS Member's Exhibition. In 2005 she won First Place in the Watercolor Society of Alabama Member's Show in Birmingham, Ala. She served as Jury Judge for "Celebrate the Arts" Festival in Callaway Gardens and the 2006 was selected as the Featured Artist for Riverfest.

She was selected as one of Georgia's Gracious Ladies 2005 and Woman of Distinction Award by the Girl Scouts of America, 2008.

Davis was just commissioned to paint the United States National Infantry Museum at Ft. Benning, Ga., where the original artwork will be on display. Internationally, her work is in the Austrian House of Parliament, the Mayor's office in Kiyru, Japan, and in private collections in Bochum, Germany and Panama. And she regularly works with fellow artists at the Joseph House Art Gallery in Columbus, Ga.

Any undergraduate or graduate student enrolled at Auburn University is eligible to submit a video. Only one video may be entered per person or group.

$500 will be awarded to the creator(s) of the video selected as the first place winner. The creator(s) of the second and third place videos will receive $250 and $150, respectively. Prize money is sponsored by Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts.
The three winning videos will also be showcased on the CLA website.

To submit a video, upload your video on YouTube and then email its url to Christa Slaton, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at ccepc@auburn.edu. Emails must be sent from an Auburn University email account. Please type "CLA YouTube Contest" in the subject line of your email, and include in the body of the email the names of the person, persons, or group submitting the video. The College of Liberal Arts will make your video available for viewing on the contest website. You will receive confirmation email from the College of Liberal Arts indicating that your video entry has been received.

In the event that you are unfamiliar with how to upload a video to YouTube, directions are available at http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57931.

Videos need to be between one and five minutes in length.

The deadline for submitting videos is March 27, 2009. Videos received after the deadline cannot be considered.

Between April 1 and April 5, students are invited to vote for their favorite contest video by sending an email to Christa Slaton, Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at ccepc@auburn.edu. Emails must be sent from an Auburn University email account. Please type "Vote CLA YouTube" in the subject line of your email and indicate the title of the favorite video in the email's body. Only one vote per person will be tallied.

Videos will be judged by members of the College of Liberal Art's Civic Engagement Planning Committee. Videos will be judged based on the five criteria outlined below:

• Relevance to the contest theme
• Extent to which the video provokes productive reflection, discussion, debate, and/or critique regarding civic responsibility as a feature of learning and living at Auburn University
• Creativity
• Originality
• Number of student votes

Contest winners will be notified via email on April 10, 2009.

View the Video Entries

• Submitted by Amanda Morris
• Submitted by Ashley Nunn
• Submitted by John Anderson
• Submitted by Griffin Limerick and John Collins
• Submitted by Jillian Clair
• Submitted by Mallory Rice

Joyce de Vries, Assistant Professor in Art, holds a PhD in the history of art from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research concerns the art and visual culture of Early Modern (14-17th century) Italy, and, in particular, issues associated with visual constructions of gender and the historical importance of the decorative arts. She received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to support her book project on female patronage, and regularly presents her research at national and international conferences and symposia. At Auburn she primarily teaches art history courses, and has taught in the Women's Studies Program as well.

Barbara Bondy, Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, received an MFA in fine art at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She received a BFA in visual art at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada and a diploma in Photography at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario.

Her interests in science, art and philosophy inform her creative research which is directed primarily toward exploring mind and brain matters through the mediums of drawing and photography. She is the recipient of an Alabama State Council on the Arts Fellowship and has exhibited her work throughout the U.S. and Canada. This summer, she lived in her exhibit "Night Tracks, Day Tracks," in Columbus State University's art gallery while displaying a series of drawings and photographs exploring dualities of night and day as metaphors for conscious and non-conscious states.

Her nightly tossing and turning on a small mattress hidden behind a wall inside the factory-turned-Columbus State University art gallery figured prominently in her exhibit "Night Tracks, Day Tracks," a series of drawings and photographs exploring dualities of night and day as metaphors for conscious and non-conscious states.

Her exhibit at CSU certainly redefined summer studio residencies. Bondy moved into the Norman Shannon and Emmy Lou P. Illges Gallery, located in downtown Columbus, and stayed here for all of June and the first week of July. The gallery served as her studio and as a stage of sorts for performance art.

When Bondy completed her work each day, she would retreat to her small sleeping area hidden behind a wall inside the gallery. Given the fact that two security lights remained on at all times, piercing the darkness, she sometimes found sleep to be a precious commodity.

"It was not comfortable," Bondy said on the last day of her exhibit. "It was definitely hard. I brought in a chair, but I was on the floor a lot or working on the sketching, reading, drawing, or making. It was so unnatural, but it was such a fertile ground. I kept saying to people -- this is Utopia."

In many ways, the monastic setting proved to be ideal for her concepts. What better way to unlock the mysteries of the human than in most silent and solitary confinement?

One work, in particular, that captured the theme of the exhibit was "This and That," which featured interlocking tracings of the words in black and white on a narrow, 30-foot long piece of Stonehenge paper. In order to work with such long and large mediums, Bondy often had to finish her work from near ceiling level, high atop a scissor lift.