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ALUMNI NEWSLETTER
Fineman Builds Carbon-Neutral Fire
At the beginning of the academic year, Jeremy Fineman’s kiln was little more than a good idea and a pile of bricks heaped behind the Jenkins Fine Arts Center.
The MFA candidate quickly applied his love of physics and chemistry to the challenge of containing, as ceramicists say, fire in a box.
“A lot of institutions already have their kiln yards built,” says Fineman. The opportunity to build his own design, fired by wood and waste vegetable oil (WVO) attracted Fineman to East Carolina—and then began to consume him.
“I started out with 100 bricks, and unbeknownst to me, it takes about 2,000 bricks to build this kiln,” Fineman says. Struggling with funding, he generated support from the Ceramics Guild, Home Depot, Lowe’s, ReTool, Larkin Refractory Solutions, the School of Art and Design, the College of Fine Arts and Communication, and others.
“The main hurdle is that the relevant research isn’t readily available,” Fineman says. “I’ve been going to Penland (School of Crafts), exploring kilns and trying to find a design suited to burn waste vegetable oil.” Through extensive networking, scarce source material in texts from the 1970s and firsthand research—including the expertise of guest artist and WVO kiln consultant Dan Murphy—Fineman is preparing to fire his first pieces over the summer.
The kiln is an exercise in green artistry. Using found wood in a separate combustion chamber, the kiln is brought up to a temperature, then five drip-fed waste vegetable oil burners raise the temperature further. The carbon resulting from the burned oil is offset by the plants used to create the oil in the first place. By the numbers, the kiln has no carbon footprint.
“I’m thinking about the environment a lot more,” the artist says. In his personal life, Fineman is actively reducing the amount of plastic he uses. “It’s everywhere,” he laments.
“A lot of the things artists do are very destructive. The reality is that we’re not environmentally friendly. We use toxic chemicals. We strip mine materials. I won’t fire a piece if it isn’t deemed worthy.” Fineman says his volume of production is low because he strives to eliminate waste. If a piece doesn’t strike him as artistically satisfying, he reclaims the clay and starts over. “I’m trying to avoid built-in obsolescence.”
The artist says he wasn’t initially interested in the environment when he decided to pursue ceramics, but as he learned more about the chemistry behind his art—he uses iron to generate vivid blues in his glazes, and notes that virtually any element in the periodic table can provide interesting results during the firing process—he began to consider the ramifications. From the science behind glaze composition and firing additives to the two percent impact artists have on the environment through the mining of raw materials (industry accounts for the other 98 percent), he’s consciously considering the consequences of his work.
“A lot of my time is certainly going into this kiln, and a lot of my monies too,” Fineman says. “But I feel positive doing something like this for the university. Hopefully this kiln will have a long life and will continue to be used as an oil burning kiln.”
After the kiln is tested, Fineman will prepare his findings in a thesis and create a body of work in preparation for matriculation.
Student, alumnae present at SOFA
A little adornment went a long way when metals professor Linda Darty wore one of her student’s brooches at a Society of North American Goldsmiths meeting last February.
Darty wore a wood and silver piece created by graduate student Dan DiCaprio. Charon Kransen (of Charon Kransen Arts) happened to be exhibiting. Kransen asked to meet DiCaprio, then ordered five new works from him.
“Those pieces went to SOFA New York in May, then got connected with SOFA Chicago and the International Design Fair,” DiCaprio says. The two SOFA fairs—Sculptural Objects and Functional Art—along with the design fair, are the three largest and most prestigious events of their kind in North America. SOFA Chicago is the most significant, with works presented by 100 galleries and dealers from 16 nations. Last year over 35,000 people attended the event, purchasing works for museums and exclusive collections.
“Prior to Linda Darty wearing my brooch, I was focused on teaching,” DiCaprio said. “Now, I’ll pursue being a studio jeweler on graduation.”
DiCaprio joined alumnae Caroline Gore (MFA ’01) and Sharon Massey (MFA ’06) to present an emerging artists lecture at SOFA Chicago on November 7. The artists were selected independently, without the organizers having knowledge of their institutional affiliation, and were the only emerging artists selected to speak at the event.
DiCaprio discussed the inspiration for his pieces. “My work mostly references natural forms, like plant and animal biology and how those forms are adapted and communicated culturally,” he says. Creating organic shapes from African blackwood, DiCaprio installs hundreds of silver wires. “The effect can resemble hair. It’s an organic look that I can make personal.”
Gore, who serves as an assistant professor and metals/jewelry area coordinator at Western Michigan University, presented information about a body of work developed as a result of a summer she spent in Florence, Italy. Gore re-contextualized ordinary spaces in Florence, then created a wearable reference to the original site. When first exhibited, Gore showcased an adorned environmental photograph, such as 24k gold foil embossed on street pavers in Italy, beside a wearable brooch crafted from silver and gold, referencing and reflecting the environmental art and image.
Massey is presently a visiting instructor at Purdue University. Her work, which has appeared in books such as 1000 Rings and The Art of Enameling, defines preciousness through sentimentality, intimacy and emotion. Massey pays homage to goldsmithing traditions through technique and format, while challenging conventional materials and their value.
Her works presented at SOFA Chicago were made of iron wire and muslin.
[Image: Left to right. Sharon Massey’s “New Collar.” Dan DiCaprio’s wood and silver wire ring, “Orifice 2”, Caroline Gore’s reconceptualization of an Italian street in gold and silver.]
Alumni connect with Pittsburgh community
Badges are rife with meaning.
Professor Bob Ebendorf recalls a celebratory day in his childhood when he received a badge for one year of perfect church attendance.
Linda Darty, professor of metals, is fascinated by the sentimental value of badge collections and the memories they provide long after they are worn. Her jewelry box contains Sunday school pins and scout awards she earned as a child, along with badges from the war, worn by her father on his uniform.
Both artists have pieces in “The Enamel Experience: International Enamel Badges,” a traveling exhibition that has been installed in museums and galleries in San Francisco, Memphis and Hamburg (Germany), and the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh.
Ebendorf extended “The Enamel Experience” exhibition for the Society for Contemporary Craft (SCC) by creating a dialogue between East Carolina University alumni artists and the greater Pittsburgh community.
Originating from a tradition dating back to the age of chivalry—when literacy was at a low level and officers of state and local government were more readily identifiable by their badges of office and rank—the role of the badge has expanded to include trademarks, tattoos and technology among many other contemporary objects. Through this exhibition, the SCC encouraged an exchange of ideas around contemporary visual identity systems and how these branding devices are associated with issues of gender, culture, authority, power and status
The resulting show, TAG, paired 15 East Carolina alumni artists with individuals from the Pittsburgh community—a tattoo artist, a brew master, a beekeeper, a fireman, an adoption director, a steelworker and many others.
A dialogue ensued—each duo discussed issues of gender, culture, authority, power, status and identity; the kinds of concepts badges are often called upon to convey to others.
Each artist created two badges to adorn their partner in Pittsburgh. The Society for Contemporary Craft exhibited the badges alongside photographs of the works as worn by the participating Pittsburg partners.
Participating artist Marion Sak (MFA ’07) partnered with Pittsburgh resident Emory Biko, a prolific collector of African American artifacts as well as an artist and educator. Sak hand forges silver, steel and gold into unique spoons. Informed by her own collecting habits and the dialogue with Biko, the artist created work that speaks of collecting and, in a deeper context, the need for equality and respect. Sak says that her spoons are a metaphor for the individual. In her work, “Spoon Badge 2008,” she placed 18 of her handcrafted spoons on a bar, indicating equal status among people.
Kathryn Osgood (MFA ’05) of Wanchese, North Carolina, partnered with Bonnie Isaac, the collections manager for the Section of Botany at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Osgood’s work incorporates botanical imagery. Her badges for TAG offer fragments of plant life set against a background of partially concealed text—the central botanical element is constrained by the process of being labeled—thus the wearer’s affiliation is indeterminate, their allegiance uncertain.
Other participating artists includes Caroline Gore (MFA ’01), Charity Hall (MFA ’08), Kristi Kloss (MFA ’07), Christine Lemon (MFA ’94), Susan McMurray (MFA ’08), Melissa Manley (MFA ’07), Christina Miller (MFA ’02), Bryan Petersen (MFA ’01), Kristi Glick Shank (MFA ’07) and Felicia Szorad (MFA ’98).
The works hung for three months.
[Image: Susan McMurray’s (MFA ’08) badge adorns Pittsburgh Fire Captain Guy Sokol (left). Bob Ebendorf envisioned the artistic exchange.]
Searcy interns at Smithsonian, wins Fulbright
Last summer, Sarah Searcy was one of two ECU students selected to participate in the UNC in Washington program. She took a course in American Politics and interned at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
With lodging in the Congressional Apartments, an office on Capitol Hill and projects in the Castle and on the National Mall, Searcy was immersed in the heady cultural hubris found inside the beltway.
She researched West African art, adornment and aesthetics under the supervision of Dr. Diana N’Diaye, and assisted in the creation of an African arts adornment exhibition. Under the supervision of curator Preston Scott, Searcy worked behind the scenes on the “Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon” exhibition, the largest exchange program ever executed by the Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival.
Bhutan, the planet’s youngest democracy, has transitioned to a constitutional monarchy. The Bhutan component of the Folklife Festival was erected in the center of the National Mall, featuring an authentic temple. Each hand-carved and meticulously painted part of the temple was crafted in the southeast Asian nation, then assembled in the traditional method in Washington, D.C., using no screws or nails.
The artistry of the temple, coupled with the soul of the structure—it was in constant use by Buddist monks—echoes the realization that caused Searcy to add anthropology to her studies of art. “I realized how human life and art can’t be separated. In the Western tradition, it’s disconnected. But there are many cultures in the world where art is a part of life,” she said.
Searcy will learn this firsthand this summer in India, when she begins a nine-month Fulbright-Nehru fellowship in Delhi. She’ll research traditional art and teach English to secondary school students.
Searcy attended high school at the North Carolina School of the Arts. As REVUE goes to press, she’ll graduate with a BFA in art, concentrated in painting, and a BA in anthropology. When she returns from India, she plans to pursue filmmaking at the graduate level. “It’s a new shift,” she says of her plans to enable cultures to document their own stories. “You become the mediator, the enabler. It’s all about personal expression and investigation.”
[Image: Sarah Searcy (right) met the Crown Prince of Bhutan while working behind the scenes at the Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival exhibition, “Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon.” This summer, she departs to India as a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar.]
Sculptor asks: Would you cut off your hand?
If you could surgically replace your voicebox to sing better than Pavarotti, would you? And would it be ethical?
These are the kinds of questions sculptor Austin Sheppard asks through his works, which exhibited in the Mendenhall Student Center gallery last October.
Sheppard, a master’s of fine arts degree candidate, grew up in Tar Heel. “Farm life influenced my aesthetic,” he says. “Beat up half-rotten wood with beat up paint and rusty metal, that’s a nod to my childhood...it’s a comfort zone for me.”
Early in his studies, Sheppard experimented with found objects, but often couldn’t find an object that reflected his vision. Many of his pieces feature elements that appear to be found objects, but aren’t. “Making stuff the way I do is a personal challenge.”
One piece features a bronze casting that echoes elements of the Chrysler Building. Another work uses an intricate cylindrical metal cabinet that could have come from a 1940s-era Detroit scrapyard. Many of Sheppard’s works include torsos, limbs and facial elements. They’re all examples of his attention to detail, his exceptional craftsmanship and his willingness to work in a variety of media. “It’s part of the challenge,” he says. “How convincing can I make something?”
Yet Sheppard’s works aren’t intended to exist for their own sake—they’re designed to educate. “My work comes across as macabre and grotesque sometimes, but I want to instill curiosity, to have people ask questions and learn from themselves. Cybergenetics and cyber technology are fields that a lot of people aren’t aware of,” Sheppard explains. “We’re on the edge of a scientific revolution, but most people don’t realize it.”
Prosthetic use has been around at least since the ancient Egyptians, but technological advances, heightened demand and the purchasing power of the federal government are bringing state-of-the-art products to market. Some of these items provide enhanced capabilities for the user.
“Within ten years, prosthetics as we know them won’t exist,” Sheppard says. “A prosthetic arm with a claw will be replaced by fully bionic arms. There’s a telescopic eye coming to market now. Scientists are working to directly interface computers and the human brain.”
In 2007, the Veterans Health Administration served over 37,000 veterans, providing over 8,000 legs at a cost of $46 million. For Sheppard, the issue isn’t the use of prosthetics as we know them, but the use of devices that provide super-human capabilities.
“There are a lot of scientists who are guilty of making advancements without forethought,” Sheppard says. “The most famous example is the atomic bomb.”
To that end, the artist asks the scientific and medical community to consider under which circumstances bionic appendages are ethical. “What are the consequences for us as a society? Who will be the first person to self-amputate in order to install a bionic hand so they can play better guitar than Jimi Hendrix? Are enhanced prosthetics good or bad? I’m not making that call,” Sheppard says, “but I want people to pay attention.”
Art at the Airport
When the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport Authority sought to expand their presence as a purveyor of public art, they called the ECU School of Art and Design.
Students of sculpture professors Hanna Jubran and Carl Billingsley presented 17 flight-themed concepts to a jury of airport officials and artists from the Craven County Arts Council. In late March, eight ideas were selected for development and installed on the airport grounds in New Bern.
Students received grants for materials and spent the majority of spring break working to meet the installation deadline.
Some works are abstract, such as James Dudley’s “Around the Farm,” a steel interpretation of wind passing over a form. “I love the broad range of materials,” he says. “There’s no limit to what you can do with sculpture.”
Veronica Plankers’ “Air Sell” represents rudimentary paper airplanes in an abstract formation. The Castle Hayne senior says she designed the work to be as simple as possible. “I don’t usually work that way.” Eric Justin White, who double-majors in sculpture and art education, created “Interconnected.” “A lot of my work deals with human interaction and the mode of transportation where people connect with one another,” White explains. The Youngsville senior says a web of red steel on his work illustrates flight paths against a backdrop of formed wings.
Matt Amante’s “semi-circle balance study” references industrial creation through its form, while reminding the viewer of similar forms found in nature.
Other works are literal, such as Justin Campbell’s “Energy.” The piece embodies an eagle and an allegorical dead tree, both anchored to a 55-gallon steel drum. The work is a reminder that human progress can have a negative effect on the human condition.
Junior Jessica Bradsher, president of the student art education association, created a tribute to man’s feat of flight, “Pegasus.”
Garrett Stowe’s “Tailwind” is a tribute to modern aircraft technology. The sculpture is inspired by classic aeronautical propulsion, combined with modern jet turbines, painted with colors reminiscent of WWII aircraft.
Each work will remain in exhibition for a year, with the exception of Abigail Cochran’s “The Travelers Three” (above). The whimsical indirect reference to flight as portrayed by seeds being whisked away by the wind was purchased by the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport for their permanent public art collection.
[Image: Left to right: Matt Amante and “Semi-circle balance study.”
Garrett Stowe’s “Tailwind”, Abigail Cochran’s work was purchased as a part of the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport Authority’s permanent collection.]
Holland Honored
Dwight M. Holland, an avid collector of ceramics and supporter of the arts at East Carolina, received the Order of the Cupola.
Holland gifted over 400 ceramic pieces to the School of Art and Design in 1998. The collection features contemporary and historical ceramics and is invaluable for its significance and uniqueness. The Dwight M. Holland Ceramics Teaching Collection is intended for hands-on use, to provide students and researchers an immediate and intimate experience with ceramic works that are ordinarily placed in untouchable museum collections.
Ultimately, Holland intends to gift a total of 1,000 pieces of pottery and ceramics to the university, creating one of the most comprehensive collections of ceramic work housed by an academic institution.
The Order of the Cupola honor was bestowed upon Holland during the “Dwight M. Holland Ceramics Collection Exhibition Symposium: Ceramics in Higher Education and its Future.” The symposium ran during an exhibition of 80 pieces from Holland’s personal collection, showcased in the Wellington B. Gray Gallery.
The Order of the Cupola’s name is taken from the campus’ most historic landmark, the Old Austin cupola, a replica of which was installed in 1996 to symbolize the university’s commitment to the traditions of the past and the promises of the future. Patrons making cumulative gifts of $100,000 or more are recognized in the Order.
Arnold wins Ziegfeld Award
Alice Arnold received the Edwin Ziegfeld Award for service to international art education. The award is given by the United States Society for Education through Art (USSEA), an organization that has counted Arnold as a member for 30 years. She has held nearly every board position, including a just-completed six-year cycle as president-elect, president and past-president.
In other news, Arnold delivered remarks celebrating 20th-century American creativity at the second World Creativity Summit in Taipei, Taiwan held last summer. Arnold, a guest of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), was one of 81 international expert educators in the fields of art, music, dance and theatre selected to attend.
Eagle’s issues
Painter Scott Eagle (above) curated “I’ve Got Issues,” a 10-artist exhibition at Winston-Salem’s 5ive&40rty gallery.
“The artists that I selected for this exhibition have one thing in common; each has personally inspired me through their dedication, perseverance and the sincerity in which each confronted or examined personal and/or social issues.,” Eagle says. “The idea for the show came when someone looked at my own artwork and said half-jokingly, ‘You must have some serious issues.’ My half- joking response was ‘Yes, it is a good thing I can paint.’”
Included in the exhibition were alumni Audrey Coombs (MFA ’06), Jennifer Drinkwater (MA ’07), Jason Mitcham (BA ’02), Kymia Nawabi (BA ’03), Janie Askew Paredes (BA ’06), Michelle Roberts (BFA ’03) and MFA candidate Tim French.
