Tag: art

The Senior Art Show

Senior Art Show Poster - Courtesy of Houghton Art Department

By Rebecca Dailey ('25)

This Friday, on April 12, the 2024 Senior Art Show will open in the Ortlip Gallery in the Center for the Arts. Thirteen senior art students will be showcasing their work in tonight’s gallery, including, Tamara Edwards (‘24), Aubree Niles (‘24), Hannah Smith (‘24) and Savannah Stitt (‘24). Various art pieces such as paintings, sculptures and photography will be displayed throughout the gallery for viewer appreciation.

Professor John Rhett is the Senior Art faculty advisor and instructor for Senior seminar and Studio. His main goal is making sure the students exhibit a maturity within the medium of their choice.

“We are creative beings, God is the Heavenly creator,” Professor Rhett stated. “There is a need to create with these gifts gracefully through challenges and be grateful for them.”

A few seniors took time out of their busy schedules to speak about their work and the gallery.

Smith explained her process around her work, “A big part about it is being balanced and coming to your artwork with a peaceful mind and not cluttered with everything you have to do … I like to think of it as forever honing my craft. I am a tinkerer. I like to play with different mediums. I’m not afraid of losing art and not doing it because I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

Niles has been working in art since childhood. It has been her way of expressing herself even when words cannot.

“Looking back to my work from freshman year,” Niles stated, “I am blown away by the development of quality and sincerity in my work. I started college with little education on art and had this horrible opinion that abstract art wasn’t art … I quickly learned that abstraction (well, good abstraction) is difficult. I am so thankful that I was taught the importance of abstract work. It reveals something true, raw, and honest about the artist.

Edwards transferred to Houghton in the Fall of 2022.

“I learned the importance of process,” Edwards explained, “art develops with time and a support group who challenges me in the quest to understand art not as an individual activity. Individual as an artist but built in community and communication.”

Stitt reflects on her growth as an artist and in life.

“I have learned that a huge part of growing as an artist involves time, and within that time, experience.” Stitt explained that “Some things are only learned through the process of doing something over and over. And other times, I have grown as an artist because I am growing as a person and that informs and influences my art.” Rhett shared his excitement about seeing the students’ work be displayed and the growth they have shown.

“The show is a time of celebration,” Rhett stated. “They’ve been students their entire lives sitting in class and doing assignments. This is their chance to start taking ownership of who they are as artists.” ★

Tags art, Art exibition, Art Gallery, Center for the Arts, Houghton, Houghton University, ortlip gallery, Professor Rhett, senior art exhibition, senior art show, university

Campus News

The 35th Annual Juried Student Show

Post author By Houghton STAR
Post date March 8, 2024

35th Annual Juried Student Show poster - Courtesy of Linda Knapp

By Rebecca Dailey ('25)

The 35th Annual Juried Student Show Exhibition will open on March 8, 2024 in the Ortlip Gallery, housed in the Center for the Arts. The gallery reception opens at 6:30 p.m. and continues until 8:30 p.m.. Students of both art and non-art majors may participate in the exhibition, and have leeway in both the subject and art form of their works. However, they are limited to the number of works they can enter. The art featured in the exhibition will be a range of ceramics, sculptures, photos, drawings, and oil and watercolor paintings, among others. The exhibition judges will be accompanied by a guest juror, who decides the pieces that will appear in the show, as well as the pieces that will receive awards.

“The Student Juried Show provides a really neat opportunity for students to demonstrate their artistic abilities to their friends, family, and all of us in the Houghton Community,” Professor Linda Knapp, the Ortlip Gallery Director & University Art Collection Manager, stated. “My role as gallery director falls under the leadership of the Art Department. I work alongside our art faculty and help them to make the gallery function smoothly. It’s so much fun to see the different works that get submitted and then solve the puzzle of figuring out how to display them in a way that’s aesthetically and visually pleasing.”

The Ortlip Gallery has previously featured works from professors of Houghton University and outside artists.

“The Ortlip Gallery serves to further educate our art major students by exposing them to outside artists, as well allowing our students to have the hands-on experience of displaying their own work in a professional gallery,” Professor Knapp added.

Some of the students entered in the Juried Student Show are Savannah Stitt (‘24), Hannah Smith (‘24), Aubree Niles (‘24) and Aubrey Armes (‘25).

This is the third year Stitt has displayed her work in the Gallery. She predominantly works with photography, but has submitted oil paintings in the past.

“In my experience as an artist, I have come to realize two things. I am creative in ways I didn’t realize for a long time, and inspiration comes and goes in waves,” Stitt explained. “It’s important to grab hold of those ideas when they come because they’re not guaranteed to stay.”

Niles is also participating for the third year. Her main art form is oils, but she also works in watercolor, ceramics and photography.

“Art has been a way for me to process difficult emotions and complex life events,” Niles stated. “My current body of work is especially evident of that. I focus the most on my use of color and brushstrokes to convey emotion.”

Professor Knapp would like to express her gratitude towards being able to open the Juried Student Show and playing a role in the Gallery’s exhibitions. “I love how the Gallery brings us all together into these sacred spaces and moments,” Professor Knapp said, “granting us pause to reflect on our lives and to understand each other better. It has been a real honor for me to be a part of such a successful Art Program here at Houghton, and I just want to send out a big thanks to all the students who have submitted their work for this upcoming show!” ★

Tags art, art department, Art exibition, Houghton, Houghton University, Linda Knapp, ortlip gallery, university

Arts Stories In Focus

FEATURE: Ortlip Gallery Features Husband-and-Wife Artist Duo

Post author By Rylee Archambault
Post date December 3, 2021

By Rylee Archambault (’23)

The Ortlip Art Gallery at Houghton is now presenting ‘Side by Side’, a series by Amanda Parry Oglesbee and Brian Oglesbee, an artistic husband and wife duo. She’s a painter and he is a photographer; can I make it any more obvious? The Oglesbees met at the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1970s and have been “side by side” ever since.

This is a show that needs to be seen in-person. While Brian Oglesbee’s photographs look like they are photoshopped, there is no post-production done on his work. They are all exactly what the camera sees. Along with this, Amanda Parry Oglesbee displays her latest series, titled ‘Beings,’ which consists of large paintings of trees in an editorial style.

Her artist statement:

“I am moved by the beauty and courage of all things that grow on earth. As I paint trees and flowers they become portraits of beings compelled to grow and survive. Some of my paintings are made directly observing nature. My work is sometimes influenced by historical art and other times built entirely from my imagination allowing the piece to grow organically with an equal combination of intent and acceptance. Most of my paintings are a combination of these different approaches.”

His artist statement:

“My photographs are very ‘straight;’ in other words, the camera simply records what was in front of it. What is seen in the print is what was presented to the camera; (with the exception of one of the ‘Tangles,’ which features stitched exposures, and the early multi-media works) there is no subsequent manipulation of the image after the initial single exposure.”

This exhibition will be on display through December 18th. A reception for the artists will be held on Friday, December 3rd, from 5:30pm to 7:00pm, at the Ortlip Gallery.

Tags art, artists, ortlip gallery, painting, photography

Artist of the Week

Artist of the Week: Tess Shilke

Post author By Houghton STAR
Post date November 24, 2020

Tags art, Artist of the Week, photography

Artist of the Week

Artist of the Week: Sophie Tierney

Post author By Houghton STAR
Post date November 4, 2020

Tags aotw, art, Artist of the Week, photography

Artist of the Week Arts

Artist of the Week: Emily Mulindwa

Post author By Houghton STAR
Post date October 26, 2020

Emmy Mulindwa is a senior majoring in fine arts. She loves painting, working with pastel, paint and clay. Two of her favorite things include spending time with friends and eating frozen concentrated orange juice. — Check out more of Emmy’s work on Instagram at @emmymulindwa.art!

Tags aotw, art, Artist of the Week, paint, painting, pastel

Stories In Focus

Ceramics Alumna Invitational in CFA

Post author By Bethany Kuiken
Post date November 17, 2016

Photo by: Nate Moore

Former Art Students Return for Ceramics Alumni Invitational

Each year Houghton graduates art students who use a variety of mediums, clay being one of them. On Monday, November 18, the Houghton Art Department will host some of these former students and their artwork in a Ceramics Alumni Invitational in the Ortlip Gallery.. This event will feature various pieces of ceramic art from seventeen Houghton graduates in the Center for Fine Arts from 6-8 p.m.

Alicia Taylor-Austin, director of exhibitions for the Ortlip Gallery and assistant professor of art, said she looks forward to this unique opportunity. “Houghton hosts exhibitions of both established and emerging artists every year,” she said. “This is a unique Alumni Invitational Exhibition specifically focused on artists working in clay who have graduated from Houghton with a degree in art and are actively making ceramic work.”

Gary Baxter, professor of art, serves as the curator of the show. Last year, when he announced his plans for retirement after 35 years of teaching ceramics, sculpture, 3D Design, furniture design, and ancient art history in the department, Baxter and his colleagues planned for a show to exhibit the work of his students who came through Houghton’s program under his teaching and are currently active in the field. He had the privilege of inviting seventeen artists to participate in the gallery. “I was impressed when I saw the work,” he said. “What they’ve done in the gallery in this exhibit will be quite different than what they did while they were students here. They’ve progressed quite a bit over the years.” After receiving work from artists living and working across the United States, Indonesia, and Tanzania, Baxter and Taylor-Austin worked together to design the show.

As a current student, Jill Magara ’17, a studio art major with a concentration in ceramics and photography, is also excited to observe the artistic progress that alumni have made. “It’s exciting for me to see how Professor Baxter’s students’ styles have developed after undergrad. It’s always a really great opportunity to talk with Houghton alumni about how they’ve gotten to the place in the career that they’re at.”

This invitational will provide current Houghton students with the opportunity to not only enjoy the art, but also to learn from alumni. “I think this opening is important because it’s filled with Houghton alumni. These are students that have been in our place years before us and we get to see their successes and talk with them one-on-one about their experiences, successes, and failures,” Magara said. “This doesn’t happen often as an undergrad studying art.”

This invitational is a special opportunity for both professors and students alike to observe professional ceramic art. “There will be a variety of ceramics in the show. Some will be sculptures, some will be low-fire pottery. There is a wide variety of different ways of working as well as the different material they’ve used,” Baxter said. “I was impressed with the students’ work. In fact, it occurred to me that many of them have surpassed me. That was very gratifying to see that.”

Not only that, but this exhibit will be a celebration of Baxter’s loyalty to the art department. “One of the most exciting elements of this show is that you can see the result of Gary’s dedication to teaching,” Taylor-Austin said. “He has instilled very lasting impressions of technique and skill along with a thoughtful approach to working in this medium, conveying ideas, and creating both functional and sculptural work.”

The Ceramics Alumni Invitational Exhibition will feature works by Aaron Harrison, Alic Drew, Arryn Vogan, Barb Arensen, Betsy Addison, Elizabeth Addison, Eric Holbein, Jason Herring, Jennifer Depaolo, Lisa York, Lydia Ferwerda, Marc LeMaire, Nancy Petrillo, Naomi Woolsey, Patricia Ocock, Paul Christensen.

This will be Houghton’s first time hosting a Ceramics Alumni Invitational, making it a rare privilege for the Houghton community to come together and celebrate the ceramic artwork done by Houghton alumni. The work will remain in the Ortlip Gallery from November 14 to January 13.

Tags alumni, alumni invitational, art, ceramics, houghton college

Stories In Focus

Sabbatical Stories: Professor Murphy, Art

Post author By Rachel Wright
Post date February 22, 2014

Q: Why did you choose to take a sabbatical this year?

A: Sabbaticals are very competitive. Not everyone who applies is awarded one. Houghton, like most colleges awards up to four sabbaticals per year. A faculty member is eligible for one after 7 years of teaching (hence the name- reflecting the 7th day of rest) this is my 3rd sabbatical in my 28+ years teaching at Houghton. No matter what year I took a sabbatical some group of students would feel a bit abandoned. I applied for a reduced load sabbatical, which is a bit different from the typical half year or year long versions most faculty elect to take. A half-year is one semester off with full pay. A full year is half pay. I extended a sabbatical over the entire year by teaching 1/2 year throughout the enter year. This gives me only a few contact hours per week on campus and the rest of the time working at my home. I did not want to leave my senior painting and drawing majors completely. This way I still have some limited contact with them in their final senior capstone studio work. I only teach. No committee work or academic advising. It has worked out very well for me. I hope my students feel the same.

Q: What are some of the projects you have worked on?

A: I stated in my application that I wanted to concentrate on three areas of my professional work.

Studio work
Reading in my field and in literature
Reading and research in Film

I feel the best so far about the studio work. I work about 30- 50 hours each week on my paintings (they are really not strictly paintings…mixed media pieces). I average about 2 per week. The drawing phase for each piece takes about 12-18 hours. The painting and mixed media another 10. They are all 7X10 inch works. So far I have completed about 45. By September I hope to have between 75-100 from which I will exhibit about 20-25. These are far more labor intense than work I have done is many years. For the past 7-8 years my watercolor paintings could (and should ) be done in about an hour. At the end of each year I had typically about 200 paintings. From which I would exhibit about 10%.

My reading has gone about as I anticipated. I have concentrated on several postmodernist writers.

David Markson, David Foster Wallace, William Gaddis, George Saunders, and Borges.

I have also immersed myself in poetry- particularly 20th century Polish poetry by Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Bronislaw Maj, and Czeslaw Milosz as well as the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa. There are many others- Louise Gluck, Mary Oliver, Tomas Trasnstromer , John Berryman and James and Franze Wright.

I have continued my interest in Shakespeare over this sabbatical with a couple of works of criticism Shakespeare After All and Shakespeare and Modern Culture by Margorie Garber, and Tony Tanner’s Prefaces to Shakespeare. This and the plays themselves which I can listen as I paint.

Film has been mostly work in a few directors I have become more interested in Yasujiro Ozu, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Robert Bresson. I have also been reading in art. Works on Magritte, Balthus, Deibenkorn, Gorky, and Amy Sillman.

Q: How has it affected your work as an artist?

A: I needed time to to immerse myself in a new body of work. Creative work is unlike scholarly work in that no clear ideas can be set out as a plan. The work grows out of the working process. This time to just work and see where it leads has been very productive. I also had opportunity to see several important exhibitions is New York. The Magritte show at the MOMA and the Balthus exhibition at the MET. As well as The Art Institute of Chicago.

My sabbatical really began with my participation in the CIC (Center of Independent Colleges) Seminar at the High Museum in Atlanta where I was one of 20 faculty selected nationally meet and discuss 17th century Dutch art and patronage. This was centered on the Royal Picture Gallery of the Mauritshuis from The Hague, Netherlands, on exhibit is Atlanta.

(home of the Girl With A Pearl Earring, Vermeer) and 38 other works. (the Show started in San Francisco at the Young Museum, High Museum of Atlanta and concluded at the Frick Museum in New York City) This seminar was fully funded by the Kress Foundation and was a magnificent experience. This has also impacted greatly my work.

Q: Have you read/learned anything interesting during this time?

A: NO…just kidding…I have already covered this above.

Q: Do you think it has given you the time and rest you need?

A: I feel a relief from the teaching responsibility. But more so from the committee and departmental day in and day out complications. This is all part of the job for a faculty member. Last year I was very busy with Rank and Tenure committee, Honors student work and interviews and preps, departmental hires and decisions and advising. This year my colleagues have relieved me of this and it has been very helpful. That is what we do for each other.

I am grateful to the school for this time and look forward next year to exhibiting my new work and giving a lecture on this material. Currently I have an exhibition of 10 paintings At Milligan College is Johnson City Tennessee. Some of these works will be included in my show post sabbatical.

Tags art, center of independent colleges, film louise gluck, john berryman, major, mary oliver, milligan college, sabbatical, shakespeare, tomas trasntromer, tony tanner

Arts

Annual Faculty Art Exhibition

Post author By Holly Chaisson
Post date September 14, 2013

The start of the new school year offers opportunities not only to grow academically and spiritually on campus, but also to enjoy what the art department has to offer with this year’s Faculty Art Exhibition. Originally featuring the work of two professors, this exhibition has occurred annually since the art department was founded at Houghton College and was expanded eight years ago to become the comprehensive group faculty exhibition that it is today.

Jillian Sokso, chair of the art department, said that the purpose of the Faculty Art Exhibition is to “engage the community in what’s happening with the art faculty,” similar to the faculty recitals that happen within the music department. Twelve different medias from six professors are featured this year, which Sokso said would help students to get a good idea about what is available to study in the art department. Additionally Sokso said that the exhibit also “benefits the faculty” involved, as it is “good to get to work together” and will foster “helpful conversation” amongst colleagues. Faculty members featured this year include Ted Murphy, Ryann Cooley, Jillian Sokso, Dave Huth, John Rhett, and Gary Baxter.

Professor Ted Murphy, who teaches fundamental art courses such as painting, drawing and Intro to 2D Design, as well as the art history course, Renaissance to Early Romanticism, has over 26 pieces featured in the exhibition. One of his series, Drawings In and Out of Context, was completed “during the lectures and seminar discussions of the past year in the Contemporary Context class” he helped to teach, according to his artist’s statement, noting that “in order to better concentrate on [the class] discussions [he] began to draw.” Concerning his part in the exhibition overall, Murphy said in his artist’s statement, “these works grew out of a process” and that this “current body of work reflects [his] overlapping interest in representational art and degrees of abstraction,” as well as reflecting “an interest in Zen painting”.

Houghton’s new photography and digital imaging professor, Ryann Cooley is also featured in the exhibition, and is showing an installation conceptual piece entitled “The Last Supper”. Cooley’s typical work in the light-based mediums of photography and video is reflected in this piece, which employs twelve working TVs. The twelve TVs represent the Twelve Apostles, giving the piece its name. Cooley plays Mel Gibson’s “The Passion” on a loop while arranging the TVs to face the wall, allowing the viewer to only observe the light given off as its reflected. He said that as observers walk amongst the piece they are unaware that “Christ is continually being crucified” and that this “mirrors the conditions of the Last Supper where Christ said that his disciples didn’t ‘get it’,” as the viewers will at first miss the true meaning of the exhibit. “Yet,” Cooley said, “one can still enjoy the piece just like the apostles enjoyed Christ’s presence,” by evoking a reflective nature in the observers.

Chair of the art department and professor Jillian Sokso said that her work in this exhibition is “all relatively recent and was done over the summer.” Her works include drawings, an installation piece and book sculptures. When asked about the inspiration for her work here, Sokso said that much of it stemmed from her recent residency at the Woodside Art Center in Troy, NY. Her installation piece is also inspired by the concept of “strategic reuse,” something Sokso said she is interested in.

The exhibition formally opened the 30th of August and will continue to run through the 6th of October. A reception will take place the 20th of September complete with live music and food, as well as featuring the artists themselves speaking about their work.

Tags art, department, faculty, Houghton, mel gibson, ryann cooley, ted murphy, the passion, twelve apostles

Things to Eat: M&M Cookies

Post author By Rachel Scwingel
Post date March 22, 2013

Just a few years ago, I had never baked anything from scratch without my mom directing each step. But I discovered that I could appreciate baking when I came to college. It is the best way I have found to relax and de-stress.

My Sunday afternoons are typically spent baking. It is not unusual for me to show up to class with a plate of cookies still warm from the oven. People will not be at my house long before I offer them something I have recently made. The ultimate reason that I love baking is how it connects me to people. Food has a unique power to bring people together. More than anything else, I love to share everything that I make with others. For me, the best way to express that I care about people is by giving them something that I have made.

I enjoy baking because it’s more methodical and precise than cooking. There are “rules” in baking. These rules do not take creativity out of baking, though. I like to tweak, and create, recipes using what I know about the science behind baking. Here are a few tips I have learned to keep cookies soft and chewy, as opposed to crunchy and crispy:

Cookies should have more brown sugar than white sugar. The molasses in brown sugar keeps them soft.
Egg yolks keep cookies soft, while egg whites get crispy. That is the reason why some recipes call for an extra egg yolk.
Cornstarch keeps cookies soft.
Chill your dough for at least an hour before baking. This is my least favorite part, because who wants to wait for their cookies? But chilling the dough prevents spreading when the cookies are baked.
Take cookies out of the oven before they look completely done. They continue to bake and set on the hot cookie sheet even when they are out of the oven.

M&M Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ cup brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
¼ cup cornstarch
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
12-ounce bag of M&Ms

Beat the butter and sugars until well combined using a mixer. Add the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt until just combined with a wooden spoon. Add M&Ms.

Chill the dough (overnight is best).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll cookies to desired size and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 7-10 minutes until the edges are golden brown.

Tags art, baking, best recipe, cookies, cooking, cornstarch, easy, M&Ms, recipe, relaxing, soft, Things to Eat