Awer Bul, who lived in a refugee camp in Kenya, presents this art auction, the proceeds of which will help build a Sudanese school.

Awer and another VCUarts student, Gabriel Williams, received funding through an undergraduate research grant to travel to Africa to make a documentary of those who have been displaced by war.

Read more about it in Style Weekly.

November 3, 6-8pm
The Camel 1621 W. Broad St.

Style Weekly’s 25th Anniversary Issue lists 9 Artists to Watch including Kat Legault and Stephen Vitiello of VCUarts, as well as many of our alumni.

Others to “watch” are Bruce Wilhelm, 2004 Painting and Printmaking BFA; Liz Hopson, 2006 Photography and Film BFA; Oura Sananikone, Painting and Printmaking BFA; Matt White, Music alumni; and Lucas Krost, 2003 Photography and Film BFA.

Sonya Clark, chair of the Department of Craft/Material Studies, shares this anecdote to introduce a piece of her work that is featured in the Museum of Arts & Design (and written up in France’s Le Monde):

Many years ago while traveling in Spain, my cab driver was determined to practice his English rather than suffering through my pitiful Spanish. In our broken language state, he shared with me what he knew about American history. This included his knowledge of our “First Negro President, Lincoln.”

Admittedly, I would be hard-pressed to state many facts about presidents in Spain’s history, even now. Nonetheless, our exchange was both inspiring and amusing.

All of that is to say, this piece has been a long time in coming. I am tickled that The Museum of Art and Design selected it as part of their publicity for this group exhibit.

If anyone is going to be in NYC, check out Afro Abe II in person. Abe would love to meet you.

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery
November 8, 2007–March 9, 2008
at the Museum of Arts & Design
40 West 53rd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

212-956-3535
 www.madmuseum.org

Vertical Hold
An Exhibition of Experimental Video & Sound

PUNCH Gallery
November 1–25, 2007
Opening Reception: Thursday, Nov 1, 2007, 5-8 pm

PUNCH Gallery in cooperation with the Ellensburg Film Festival presents Vertical Hold , an international video and sound exhibition, which highlights the experimental and resolutely unique. This exhibition brings together artists navigating complex and divergent issues in both visually compelling and intellectually challenging forms. French bullies and boxy troublemakers, prankster hooligans, operatic deconstructions, political coin tossing and obsessive confabulations all work to explore concepts of memory, interaction, politics and culture.

Artists in the exhibition include:
Justin Colt Beckman (Thorp, WA), Brian Bress (Los Angeles, CA), Andrew Kaufman (Ellensburg, WA), Luciana Lamothe (Buenos Aires, Argentina), Adriane Little (Kalamazoo MI), Stefanos Pavlakis (Edinburgh, Scotland), and James Sham (Richmond, VA)

About the curators:
Andrew Kaufman is a convergent artist and teaches in the Department of Art at Central Washington University. He was recently awarded an Artist Trust GAP grant and has exhibited nationally and internationally.

Justin Colt Beckman is a founding member and board president for PUNCH Gallery in Seattle, WA. In 1998, he received his BFA in Fine Art with emphasis in photography and film/video from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He currently lives and works in the unincorporated town of Thorp.

Image credit: Brian Bress, The Portrait Room , still from color video, 4 minutes 10 seconds, 2006

& Design Show" />
The 43rd annual Wachovia Securities Craft & Design Show, one of the region’s most respected arts events, returns to Richmond. The show has been reinvented for 2007, moving it to the popular and accessible Science Museum of Virginia , where parking is free and exhibits may engage family members who prefer not to survey the outstanding creations of 56 of the nation’s finest craft artists. As the museum’s beautiful spaces demanded trimming the number of participating artists, the field has been narrowed to the “best of the best ,” with past award winners  and several artists of national acclaim who will be new to Richmond. Don’t miss this opportunity to encounter these makers and their works of ceramics, fiber, glass, jewelry, leather, metal, mixed media and wood.

Wachovia Securities Craft & Design Show
Science Museum of Virginia
2500 W. Broad Street
Free Parking

Friday, November 16         10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
Saturday, November 17     10:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 18       11:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Admission:
General Public $12
VACR and Science Museum Members $10
Weekend Pass $15
Coffee & Conversation  (includes Friday show admission) $20

The stunning jewelry creations of Craft/Material Studies Assistant Professor Susie Ganch are featured at the international exposition of Sculpture Objects & Functional Art.

SOFA is using Susie’s work in their promotional items for the art fair taking place November 2-4 in Chicago.

Recent work by Vaughn Whitney Garland, ‘03 Painting and Printmaking MFA and Director of the VCUarts Visual Resource Center.

November 5-30, 2007
Opening Reception
Monday, November 5, 4:30-6:00 p.m.

Hunt Gallery, Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, Virginia
Gallery Hours:  M-F, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Image: Gypsum Field
Oil on Canvas
12” x 12” 2004

VCU Departments of Sculpture + Extended Media and Art History sponsor a lecture by Ivan Day.
Monday, November 12 at 12:00 pm
VCU Student Commons
907 Floyd Ave.
Virginia Rooms A-B-C-D

The Edible Edifice - from the medieval period to the early twentieth century, food was frequently used as an artistic medium to create edible sculpture for the tables of the rich and powerful. A papal dinner in seventeenth-century Rome for instance, was not complete without a table centrepiece made of sugar which depicted scenes from Christ’s Passion, executed by pupils of Bernini in a lively Baroque style. Full scale architectural structures, such as pavilions and palaces were constructed every year in the Piazza Reale in Naples for the annual coccagna festival. These huge edifices, made of cakes, hams and parmesan cheeses, were used as sets for open air operatic performances before they were ransacked by the poor of the city. In this illustrated lecture, British food historian Ivan Day discusses the history and development of edible art of this kind from the period of the early Florentine Renaissance to the rise of modernity.

http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/Sculpture/visart.asp
http://www.historicfood.com/portal.htm
  feed://www.artisan-food.com/DotNetNuke/readin/newsviewsfromthekitchen/tabid/210/rssid/4/Default.aspx

VCU Sculpture + Extended Media chair Amy Hauft and student Elizabeth Chaney were featured in the Double X exhibition hosted by Arizona State University.

The VCU Department of Sculpture + Extended Media presents:

Mary LeClère
lecture: Thursday, November 8 at 12:00 pm
VCU Student Commons Theater
907 Floyd Ave.

LeClère is the Associate Director of the Glassel School of Art Core Program, at the Fine Arts Museum of Houston, a residency program for artists and writers. Their website describes the program as one and two year residencies to exceptional visual artists and art scholars recently out of school who have not yet fully developed professional careers. The Core Program encourages intensive and innovative studio practice as well as the elaboration of an intellectual framework through which to understand that practice. LeClère is currently a PhD. candidate in art history at the University of Virginia. She has written extensively about artists for multiple settings and venues.

http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/artweb/Sculpture/visart.asp
 http://www.core.mfah.org/perimeter.asp