USU Art Department's Visiting Artist Program Features Distinguished Guests

Five distinguished artists and a writer will travel to Utah State University this year as part of the department of art’s Visiting Artist Program. The program brings nationally and internationally known artists and writers to campus for three- to five-day visits to interact with students, faculty and members of the community. All guests present a public lecture that is free and open to all interested.

The first guest in the 2006-07 series is Alice Leora Briggs, an artist who works in drawing and installation. She will be on campus for an extended period, with several public events Sept. 18-20.

 

“Our program brings artists working in a variety of media and with varied backgrounds to USU,” said Marilyn Krannich, program director. “The series now brings in nationally and internationally known artists. These professionals broaden our students’ view of the art world and create a larger world context for them and their artwork.”

 

Visiting Artist Program lectures, workshops, group discussions and possible exhibitions by the artists are free and open to the public. The presentations and discussions offer a unique opportunity for the northern Utah audience and the USU community to interact with artists and scholars with diverse backgrounds and work styles.

 

Briggs offers a public lecture Monday, Sept. 18, at 7 p.m. in the Eccles Conference Center, room 216. She will also meet with students and interested members of the community in an informal discussion following the lecture.

 

“I have a manic duty to make marks on surfaces,” Briggs said of her work. “Each of my images is an accumulation of thousands of marks which chart how my eyes jerk and scan over objects and through spaces.”

 

Briggs, now living in Lubbock, Texas, is represented by Nüart Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M., and has shown her work in numerous galleries across the country.

 

In addition to the lecture, Briggs will present a morning workshop Monday, Sept. 28, in the department of art. She will critique advanced student artwork during the afternoon Wednesday, Sept. 20. Two sculpture classes will observe her setup of a sculptural installation in the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art.

 

“This is a great opportunity for students and members of the community to hear an artist speak about their work, to see them installing a show, to see the artist’s work in a museum setting and actually interact in a hands-on workshop,” Krannich said.

 

Briggs was invited as a Visiting Artist Program guest in collaboration with the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art. Her artwork will be shown at the museum and an opening reception and artist talk will be held Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 7 p.m."

 

Alice Briggs produces work that demonstrates an understanding and even a reverence for the history of art and the traditions of craft and materials,” said professor Chris Terry of the USU art department. “But her strong background in the academic tradition of art is only a starting point for a body of work that turns that tradition on its head in the search for inventive and creative solutions to the problems posed by imagery and narrative. This combination of innovation and tradition meshes perfectly with the goals of USU's visiting artist program."

 

Other guests in this year’s program include photographer Jungjin Lee (from Seoul, Korea) in October, designer and digital artist Joshua Davis (from New York) in late early November, writer Lawrence Weschler (from New York) in January, ceramic artist Richard Notkin (from Montana) in February and sculptor David Secrest (also from Montana) in March.

 

The Visiting Artist Program is funded by a grant from the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation. Additional funding is provided by the Utah Humanities Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Utah Arts Council, with funding from the State of Utah, and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

 

For more information about the Visiting Artist Program at USU, contact Krannich at (435) 797-7373.