Mid America College Art Association (MACAA)

MACAA Meet n’ Greet “🍺and a Slice” at CAA 2020 Conference

If you are at the CAA Conference in Chicago come join us for a “🍺 and a Slice” on Thursday, Feb 14 at 6 pm at Lou Malnati Pizza, just a 5 minute walk from the Chicago Hilton!

Just a little over a day left to submit your work to our online exhibition, "Altered Ego". Follow the link below to review the prospectus and to submit your work!

http://www.macaart.org/altered-ego.html

https://www.codaworx.com/rfp-toolkit/rfp/rfq-the-graduate-hotel-columbus-ohio

Short North in Columbus, Ohio has call out for Mural artists.

RFP Toolkit

MACAA “Meet n’ Greet” at 2019 FATE Conference.

MACAA board members attending CAA at the “Meet and Greet” at Tanner Smith and took time to visit the MAD museum in New York City.

Our conference is right around the corner! We wanted to share some info about the Welcome Reception being held at Constellation Studios on Wednesday October 3rd from 6:00pm - 9:00pm. Constellation Studios is directed by UNL Professor Karen Kunc and is work space for artists that provide workshop opportunities as well as exhibitions and an artist in residence program. Below is some more information about Constellation Studios.

Constellation Studios, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA, is an artist owned print studio and art center, established in 2014. The mission of Constellation Studios is to recognize and encourage the work of printmaking and related arts of papermaking and bookmaking. We develop art collectors and patrons of the arts, artist members and guests, and engage with our neighborhood schools and the community at large.

Constellation Studios provides working space, specialty workshops, gallery exhibitions with public openings and educational events, and collaborative activities. Workshop participants and Artists in Residence have come from around the country and abroad, attracted to the teaching, mentoring, and wide-ranging opportunities.

Constellation Studios is located in on the eastern edge of downtown Lincoln, Nebraska. The 3000 sq. feet print studio, workroom and gallery is in a newly renovated building, with the lower level for papermaking and bookmaking studios. There are printing presses, metal & wood type collection, papermaking equipment, bookmaking studio, and guest room

Constellation Studios is the vision of artist Karen Kunc, a renowned artist, teacher and mentor, who has an established international reputation in woodcut printmaking and book arts, and is in demand as a teacher and workshop leader. Kunc provides the artistic expertise and intellectual presence for Constellation Studios, as director and manager, and a collaborator and leader of creative engagements. Kunc gives her vision and leadership of how to “make, engage, encourage, mentor, promote quality with integrity.”

Visit Constellation Studios' site for more information and we hope to see you there Wednesday night - https://constellation-studios.net

We have another Board Member Post for you today. We introduce to you, Edward Ramsay-Morin.

Edward Ramsay-Morin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. His work includes experimental animation, video, and sound. His films have been screened at festivals and galleries in over 70 events in 12 countries. He lives in Huntsville, Texas with his wife and daughter, both of whom are his favorite artists.

His creative practice is driven by a need to make connections and answer questions, rather than a need to realize a predetermined idea or concept. He describes his creative process as being responsive, relying on intuition and the automatic; ideas emerge as fragments and impulses. It is through the act of making that he seeks to understand these impulses and find connections. Process may lead to structure, but not always understanding. Though he strives for both, the end result does not always lead to resolution, but instead provides a space for future contemplation.

His readings of texts on Philosophical Taoism have informed his artistic practice since undergraduate school. Though that interest is pervasive in his work, he acknowledges that he is also bound by cultural experiences and histories, centered on linear thinking and conventional wisdom. He considers his work to be a mediation of these influences.

Collage films have been a principal interest in Edward’s creative research for the past 10 years. The primary source for these films are imagery and footage from 1950s and 60s science books, magazines, and educational films. Though he is connected to these sources through his personal history, it is their representation of a convergence of Cold War anxiety, space exploration, the advent of computer technology, and American nationalism and counterculture, that he finds compelling. From this context, he is interested in exploring themes of transformation, consciousness, mysticism, and myth.

See more of Edward's work on his site - https://www.edwardramsaymorin.com

Our next MACAA Board of Directors highlight is our amazing Interim President Heather Hertel!
Heather is a Syracuse University Rhodes Scholar Nominee. She is currently an Associate Profressor of Art at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches Painting, Drawing, Design and Professional Practices. Her artwork has been exhibited in four different continents. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from Syracuse University.
Her compass has led her to Florence, Italy to study at Santa Repararta International School of Art and she received a full fellowship for a residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and also attended Vermont Studio Center. Heather has produced nine solo exhibitions thus far. Heather enjoys collaborative and cross-disciplinary art. She intertwines dance, movement and sound in large installations. This experience has led her to teach at the Art Students League of NY, NYC.
Heather now embarks on a Transdicsiplinary venture, combining Science Dance, and Sailing with the Arts through her Sailcloth Art Project. She has been awarded two SRU Student Faculty Research Grants, and an Erie Arts & Culture grant. A collaborative exhibition debuted at the Bayfront Maritime Center, Erie, PA during the Tall Ships Festival, September 2016. Followed by Dance & Fly which occurred the summer of 2017, as her painted images of dancers on sailcloth were hoisted aboard the tall ship: Pride of Baltimore 2, in the Baltimore Harbor, as the SRU Dancers performed below their painted floating figures. Her most recent collaboration, SOAR: An Interdisciplinary Performance Project will be performed aboard the AJ Meerwald Official Tall Ship of New Jersey before it is performed at the MACAA bi-annual conference at University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

To see more of Heather's work visit her website - https://hhertel.com

Thank you for tuning into our postings on our amazing board members. The next board member we have for you all is Harry Sanchez.

Harry Sanchez Jr was born in El Paso, Texas in 1980. He has spent much of his life on the border with Mexico, but he also lived in many parts of the country doing menial jobs such as working in construction and the restaurant industry, providing maintenance to a golf course, and ushering at a movie theater. His mobility allowed him to experience and understand life and this society from the perspective of people from different social classes and races. His nomadic life had many unexpected paths: he went from playing college football to struggling with alcoholism and drug abuse. To escape that life, he started a cake and cupcake business with his mother and finished his B.F.A. with a major in painting. His path to art was also unusual for a contemporary artist: Harry discovered his abilities and passion for art through making and decorating cakes and cupcakes. In his earliest works, he used the same tools and techniques he learned as a cake-decorator, but replaced the icing with oil paint. He squeezes oil with a pastry bag over the canvas to explore the relationship between painting, sculpture, and abstraction. In his most recent work, Harry has used installations, prints, and other media to make artistic statements from the position of a racialized minority in the United States. He uses his artwork to comment on global matters such as the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the double-identity of whistleblowers who are hailed as heroes or condemned as traitors, and to denounce the separation of families following the deportation of undocumented migrants. Harry received his BFA from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2015 and his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 2017. His work has been exhibited in such cities as Cincinnati, Seattle, Dallas, and Paris, France at the Louvre. He is currently living and working in Dayton, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati.

To see more of Harry's work visit his site - http://harrysanchezjr.com

We hope you all had a safe and enjoyable 4th! We have our next installment of our board member posts for you today. We present to you Jennifer Murray!

Jennifer is an artist, photographer, and curator who lives and works in Chicago. Her work and research investigate human material culture and the impact that objects and collecting have on contemporary life. In addition to her photographic work, she is an arts administrator working both as a curator and director. She is the Executive Director of Filter Photo where she directs the planning of Filter Photo Festival as well as programming at Filter Space gallery in Chicago. She was Director of Averill and Bernard Leviton A+D Gallery, at Columbia College Chicago for eleven years where she organized a broad range of exhibitions in art and design. Murray is a founding member of the curatorial collective The Exhibition Project, which curates photography related exhibitions engaging new audiences with emerging artists.

Murray has lectured widely on various photography subjects and has been awarded grants from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council Agency. She teaches a broad range of topics from darkroom and digital skills to portfolio development and professional practices for emerging photographers. She is an Instructor of Photography at Loyola University Chicago and an independent artists' consultant and mentor working with artists on project development and exhibition preparation. She is a frequent portfolio reviewer and juror at photography events across the US including FotoFest, Photolucida’s Critical Mass, SPE, and Filter Photo. Murray received an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago in 2002.

See more of Jennifer's work at her site - http://www.jennifermurrayphoto.com