The Hastings College Department of Visual Arts is hosting Open Space for the Visual Arts June 8-12, with this year’s immersion experience being fully online.
To help facilitate certain components of the experience, participating students will receive an art box from the College this week. The box includes many supplies for each art experience, such as a drawing lightbox, self-hardening clay, misc sculpture items and other surprises.
The theme for this year is Art and Community, which allows Hastings College professors to share how visual arts are used to inspire and transform both individuals and communities by focusing on the process of artistic inquiry and creative expression.
A list of participating students is included below.
Every day, students will have the opportunity to learn from a different Hastings College professor in a specialized course. The topics change daily and include art history drawing, sculpture, ceramics, painting and animation — with glass blowing videos available to watch on-demand.
On Monday, June 8, Dr. Christopher M. Strickland, Hastings College post-doctoral fellow and art educator, will work with students on Art History Drawings. He’ll explore how the visual arts are integral to the creation and representation of culture and community. The students will create drawings inspired by the ideas presented and use these drawings as “sketches” for the body of work that will be investigated and created using the various media of the Open Space program.
Aaron Badham, chair of the department and assistant professor of sculpture, will instruct students Tuesday on sculpture through creating personal shelters. This workshop will explore shelter, personal versus shared space and the body as the framework for approaching this concept. This dynamic design challenge will emphasize the ingenuity and creative use of materials to teach students various skills for effective use of their artistry.
On Wednesday, students will focus on Storytelling and the Ceramic Figure with Jerome Dubas, instructor of ceramics. This session examines the history of the figure in historical, cultural and contemporary ceramics. Ideas for the sculptures will be developed by focusing on the students’ experiences. Students will create group figures with self-hardening clay that can be painted or sprayed when finished.
Sara Gevurtz, assistant professor of digital art, will instruct students on Thursday for Bringing Stories to Life through Animation. In this course, students will learn the basics of timing and frame-by-frame animation to create short animated flipbooks. In their flipbooks, students will explore community ideas and how motion can add to or modify the narrative.
On the final day of Open Space, Christine Lockhart-Brown, instructor of art education, will instruct students in Redefining Community through alcohol ink paintings. Using the non-traditional medium of alcohol ink, students will create a series of works that will be influenced by their new reality of community and placement within.
Students will also have glass blowing video demonstrations they can watch throughout the week. The videos give students an inside look at how to create a fluted bowl and a seashell, and cover the process, material information and show the rapid change of the material.
Students participating in Open Space for the Visual Arts are listed below.
- Lindsay Alderman of Erie High School in Frederick, Colorado
- Mackenzie Baltzer of Chaparral High School in Parker, Colorado
- Ansley Connolly of Gretna High School in Gretna, Nebraska
- Sofie Curto of Waverly High School in Waverly, Nebraska
- Margaret Driewer of Gretna High School in Gretna, Nebraska
- Elizabeth Fox of Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Layne Haba of Doniphan-Trumbull High School in Trumbull, Nebraska
- Megan Hathaway of Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa
- Emily Langford of Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Saraya Lilly of Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, Colorado
- Alexis Linnebach of Blue Valley West High School in Olathe, Kansas
- Ana Lopez-Zurita of South High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Anamaria Magaña of Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, Missouri
- Montanna Mitchell of Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Sophia Manzitto of South High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Aubrey Masdin of Arrupe Jesuit High School in Arvada, Colorado
- Caitlin Nelepovitz of Lincoln Southwest High School in Lincoln, Nebraska
- Enrique Perez of Harvard High School in Harvard, Nebraska
- Aurora Poppino of Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa
- Spencer Price of Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa
- Emily Quackenbush of North High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Raeanne Sando of Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Alexandria Schmidt of Smith Center Junior-Senior High School in Smith Center, Kansas
- Zoe Slinkard of Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska
- Kaitlin Smith of Fort Calhoun Junior-Senior High School in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska
- Layla Thomson of Grand Island Senior High School in Grand Island, Nebraska
- Caragan Underwood of Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa
- Reagan Weidemann of Logan View High School in Hooper, Nebraska
- Renee Williams of Nebraska City High School in Nebraska City, Nebraska
- Cecilia Wonch of Arnold High School in Arnold, Nebraska
Hastings College plans to invite participants and their families to campus for an Open Space 2020 reunion, where students will have the chance to meet Hastings College’s talented faculty and staff, and go on individualized tours of the campus.
Hastings College is Nebraska’s premier private college. A four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement, Hastings’ student-centered initiatives include providing books, an iPad and a two-week study away experience at no additional cost. A block-style semester schedule allows professors and students to focus on fewer classes at a time and promotes hands-on experiences. Discover more at hastings.edu.
