MFA Students exhibit work at CAA in D.C.
Please join us on Thursday night, February 4th from 6—9PM at The Fridge DC. (http://www.thefridgedc.com) at 516 8th Street SE, for a reception and alumni reunion celebrating Orange4. Orange4 runs from February 4-7. Gallery Hours are Thursday & Friday 1pm—7pm, Saturday 12pm—7pm, and Sunday 12pm—5pm. This annual exhibition, now in its 4th year, features the work of 18 graduate students currently in pursuit of their MFA at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Previous Orange Exhibitions have been held at the UNIX Gallery in NYC,
Co-Prosperity Sphere in Chicago and White Box Gallery in NYC.
The experience of showing work in a public gallery is one of several experiences that help graduate students build their professional skills— a significant aspect of sustaining a successful professional practice as an artist or designer.
Featured in this exhibit is work from five concentration areas in the MFA UT program: Printmaking, Sculpture, Transmedia Design, Ceramics and Painting.
Sculpture Student Receives Prestigious Award
Terrence Cameron Kite has been named a 2015 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Honorable Mention by the International Sculpture Center’s 2015 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award program. Out of an exceptional number of nominees; 423 students from over 158 colleges and universities, world-wide. The jury, which included Chakaia Booker, Sculptor, NY; Kelly Kivland, Assistant Curator at Dia Art Foundation, NY; and Maki Hajikano, Associate Professor of Fine Arts at York College at CUNY, NY, reviewed more than 952 images of student art work to make their selections for this prestigious award. Terrence Kite will be recognized in the 2015 October issue of Sculpture magazine, as well as on the www.sculpture.org website.
MFA Students to Showcase Work in NYC
10 a.m. – 6 p.m. This annual exhibition, now in its 3rd year, features the work of 13 graduate students currently in pursuit of their MFA at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The inaugural Orange Exhibition opened in February 2013
at White Box in NYC, and Orange2 opened in Chicago last February at
Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Matt Alexander
Matt Alexander is the founder and designer behind Holler Design, a furniture design/build studio located in rural Lascassas, TN.
Matt got his start in furniture design while studying sculpture at the University of Tennessee, where his work was heavily influenced by his childhood and growing up in the South. After receiving his BFA in Art, Matt moved to Detroit and received an MFA in 3D Design from the prestigious Cranbrook Academy of Art.
With two degrees under his belt, Alexander packed his bags and moved to New York City in search of a job. He landed at Jason Miller Studio in Brooklyn, where he worked directly under Jason creating many of the quirky, conceptual designer objects and lighting that were exemplary of Brooklyn design during that period. During his days at Jason Miller Studio, Matt began laying the groundwork for what would become Holler Design.
A circuitous path brought Matt back home to his family’s farm in 2009. Currently his time is dedicated to Holler Design, where he creates original designs that are inspired by traditional Southern furniture typologies and textures yet include an unabashed sense of the contemporary. His clients include architects and designers across the US. Locally his work can be seen at Barista Parlor, Rolf and Daughters and Frothy Monkey in Franklin.
Jessica Anderson goes to Finland
UT Sculpture MFA alumna, Jessica Anderson, has been selected for 2 very exciting international opportunities this winter, in Finland.
The first is a one month residency at the Arteles Centerfor their “Silence. Awareness. Existence” residency. It is set during the darkest month of the year and provides full accommodations to a small group of thematically compatible people.
Also, her proposal has been selected for an exhibition on the border of Finland and Sweden titled “Import/Export”. It is a show about borders and exchanges sponsored by the Northern Media Culture Association Magneetti.
The Import/Export show will be in Tornio, Finland and Haparanda, Sweden on November 15th – 30th and the residency is in Haukijärvi, Finland from December 1st – 31st.
Two UT Knoxville School of Art Alumni Receive Awards
Virginia Derryberry (MFA 1984) and Scott Betz (MFA 1992) were recognized at the 2013 Southeastern College Art Conference (SECAC) held in Greensboro, North Carolina. Derryberry, who is a Professor of Art and Department Chair at the University of North Carolina Asheville, received the SECAC Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement. Betz, who is a Professor of Art at Winston Salem State University, received the SECAC Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The 2013 Southeastern College Art Conference was held October 30-November 2 included presentations by School of Art faculty members, Joshua Bienko, Tim Hiles, Beauvais Lyons, Norman Magden and John Powers and Printmaking technician Jessie Van der Laan. Graduate students presenting papers included Raluca Iancu and Jennifer Scheuer, both in Printmaking.
SECAC is a non-profit organization that promotes the study and practice of the visual arts in higher education on a national basis.
John Powers part of MIT museum exhibition
Haliades, installation view.
PRESS RELEASE: http://web.mit.edu/museum/about/pr/2013/5000MovingParts.html
Spotlight: Sculpture
Recent BFA Sculpture alumni achievements:
Mike Calway-Fagen (BFA 2006) is starting a new faculty position as Visiting Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Indiana University in Bloomington this fall. Originally from Nashville, Mike earned a BFA from UTK in 2006 and an MFA from the University of California in San Diego in 2012. He was most recently a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. He has also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, residencies at Sculpture Space in Utica, NY and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE among others. His work may be viewed at http://mikecalway-fagen.com
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A.C. Wilson (BFA 2012) just completed a 2013 post-baccalaureate summer residency program at VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University) in Richmond, VA. He is back in Knoxville this fall and is continuing to work on his portfolio for upcoming MFA graduate school applications. A.C.’s new work may be seen at http://ac-wilson.com/home.html His sculpture was featured in the Dogwood Arts Festival’s 2013 NEXUS exhibit this past spring. He was recently featured on Other People’s Pixels blog http://blog.otherpeoplespixels.com/opp-art-critics-series-the-child-is-dead-taxidermy-art-as-resurrected-victorian-post-mortem-photography
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Tommy Dean Yasko, Jr. (BFA 2012) has been accepted in the MFA Sculpture program at Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Dean recently moved to Philadelphia, where he is setting up a new studio and starting graduate school this fall. His work was also in the 2013 NEXUS sculpture exhibit http://www.dogwoodarts.com/indoor-sculpture-exhibition/ Check out Dean’s sculptures, short films and videos at http://www.deanyasko.com
The School of Art gains two faculty members
Mr. Paul Harrill joins the faculty of the School of Art as Associate Professor of 4D and Transmedia Design. Mr. Harrill, a UT alumnus with a B.A. in College Scholars, received his M.F.A. in Film & Media Arts at Temple University prior to becoming a member of the faculty at Virginia Tech. Paul Harrill’s short films include Gina, An Actress, Age 29, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking, and Quick Feet, Soft Hands, a co-production with the Independent Television Service.
Called “one of America’s finest and most sensitive directors of actors” by film critic Ray Carney, Harrill’s films have screened around the world at festivals (Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Los Angeles, Sydney, Nashville), museums (the Museum of Modern Art, ICA London, Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art), and on television. His work has been supported by the Aperture Film Grant, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Harrill has also been named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
Professor Harrill is teaching ARTC 235 Introduction to Digital Media: 16mm as Art and ARTC 239/439 Narrative Filmmaking this fall. These courses are also cross-listed in Cinema Studies.
For more about Professor Harrill, be sure to visit his website, Selfreliant Film at http://www.selfreliantfilm.com/ .
Mr. John Powers joins the faculty of the School of Art as Assistant Professor of 3D. Mr. Powers completed his B.A. in Art History at Vanderbilt University and his M.F.A. in Sculpture at the University of Georgia. In 2008 he joined the faculty in Art at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. John Powers is the recipient of a prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, a Joan Mitchell Residency in New Orleans, as well as a Southeast College Art Conference Individual Artist Fellowship, and the 2001 Margaret Stonewall Wooldridge Hamblet Award.
In May 2013 he was awarded First Place in the annual Virginia Groot Foundation Grant Program, an award of $35,000 in support of his work. John describes his work as an investigation of how things work that involves sound and movement and in the end reflects life processes with all their tensions and contradictions.
Professor Powers is teaching ARTB 241 Beginning Sculpture and the graduate courses in 3D this fall.
For more about Professor Powers, be sure to visit his website at http://www.john-powers.com/ .
Spotlight: Sculpture
The UT Sculpture Club has been very active this spring semester, including a recent collaborative installation at Gallery 1010 in January 2013. The students worked collectively for 48 hours in a fluid exchange of ideas, design, construction, deconstruction and finally resolution under the title of MERGENCE. The process was documented in a time-lapse video sequence (click image to watch video) and an open notebook of comments and drawings.
Undergraduate and graduate students from all 3D studios work together on projects and events as a part of the Sculpture Club. This week the members are screen-printing the new logo (see image) designed by Jenny Chin, on a variety of objects including t-shirts that will be a fundraiser for club activities. The students are also partnering with the International Biscuit Festival for the second year to cast aluminum, bronze and iron biscuit-shaped trophies.
In addition to on campus and local community outreach projects, the UT Sculpture Club organizes field trips to galleries, museums and conferences in other cities such as Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chattanooga, and Asheville. This April, the students will be traveling to Birmingham, Alabama for the International Cast Iron Conference at the historic Sloss furnaces. In preparation for the conference, students will be making sand molds on campus that will be used to cast iron on site at Sloss.
Upcoming Sculpture Club visiting artist lectures in April include Caroline Covington, UT Sculpture technician, and Durant Thompson, Associate Professor of Sculpture at Ole Miss and UT Alumnus Sculpture BFA 1997. Durant is also a juror for the NEXUS indoor sculpture exhibit sponsored by the Dogwood Arts Festival at the UT Downtown Gallery.
The UT Sculpture Club students will be involved in helping to install the NEXUS exhibit and also outdoor sculptures around downtown Knoxville for the 2013 Art in Public Places exhibit, also sponsored by the Dogwood Arts Festival.
Finally, the Sculpture Club students, in cooperation with Dogwood Arts Festival and Gerdau AmeriSteel, will be collecting scrap metal at the local steel mill site that will be used to make new sculptures. Last year, students and local artists (including several UT Sculpture alumni) collected re-bar and odd-shaped pieces of steel and iron that is currently being welded and forged into a new community sculpture in the form of a tree (PHOTOS).