Visual Arts – Penn State Arts & Design Research Incubator

Q&A with the artists of MASKED

February 10, 2022February 15, 2022 Tara CaimiLeave a comment

An Exhibition by William Doan, Michael Green, and Emily Steinberg

Artwork above by Emily Steinberg

Borland Project Space | 125 Borland Building, Penn State University Park
January 12 – March 2, 2022 | 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Monday through Friday
Masked Exhibition Artists’ Talk: https://bit.ly/3suSHDK
February 25 from 4 – 5 p.m.

How and when did you conceive of the Masked Exhibition and how did it all come together?

Emily Steinberg: During the Pandemic Year of 2021, Bill, Michael and I were zooming on a regular basis. We did this to stay creatively and socially connected during the time of lockdown and isolation. We spoke about a lot of things during this time, and one of them… was collaborating on an exhibition together around the idea of masking. What is masking? What has our experience been like during the lockdown. What are the issues of identity and presentation around masking. What are the historical and art historical precedents of masking. Picasso’s Demoiselles D’Avignon, 1907, comes to mind.

William Doan: I think it was during a catch-up zoom early in 2021 and we were chatting about possible collaborations. We discovered that we were all interested in masks/masking for a variety of reasons. Emily was already making work about masking, Michael’s take as a physician was interesting and personal, and I have always been fascinated by “masking” writ large as a theatre artist. We started sharing work and Michael investigated the possibility of showing the work at Hershey Medical and we were off and running.

Michael Green: As Emily and Bill said, we had been zooming for a while to stay connected, and during one of our brainstorming sessions, we decided to explore the theme of masking as something that was on everyone’s mind, but that probably meant something different to each person. Since each of us comes from different backgrounds, we thought it would be fruitful to respond to this simple prompt in our own way, and the exhibit evolved from there.

Artwork above by Emily Steinberg

What surprised you and/or what did you learn when you were creating the work for this exhibition?

Emily Steinberg: I loved the idea of blowing up drawings and printing them on vinyl.

William Doan: What surprised me was how differently we all thought about masking, yet our mutual interest in graphic medicine, comics, graphic narrative seemed to tie it all together. I learned that I’m really inspired by Emily and Michael’s work and want to keep finding ways to collaborate with them.

Michael Green: I was surprised by how scale changed an image. Most of my original work was done in small and inexpensive composition notebooks, 7.5″x9.75″. Seeing these images enlarged to 4 ft x 5 ft in size changed so much about the images, in terms of impact, meaning, and the feelings they elicited. Also, seeing the various pieces juxtaposed with one another was really interesting, because each of us see differently and express our visions in unique ways.

Artwork above by Michael Green

How has your perception changed since you first conceived of this exhibition; what does this work mean and represent to you now?

Emily Steinberg: This work represents a specific period in time for me. A time of vast uncertainty, of fear, anxiety, of trying to figure out how to maneuver within new constraints.

William Doan: I’d say my interest and thinking around the complex notion of masking has deepened. Teaching wearing a mask, trying to perform wearing a mask, trying to conceive of mask-wearing and Covid-like pandemics being part of life from now on, weigh heavily on my mind. And those thoughts feed the continued work I’m doing in the mental health space, thoughts about masking anxiety and depression, hiding and protecting the self, and the historical power of masking.

Michael Green: Masks have taken on meaning so much greater than originally intended in the medical context. Medical professionals tended to see them in terms of public health and safety. But for so many people, these are statements about politics, identity, and affiliation. It’s strange and interesting, and also troubling in many ways.

If you were creating work for the exhibition today, what would you do differently?

Emily Steinberg: I would create a full-blown graphic narrative about the experience and present it as life size panels.

William Doan: I would love to scale up the size of the pandemic doctor masks I made and explore different ways of applying text to them.

Michael Green: I think I’d include more self-portraits with masks to see where that takes me.

Artwork above by William Doan

What comes to mind around this topic of masking when you think about the future?

Emily Steinberg: I don’t want to think about masks anymore, LOL.

William Doan: I keep thinking about how regular masking in public will exponentially lower the number of people who know what I look like. And how this might feed social media as the location where you try to connect the masked face you encounter out in the world with the whole face of that person …

Michael Green: I look forward to a time when a mask is just a mask and no longer a statement about one’s politics or identity. I don’t know if we’ll ever get there, but I can hope ….

View larger images and the full exhibition at Masked online: https://spark.adobe.com/page/cevVdvRawvSZr/

A Tale of Two Exhibits …

January 20, 2021February 1, 2021 Tara CaimiLeave a comment

by William Doan
ADRI Director, professor of theatre, 2019-20 Penn State Laureate

When I started The Anxiety Project almost five years ago, it was never my intention to exhibit the drawings in any other way than as part of a performance. In my mind, I wasn’t so much making art, as using drawing to try and express what I seemed to fail to express to others with words alone. (I know that sounds a lot like making art… But for reasons those living with anxiety and depression will understand, the idea of making art is too intimidating to have as an intent). I was coming to grips with the fact that I’ve lived with anxiety and depression most of my life and have, more often than not, let them take the lead in how I moved through the world. Anxiety and depression were essentially in the driver’s seat and I was just along for the ride. The drawings help. Drawing every day helps. Drawing as a regular part of my meditation practice helps. I even integrated drawing into my therapy, often sharing them with my therapist and discovering how much meaning they contained for me.

photo by Ashleigh Longtine

As I started to develop performances and presentations around the drawings, they became integral parts of my story and I loved projecting them as big as possible, depending on the venue. They were/are my scenery, sometimes even my props. So when people talked about the drawings and how the drawings affected them, or how they wanted more time with them than the performance allowed, I was always a little surprised. I didn’t have much confidence in them as stand-alone drawings, or as drawings one might go to experience in an exhibition.

But here we are. Two exhibitions of work from my Anxiety Project happening in 2021:

HUB-Robeson Center, University Park
HUB Gallery & Online
The Anxiety Project
January 16-March 14

Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County
Paulette Lorraine Berner Community Gallery (Second Floor)
Selections from The Anxiety Project
January 31 – February 28
Friday, Saturday, & Sunday 12-4:30

Both exhibitions include drawings from the project’s performances, as well as pages from the most recent part of the project, a visual narrative, Inside Anxiety and Depression – very much a work in progress. The HUB Gallery exhibition will also include our short animated film, Inhale, Exhale, Draw.

Drawings by Bill Doan Hanging on the walls of HUB Gallery
photo by Ashleigh Longtine

The work in the project is very personal. But it also seeks to make meaning out of the fact that anxiety and depression are pervasive in the archives of human experience. And it seems this is true for biochemical and social reasons. I’m eager to experience the drawings in this context, despite how risky it feels to have them stand on their own outside performance. I hope others will discover something in them that speaks to them and helps shed some light on their own experience or that of someone they love.

The HUB Gallery online exhibition is currently open for viewing.

View a 360° photo of The Anxiety Project Exhibition at HUB-Robeson Galleries.

PSU Ceramics and Social Action: Inaugural Bowled Over Initiative Launching to Address Food Insecurity

October 22, 2020November 18, 2020 Tara CaimiLeave a comment

By Kris Grey, Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State School of Visual Arts | with contributions from the Bowled Over student and faculty team

In January of 2020, the clay c0ven, PSU Ceramics department student club, hosted its second annual Clay Café at the Borland Project Space. Students transformed the gallery space into a meeting place fully stocked with handmade clay objects of every variation and function with a robust calendar of programming to entice participants. Warm and cool beverages were offered to the public for free and visitors were encouraged to use the handmade ceramic objects crafted by PSU undergraduate and graduate students.

Sandwich board saying Grab a cup and use a cup with four-shelf ladder style book case in background lined with ceramic objects

This is one in a long line of student-led community engagements projects, addressing issues of sustainability and the role of art in advancing social and ecological justice, that the ceramics department at PSU has initiated. Conversations during that week around food insecurity and sustainability efforts inspired students and faculty to go deeper with their activism.

According to a 2017 Feeding America survey, 13% of Centre County residents experience food insecurity, close to 21,000 people total.

Following the Clay Café, a new collaborative project playfully called Bowled Over started to take shape. Bowled Over is a social engagement project in collaboration with the SoVA ceramics area, the student-run club – the clay c0ven, and the support of Arts & Design Research Incubator at Penn State University. This is in line with Penn State’s broader “tackle hunger” initiative to address food insecurity across the commonwealth campuses.

Students designed and produced a limited edition series of handmade ceramic bowls for this project. Originally, plans were made to sell the bowls at a special event. Due to COVID-19 limitations, the bowls are available for purchase online this fall. Proceeds from Bowled Over will benefit The Lion’s Pantry and the clay c0ven.

Five white ceramic bows with blue decals on a white background with one bowl upside-down in the center Close up of the blue serpant, sun, moon, rain, and umbrella decal on a white ceramic bowl

This presented an actionable way for students to participate in the “tackle hunger” initiative addressing food insecurity among the Penn State commonwealth campuses. The pilot of the program was set to run this fall in conjunction with World Food Day on October 16th. Students and faculty in ceramics set our sights on bowl production for the summer of 2020.

Two months later, our worlds were thrown into chaos by the advent of COVID-19. The University Park campus entered lockdown. Students and faculty were ejected from our research and work spaces on campus and everyone braced for the terrifying unknown. In spite of a global pandemic, our student artists did what artists everywhere tend to do — showcase resilience and rise up to meet the challenges! Undergraduate and graduate students, Anna Graef and Andrew Castañeda, transformed a home garage into an offsite ceramic studio and began production for Bowled Over in the summer of 2020.

Rows of ceramic bowls of different shapes and sizes with two students making final touches during glazing process

This fall, when we were able to safely return to campus, the fragile, unfired bowls were transferred back to the ceramic studio where they could be glazed, fired, and finished.

Four shelves lined with glazed ceramic bowls of different shapes and sizes prior to firing Four shelves lined with white ceramic bowls of different shapes and sizes after firing

Second-year graduate student, Audrey An, designed a series of interchangeable decals based on drawings and images produced by ceramic students. Incoming grad, Harrison Boden, helped glaze and apply decals to the surface of the bowls and second-year grad, Austin Bradshaw, designed and milled custom wood boxes to house each of the unique pieces.

The result is a limited edition run of handmade ceramic bowls available now for purchase on https://clayc0ven.com/ where you can also view images from Clay Café 2020 and the 2016 Hand Candy: A Ceramic Lending Library.

White ceramic bowl with blue lettering Penn State Ceramics Lion Pantry with parts of the wooden container box on a white background

The Bowled Over Experience: Quotes from Students and Faculty

Shannon Goff, Associate Professor of Art
“Penn State Ceramics likes to lead with generosity, and so naturally giving back is forever on my mind. One sunny sabbatical afternoon in late January, a vision of clarity nearly bowled me over. A holistic cross college collaboration where ceramics students would design and fabricate handmade bowls filled with a limited edition flavor from the Creamery using herbs grown at the student farm. Proceeds from the initiative would support both the lion pantry and the ceramics area. This effort seemed in line with the work Kris Grey and I were already doing with the students to support Andy Goldworthy’s Red Flags project in NYC’s Rockefeller Center. Despite our excitement and commitment to what was becoming Bowled Over, we never could have expected a global pandemic. We weren’t willing to give up but scaled back due to Covid-19. Bowled Over is akin to an antidote for the coronavirus. It has been a joy to witness how the process has emboldened and bonded the students. We foresee Bowled Over growing and changing based on student’s interest in cross collaboration across the University and local area. We look forward to in-person events and scaling the project up to create even more community connectivity, engagement, and an even greater contribution to ending food insecurity in the region, all while making art accessible.”

Kris Grey, Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor
“Bowled Over has been a galvanising force; It’s helped us come together for collaboration and community building during very uncertain times. It’s given us a way to be productive and proactive locally. I feel incredibly lucky to be here with this amazing group of students and faculty who are making change tangible through art.”

Side shot of white ceramic bowl with blue decal of ice cream in a bowl with parts of the wooden container box on a white background

Andrew Castañeda, Instructor of Art; MFA 2020
“When I was approached to help with the Bowled Over project, the corona virus disaster was unfolding everywhere. It seemed like there was no escape from the monotony of quarantine. When Kris and Shannon proposed that Anna and I throw bowls for this community event, it was a way to give back and break the deadly cycle of watching YouTube all day. The process of making bowls is intimate, it is a dance. The clay moves, you react, and at some point you end the dance, stop and start again. The handmade bowls borne of this repetitious and meditative throwing process will go beyond helping my soul heal, and help our entire community.”

three students, two wearing masks and one with back toward camera, lining up newly created ceramic bowls

Anna Graef, BFA
“Working as a part of the Bowled Over team these past few months has been a source of relief and provided a sense of purpose for me. Shannon and Kris’s news of funding for this community engagement project coincided with coronavirus exploding, campus shutting down, our studio access ending, and a lot of uncertainty, specifically uncertainty regarding how to proceed as a ceramics student with no access to the ceramic studio facilities.

“Throwing bowls for this community engagement project gave Andrew and me reason to set up our own makeshift garage studio space, and reason to return to clay for a cause. The repetition of throwing so many similar, though not identical, bowls was an interesting parallel to the repetitive general monotony of quarantine life. Knowing that the bowls were destined to help our community, though, helped to make our bowl production feel more meditative and productive than monotonous or taxing.”

Animated gif of student making a bowl on the pottery wheel in her garage studio with car in background

Austin Bradshaw, MFA
“As an artist, we wear many different hats but by far the most important one is how we give back to the communities around us. Working on the Bowled Over project has been a truly humbling experience and I’m truly grateful to be a part of something much larger than myself.”

Overhead shot of white ceramic bowl with smal blue heart decals packed in the custom wooden box Six white ceramic bowls with blue decals on the left and one white creamic bowl with blue decal of ice cream in a bowl sitting on top of the wooden box on the right, white background

Audrey An, MFA
“The Bowled Over project offered another creative outlet for all of us. We all collaborated during each stage of making these bowls and offered individual creative assets we have other than our primary medium, ceramics. We have a wonderful group of artists who are all willing to give and serve one another. I always learn from my cohorts and am grateful for them both inside and outside of our studio time.

“One of my favorite parts during the production was the photo shoot we did together for the Bowled Over poster. We substituted real ice cream and syrup for terra cotta clay and white glaze so the ice cream would not melt but also to shout more of our love for clay. And a little bias involved, but I think the photos came out super fun! I enjoyed getting these photos from our photographer, Andrew, before finalizing the poster.”

Close-up of a persons arms and hands cutting sheets of blue decals with a pair of scissors in a ceramics studio Over the shoulder shot of red haired woman wearing mask and cutting out decals from a sheet in a ceramics studio

Harrison Boden, MFA
“For many of us as ceramics artists, we feel an overwhelming sense of community in how we interact with our peers. This project not only gave us the opportunity to become a stronger cohort, but also allowed us to use our abilities to serve those who are in need. I am so pleased, personally, that I was given the opportunity to help others move forward in their lives and look forward to future opportunities of service.”

Over the shoulder shot of hands placing the blue decal of ice cream in a bowl onto the white ceramic bowl

Images courtesy Andrew Castañeda

Teaching Ceramics in the Age of Covid-19: Meeting at the Intersection of Material Studies and Digital Culture – Contributed by Kris Grey

September 24, 2020September 28, 2020 Tara CaimiLeave a comment

By Kris Grey
Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor, Penn State School of Visual Arts

Image credit Argenis Apolinario/The Bronx Museum of the Arts

When the global pandemic hit our University Park community last spring, classes in ceramics and other fields of material studies were tasked with continuing our research and our support for students in the digital environment. This brought into sharp focus our field’s reliance on physical spaces, dedicated equipment, and hands-on instruction. While it was challenging to make the change so late in the semester, it posed a new question for ceramics moving forward: how can we shift our instruction in the face of this pandemic to continue offering creative, engaging, inspiring, and potentially healing experiences through craft-based activities in digital space?

Yihang Hua, Little Creatures, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU

In addition to my work as the Visiting Artist and Assistant Teaching Professor at Penn State School of Visual Arts, I maintain a professional practice in the expanded fields of ceramics and performance. In the wake of the global pandemic, most of the exhibition, teaching, and performance opportunities I had scheduled through 2021 were canceled. This left me with a deep sense of grief and loss that compounded parallel feelings I experienced about friends and family across the world who were struggling with the health and financial impacts of COVID-19. Thankfully, I was able to secure summer teaching at PSU and I set out on an emotional journey to redesign our curriculum for our Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics for non majors course to be delivered fully remotely.

Yan Yan, Life of Green Onion, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU

In the introduction to our summer syllabus I wrote,

“COVID-19 has temporarily altered the way we offer instruction in material studies and visual art. This summer, we will cover the same material as any intro to ceramics class but in an altered digital studio environment. This will change your physical experience with some ceramic processes. What remains constant is a focus on looking at art and the world through a ceramics and craft-based ‘lens’. This class is designed to be educational, informative, experimental, and fun! I look forward to our collaboration and I welcome your active feedback throughout the course.”

I opted for a collaborative tone at the outset in order to involve the students in their own learning.

Rachel Kim, Requiem of the Ballerina, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU

Meeting, as we did, at the intersection of material studies and digital culture, I chose to teach a brand new module in stop motion animation using colored clays, colloquially referred to as “claymation”. To my knowledge, PSU ceramics has never engaged students in claymation projects. I had the full support of acting ceramics area head, Shannon Goff, who received the 2020 President’s Award for Engagement with Students at PSU, and also Tom Lauerman, whose own studio work synthesizes digital fabrication strategies and traditional craft techniques. With their blessing, I then turned to a personal friend with whom I studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the early 2000s. Meaghan Ross is a miniature prop and set fabricator based in Los Angeles, CA who has worked in television and film on a range of projects including Robot Chicken, Moral Orel, Flapjack, and Anomalisa. Outside of class time, I interviewed Ross and created video content to deliver to my summer students to inspire and instruct on techniques of model making and animation. To prepare for the instructional delivery, I connected with Liz Miller, Director of Creative Projects at ArtWorks in Cincinnati. ArtWorks is an award-winning Greater Cincinnati nonprofit that transforms people and places through investments in creativity. At Miller’s invitation, I was able to attend a showcase of youth artists’ stop-motion animations aptly titled OUR NEW NORMAL, created in collaboration through a remote summer program.

Justin Rossi, Canappleism, 2020, Claymation video from Summer Art 080 Introduction to Ceramics course at PSU

On our last day together, the class screened the final animation projects and had facilitated critique discussions on each of their entries. The result was an incredibly complex, emotional, delightful, joyful and humbling experience for all of us. A selection of student claymation work is featured throughout this post. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did working together to produce them over the summer of 2020. The students asked me if this was a regular part of the Art 080 Intro class experience and I told them it was entirely new and that their class was the first. They emphatically urged me to continue teaching this particular module and it became a point of pride for all of us; a symbol of how extreme duress can yield innovative solutions that result in growth, positivity, and connectivity!

Mind Your Mask – Contributed by Ryan Russell

May 20, 2020May 21, 2020 Tara Caimi2 Comments

by Ryan Russell
associate professor of graphic design at Penn State

Mind Your Mask

The design community at PSU never ceases to amaze me. Once again, it is outdoing itself. Colleagues from across the University leapt into action on day 1. My inbox was flooded with proposals, questions, all trying to figure out how to make use of resources and talents to solve the incredibly complex problems from the pandemic. Many were specific to the materials and production methods necessary to create masks.

How could I help? As a graphic designer what could I offer? Could I create something that could communicate and help drive healthier behavior?

My Solution

These masks use typography and scale to encourage social distance (6′ has been the recommended distance by the CDC)¹. The large text is legible at greater distances and communicate a hopeful feeling and outlook on the current pandemic. However, when a viewer breaks the social distance barrier (within 6′) the smaller text becomes legible (high contrast sans-serif text that is smaller than .24″ is generally illegible beyond 6′)². The smaller text is less optimistic and more direct in its message to encourage a viewer to back up and adhere to the rules outlined above. In addition, The background graphics, while appearing as a simple texture are created from relevant icons that are legible within the danger zone.

These textiles will soon be available via spoonflower.com to those who also want to purchase fabrics to make and donate masks.

_{1 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/social-distancing.html}_{2 https://www.thesignchef.com/letter-sizing-calculator}

Draw It Out

May 20, 2020May 20, 2020 William J DoanLeave a comment

I’ve been drawing as a form of meditation for quite some time. Actually, I’ve been drawing most of my life. But it was in the last couple of years that I became intentional about drawing as a tool for helping to manage my anxiety and depression. Like a number of art practices, drawing can have a calming and positive effect on the mind and body. There’s a significant body of research to support this claim. For some time, the most well known research centered on music’s ability to positively effect the brain, the breath, and one’s mental state. Now studies on dance, movement, drawing, creative writing, and other artistic practices show similar results. The arts are good for us. And though artists have known this forever, it regularly bears repeating in a world that tends to think more about the relationship between medicine and health than the relationship between art and health.

Quarantining during the Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced this idea in countless ways. It seems that each day begins with a series of questions that primarily produce anxiety – What am I going to do today? What should I do today? Will doing that make any difference? How do I face another zoom session? How can I help? Can I get 10,000 steps in by just walking around my house? What will I do if this is it? On and on and on and on …. until I have myself worked up and convinced that I simply can’t find a way to fit into this new world. I mean, it took decades for me to figure out how to fit into the old world! (All this happens between waking up, showering, and making the first cup of coffee). And then I head to my little home studio. And I draw. I sit, breathe, choose from among my various tools – pencils, pens, brushes, pastel sticks, watercolor crayons, and draw. Maybe it’s a “selfie” drawing, a farmscape, the idea for a comic, a new piece for the Anxiety Project, a leaf, a bird, a tree, or just a series of marks on the paper that are a record of the impulses moving through my hand. And I do this for at least 15 to 20 minutes.

And I’m better afterwards. Some days better than others. My heart rate is slower, my mind is calmer, I can remember to be grateful. Drawing brings me into the present, it draws me out of the trap of regretting the past or worrying too much about the future. Drawing is medicine for my mind and soul.