Each year the School of Art invites a diverse group of nationally and internationally recognized artists, designers, and scholars to share their distinct practices and voices with its students and the community. Students and the public alike can engage with these invited practitioners through lectures, screenings, performances, readings, conversations, studio critiques, and workshops.
This program is one of many valuable resources promoted through the School of Art that contributes to the experiences art students need to begin building relationships within the professional art world and to develop a greater understanding and appreciation of contemporary art and culture.
All events are free, non-ticketed, and open to the public unless otherwise specified.
Upcoming Events
FALL 2024
Wednesday, September 25, 6pm, AJ 225
Still / Moving: Framing New Media
Panel Discussion
In conjunction with the exhibition in the Ned and Gloria Griner Art Gallery, this panel discussion will feature Jason Bernagozzi, Jamie Hahn, Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge, Kristin Reeves, and Eric Souther talking about their work with analog film, digital video, electronic lens-based media, and other technologies. From still-capture, using a camera to record and freeze movement, to moving sequences of images recorded with analog film and digital video methods, these artists make tangible the seemingly mysterious and sometimes misunderstood art that can be defined as New Media.
Faculty Sponsor: Manon VanScoder, Assistant Teaching Professor of Art (Foundations, Video and New Media)
Wednesday, October 16, 6pm, AJ 225
Metal Under Glass
Sarah Perkins
Sarah Perkins is an artist whose practice is rooted in metalsmithing (the shaping of metals into decorative and/or utilitarian objects) and enamelwork (the art of fusing powdered glass onto metal surfaces), but she also has a more expansive practice. She has been making collaborative pieces with a photographer and woodworker for many years. Vessels are the forms that Sarah has expanded on over her career and her work resonates with other areas that also use this form, such as ceramics, glass, and woodworking/sculpture. During her visit to Ball State, Perkins will present a workshop to metals students covering her enameling and forming processes and will engage in critiques with undergraduate and graduate students, with a focus on engaging with students from multiple areas of studio areas. Her public talk will examine many facets of her artistic practice and wide-ranging career.
Faculty Sponsor: Jessica Calderwood, Assistant Professor of Art (Metals + Jewelry)
Wednesday, November 6, 6pm, AJ225
Paintings to Challenge Perceptions of Equality
Samuel Levi Jones
Samuel Levi Jones’ multidisciplinary practice includes making patchworked paintings and installations to challenge people’s perceptions of authority, exclusion, and equality. He explores the framing of power structures and struggles between exclusion and equality by desecrating historical material, then reimagining new works. He is the recipient of the 2014 Joyce Alexander Wein artist prize awarded to him by the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY — an annual award honoring emerging or mid-career African American artists. His work is in prominent private and public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA); The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; and the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, IN.
Faculty Sponsor: Audrey Barcio, Assistant Professor of Art (Painting)
Cosponsored by the BSU Multicultural Center
SPRING 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 6pm, AJ225
Expanding the Design Canon: How Culture Informs Aesthetics
Kaleena Sales
Kaleena Sales is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design and the Chairperson of the Department of Art and Design at Tennessee State University, an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) in Nashville, TN. Her research and writings are rooted in racial justice and equity, with a specific focus on the ways culture informs aesthetics. Sales is co-author of the book, ExtraBold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Non-Binary Field Guild for Graphic Designers, and editor of Centered: People and Ideas Diversifying Design, published by Princeton Architectural Press. Sales’ unique perspective, rooted in racial justice and equity, challenges traditional notions of graphic design, inspiring creative exploration among students and faculty in the graphic design field. Sales’ advocacy for a more diverse and less Eurocentric design industry aligns with the principles of inclusivity and representation within the creative arts.
Faculty Sponsor: Shantanu Suman, Associate Professor of Art (Graphic Design)
Wednesday, March 26, 6pm, AJ 225
Praxes: Parallel Approaches to a Career in the Arts
Michael Endo
Michael Endo was born in Portland, Oregon in 1979. He received an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, in 2009 and a BA from Portland State University, Oregon in 2005. Endo is currently the Artistic Director at Pilchuck Glass School. His talk will explore the political, technological, academic, and economic shifts since the 1970s that have changed the gallery model that most artists, established and emerging, function within. These changes require diverse approaches to a career in the arts that may look different than the romantic picture painted by media. Successful artist studios are small businesses that manage inventory, marketing, and HR. Through the lens of his own praxes, Artist / Educator / Administrator / Curator Michael Endo, will discuss the multiple and diverse practices and skills that are often necessary to create a stable career in the arts.
Faculty Sponsor: Jennifer Halvorson, Associate Professor of Art (Glass) & Associate Director of the School of Art
Wednesday, April 9, 6pm, AJ 225
Weathering Time & For the Love of Trees
Nancy Floyd
Nancy Floyd, Emerita Professor in the Ernest G. Welch School of Art and Design at Georgia State University in Atlanta, lives in Bend, Oregon, and holds a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin, an MA from Columbia College Chicago, and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita, CA. Floyd has been a visual artist for over 40 years. Her interests include the aging female body, the passage of time, barren landscapes, and trees. She uses photography, video, and mixed-media to address the ways in which lens-based media can connect deeply with experience and memory. Floyd has received numerous grants and awards including a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship; the 2019 International Center of Photography / GOST Books First Photo Book Award; a 2018 Aaron Siskind Photography Fellowship; and a 2014 John Gutmann Photography Fellowship. Floyd is well known for her 41-year-old series Weathering Time. For over three decades, she has photographed herself “mining the archive to address issues of the female body, the family snapshot and loss.” In addition to her self-portraiture, her current work, For the Love of Trees, focuses on climate change, reforesting, and conservation.
Staff Sponsor: Savannah Calhoun, Photography and Video Resources Specialist
For more information, please contact Ken Preston, Professor of Art and Coordinator of the Visiting Artists, Designers, and Scholars series, kpreston@bsu.edu or Lara Kuykendall, Director of the School of Art, lkuykendall@bsu.edu