Luther professor's artwork inspired by days of calendar year
Date 2/17/2005 12:00 AM | Topic: Arts & CultureImagine coming back to your room after a full day of class and homework, ready to kick off your shoes and relax in front of the TV.
Then you realize that the clock cannot strike midnight without first composing a four-minute song or writing a five page story or something equally energy and time consuming.
You started this routine January 1, and you are not going to stop until you have completed it once everyday (365 times), for the entirety of a year.
Crazy? Maybe. Impressive? Most definitely.
Throughout 2001, Thomas Fleming, professor of art at Luther College and an artist, followed a ritual of creating one piece of artwork a day.
Through March 18, the Wigley-Fleming gallery in the Center for the Arts is exhibiting the entire series of paintings in the manner of a calendar.
Thomas Fleming: Aught One is the name of the exhibit.
Twelve sets of these paintings are attached to the walls of the gallery. Each set is titled part one, part two, and so on, representing the months of the year.
The sets (or months) each contain 35 aerographic glass plates.
The painted plates start in the set just as the first day of a particular month appears in a calendar.
These glass plates were once used for geospatial mapping, which is now done by digital satellite imaging.
Geospatial mapping is used to document a particular place at a specific point in time and Fleming said he used the plates to "chronicle a personal landscape of emotional and informational states also at a particular point in time."
The representational styles for his personal experiences vary from abstract and cartoon-like, to naturalistic. They employ either bold thick colors or thin white lines.
For instance, Fleming uses cartoons to represent his interaction between himself and the family horse.
In contrast, he uses opaque color and strong brush strokes to possibly represent drama or intense emotion.
Obsession over creating artwork everyday, painting on aerographic glass, various styles of painting, intriguing subject matter and the recognizable format of a calendar are the layers that make this complex exhibit so interesting and worthwhile to experience.
Senior ShowFrom Feb. 14-25, the gallery in Luther's Centennial Union is simultaneously facilitating the senior shows for two senior art majors, Cassidy Sill and Lindsay Meyer.
Although each show is distinct within the shared gallery space, they are connected through the artists' passion and knowledge of the chosen medium. That passion is expressed by their personal reflections.
Sill's exhibit, Influences of the Inevitable, displays photographs that were mainly taken during her time studying abroad.
Many of the pieces portray children with parents, showing how children react to the world with fascination and curiosity.
Sill explained that since taking the Luther-offered course Art in the Elementary Schools, she has realized her vocation is teaching. She wants to share her personal enjoyment of working with children through her artwork.
Her show reception will take place on Sunday, Feb. 20 from 2-4 p.m. in the Union Gallery.
Meyer exhibits her paintings and drawings in her show, Internal Disclosure.
Her pieces reveal personal emotions intuitively and abstractly, in compositions filled with shapes that resemble biological, amoeba or cellular-like shapes.
Meyer said her art represents the incidents of the human nature and spirit, like attraction and motivation, which are universal but also personal to her.
During her reception, Meyer will share her inspirations for her artwork by playing the music she listened to while creating her work.
Like Sill, Meyer realized her passion while taking a Luther art course where she learned to acknowledge the importance of expressing her emotions and ideas through art.
Meyer's reception will be held on Friday, Feb. 25 from 5-8 p.m.
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Becky Franklin
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