This summer, art, music and theater faculty from the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s College of Arts and Sciences are sharing their knowledge, talent and skills with students and audiences from the South and across the nation, and as far away as Japan, Austria, Germany, Italy and Ukraine, and are bringing experiences back to students.
Doug Baulos (pictured) installs his joint exhibition with Doug Barrett, "Kitsune Factory," in Tokyo Department of Art and Art History
In June, Associate Professor Doug Barrett, MFA, and Assistant Professor Doug Baulos, MFA, are in Japan. Barrett has been continuing his research in Tokyo on commuting and visual mapping, specifically as it relates to train commuting and the JR Yamonote Line. In addition to collecting imagery that may be used in future creative projects, Barrett is exhibiting recent works with Baulos at the Design Festa Gallery in Tokyo. The exhibition, titled “Kitsune Factory,” presents mixed-media works on paper.
Baulos is conducting research at sites connected to the history and creation of textiles and to natural and historic forms of dying and patterning techniques. At the Amuse Museum in Asakusas, which houses an internationally known collection of Boro, Shibori and Sashiko stitched textiles, Baulos is preparing for his upcoming exhibition at Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment in Huntsville, with the working title of “Mononoaware/hidden stars,” which will feature more than 60 works.
Baulos is also one of eight artists featured in the Wiregrass Museum of Art and Conference Center’s newest exhibition, “Made in Alabama,” open through June 25 in Dothan. The show features artists who use innovative techniques while experimenting with printmaking, mosaic, painting, glasswork and embroidery and includes works by Butch Anthony, Katie Baldwin, Cal Breed, Natalie Chanin, Frédéric Lecut, Miriam Norris Omura and Debra Riffe.
Façade of Trishunde Ganapati samadhi temple in Pune, Maharashtra, India. Professor of Painting and Drawing Gary Chapman will reprise his class Charcoal: Expressive Mark Making, A Painter’s Approach to Drawing at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Associate Professor of Drawing and Department Chair Lauren Lake, MFA, will teach her class Sketchbook and Idea Development at Arrowmont. The class is an intensive studio course focusing on sketchbook development as a tool for the artist that emphasizes the practice of observation, organization, experimentation and conceptualization.
Associate Professor of Art History Cathleen Cummings, M.A., Ph.D., is co-editing a volume called “The Built Environment of Death and Cremation in Hinduism.” In addition to writing an introduction, Cummings is at work on an essay for the book, which is about the Trishunde Ganapati samadhi temple in Pune, Maharashtra, India. This temple includes an underground samadhi chamber, where a guru for a local cult dedicated to Ganesh underwent “living samadhi,” walling himself into the chamber and meditating unto death. It originally also included a series of underground chambers that likely served as a matha or ashram for extreme yogic practices. Cummings is also part of a team working on a grant from The Battelle Engineering, Technology and Human Affairs Endowment Fund. The grant supports the project “Visualizing Asian Religions Through Art.” Cummings is researching and writing on the themes of travel, migration and pilgrimage; afterlife; and gender and identity across Asian religious traditions.
Assistant Professor of Sculpture Stacey Holloway, MFA, has works in two current exhibitions. The first is “SCOPE 2016: the Southern Landscape,” through June 24 at the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, North Carolina. Holloway won the first-place Brancato Award in the show. The second is “Intimate Spaces,” an exhibition celebrating works by Alabama artists for the Alabama Women’s Caucus for Art at Union Grove Gallery, University of Alabama in Huntsville, through July 2. Holloway won a Merit Award in the show. She is producing works for upcoming solo exhibitions “Herds,” July 13-Sept. 10, at Lowe Mill in Huntsville, and “Part and Parcel,” Sept. 14-Oct. 9, at Minnesota State University School of Visual Arts Gallery. She will participate in the invited group exhibition “Rendezvous: 2016 Burrow Sculptors Invitational Exhibition” Aug. 1-Oct. 31 at The Burrow Center for the Fine and Performing Arts at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville.
UAB Department of Music's Summer Jazz Band Department of Music
Associate Professor of Clarinet Denise Gainey, DMA, is finishing a book on her teacher and mentor, American clarinetist, composer and teacher Kalmen Opperman, which has been accepted for publication by Carl Fischer Music, New York. As secretary of the International Clarinet Association, for which she recently won a second term, Gainey will participate as well as perform at ClarinetFest 2016 in Lawrence, Kansas.
Professor of Piano Yakov Kasman, DMA, will teach at the Kiev International Summer Music Academy in Ukraine for two weeks in July. This will be his seventh summer with the Academy.
From July 7-Aug. 1, Associate Professor of Trumpet and Director of Jazz Steven Roberts, DMA, will lead a performance tour through Austria, Italy and Germany with a 13-piece student/alumni big band. The band, made up of UAB students and alumni, will perform classical, jazz and popular music.
Outgoing Director of Bands Sue Samuels, Ph.D., is preparing for her final concert with the Summer Band on July 4 in front of Bartow Arena, while Interim Director of Bands Gene Fambrough, DMA, and Assistant Director Cara Morantz, M.M., are coordinating marching band design, planning and organization for the 200-member strong UAB Marching Blazers this fall. The upcoming show is “Blazers at the Movies,” featuring movie soundtracks from “Back to the Future” as well as spy flicks and science fiction and adventure films.
Students in Amy Page's ST-ARTS for Gifted and Talented summer art program class Department of Theatre
Associate Professor of Voice and Movement Marlene Johnson, MFA, will teach Embodying and Voicing the Archetypes of Myth for Actors and Singers in Richmond, Virginia, July 23-30. Johnson has taught this work internationally since 2003. In the class, students investigate archetypal energies that actors meet in plays, including the Trickster, the Spiritual Leader, the Truth-Teller/Gatekeeper, the Huntress, the Seer, the Evil Magician, the Lover, the Parent, the Warrior, the Pilgrim, the Fool, and many others.
Additionally, she will present a workshop in Chicago at the Voice and Speech Trainers Association conference in August on “Size Matters,” exploring expanded field of kinesthetic awareness and the use of the voice with vocal director Amy Chaffee from the University of California, Los Angeles, who has worked on the hit show “Game of Thrones.” The two will look at the energy needed to “fill” a large space or something more intimate, she says. She will also make use of a dean’s grant to study privately with several other Alexander Technique teachers.
Cliff Simon's stage rendering for "Mame"Assistant Professor of Theatre and Costume Director Amy Page, MFA, is returning to teach with ST-ARTS for Gifted and Talented, a summer art program for gifted and talented middle school students hosted by Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. She is teaching stage makeup, puppet construction and performance, and intro to technical theater. The students audition to get accepted into the three-week program in which they can major in visual art, music, theater or dance.
Professor of Scenic Design Cliff Simon has been working for more than a year on designing the scenery for “Mary Poppins,” which opens in July in Austin, Texas, at Zach Theatre. He is also designing the set for the musical “Mame,” which will open in March at the Riverside Theatre in Vero Beach, Florida.