Faculty art exhibit in University Art Gallery represents society
Associate art professor Margaret Ware is showing the world what she thinks about society through her Ritual Regalia for Contemporary Living exhibit.
The exhibit opened in the Main Gallery of the University Art Gallery building Thursday.
“They’re dealing with ideas of social ideology,” Ware said. “It’s important for us to point out things that are going on in our society.”
One of Ware’s sculptures is titled Consumer’s Armor. It is made out of credit cards and pennies, where the cards are attached by the pennies. It is structured to look like armor.
Ware said her exhibit is heavily focused on issues within society. Some of the pieces are focused on issues such as waste and recycling, while others represent gender or economic issues she said.
“There are some fairly shocking statistics. Society has lost its grip with reality,” Ware said.
Another one of here sculptures was titled “Protection Garments for the Physically Delicate.” The piece had a wire frame in the shape of a person with a large piece of bubble wrap designed to look like a suit.
The sculpture was intended to raise awareness regarding the number of Americans that develop a chronic illness — one in three. Each piece has an art-a-facts card which lists statistics and related research.
Each piece had varying amounts of time put into them. Ware said the cast iron piece has 1,800 work hours logged. All the pieces required a great amount of planning and precision.
“I plan everything out in advance,” Ware said.
Anne Gochenour, art gallery director, approached Ware about doing an exhibit.
“I knew that she had worked on several pieces during her sabbatical and wanted to give her a chance to exhibit her work,” Gochenour said.
Ware’s exhibit, however, was not the only one to open on Thursday. The Scholarship Exhibition opened in the West Gallery, as well.
This exhibition is for students who have received scholarships through the Art Department, Gochenour said.
One of the featured student artists was Alma junior Cassie McCarthy. She said her pieces for the exhibit were created during an installation class being taught by visiting artist Amy Reckley.
One of her pieces involves 20 cutouts of wolves pasted to the wall. She also had an ink drawing.
“It was something I did for my class,” McCarthy said. “I saw some Swoon right before and it was really inspiring.”
The Scholarship Exhibition gave Bloomfield junior Allison Berels, Twin Lake seior Kelsey Boehme, Clare senior Katie Chichester, Lake Orion sophomore James Leszczynski and Laingsburg senior Troy VonKlingler the opportunity to share their art, Gochenour said.
