The Brown Bag Lunch Series continued on Wednesday, Feb. 13, with presentations by faculty who have art in the Creative Cardinals exhibition.
Artists included Michele Gunkelman, the director of Residential Life; Betsy Pierce, an associate professor of accounting; and Jeremy Fry, an assistant manager in the bookstore.
Gunkelman began her presentation by discussing her painting and zentangles that are featured in the exhibit. She likes acrylic painting and creating stained glass.
“(Stained glass) takes a tremendous amount of precision and patience,” Gunkelman said. “It is similar to quilting, but also very different because quilting has a lot of flexibility in it, whereas stained glass does not.”
Gunkelman discussed the most recent art form that she is learning, the zentangle. A zentangle is a 3.5-inch square piece of paper on which one draws a border and lines to create a pattern within.
“I’m fascinated by it,” she said. “It’s a meditative art form. I find that when I’m doing them, I totally block everything out and end up getting lost in the piece. It’s not a planned out piece, besides the size of it.”
Pierce has watercolor paintings featured in the exhibition. She began painting as an adult after a friend invited her to a sip and swirl event.
“He talked me into going to about 20 more of them,” Pierce said. “I realized after
a while that I was actually learning things every time I went. So, I kept going, and I still go.”
Pierce’s favorite thing to paint is nature. During the talk, she showed other paintings she has done. Her works included the Grand Canyon, flowers and other various landscapes.
“Everything I do is nature,” Pierce said. “I’m inspired by landscapes, mountains and flowers.”
Frye, a photographer, prefers to shoot still-life but also does portraits and wedding photography. He had three photos featured in the exhibit.
“In the gallery, I have a photograph of the Bay City fireworks printed on a canvas,” Frye said. “I also have a closeup of a tiger, part of a lighthouse lens and a car emblem.”
Frye showed his cameras and lenses at the talk and discussed his methods for shooting photography. He described why he doesn’t edit his photos.
“With so much digital work that can be done in Lightroom or Photoshop, you see a lot of images that have been changed in some way,” Frye said. “I can tell you everything that I have (in the exhibit) has not been touched in a digital way, other than maybe some cropping or light adjustment.”
He demonstrated how certain lenses work and what he uses the different types for. He also brought examples of lenses, cameras and a tripod for audience members to see.
The Brown Bag Lunch Series continues next week on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at noon, and will feature Chris Donor, another artist in the Creative Cardinals Exhibition.
Reporting by Melissa Vennix, Vanguard Reporter
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