Students from professor Andrea Ondish’s Arts Management and Safety BFA Seminar class will be curating an exhibition at the Saginaw Art Museum.
A requirement of the course is that students curate their own group exhibition.
This exhibition will feature the works of Jasmine Arnold, Trent Caulkins, Chelsey Katshor, Michael King, Anne Martin, Zariah Martin, Alyssa Proctor, Nicole Szymanski, and Stephanie Walker.
Viewers of the exhibition can expect to see a wide range of media, including painting, printmaking, mixed media, photography, drawing, and digital art.
The exhibition overall does not have a particular theme, but visitors may notice trends and patterns in the work of each individual artist.
For example, Trent Caulkins, a senior double major in drawing/painting and graphic design, will be displaying work that focuses on the communities within BDSM/S&M subcultures.
He will be showing two ceramic pieces as well as paintings he created during an independent study with professor David Littell.
“I think a lot of these cultures get a lot of flack and receive poor thoughts,” Caulkins said. “I believe people are attracted to these things in search of identity and finding themselves. With these groups people feel more themselves and free.”
Zariah Martin, a fifth year graphic design major, will be showcasing digital renderings that focus on marketing and packaging since she herself is a graphic designer.
Junior Michael King Jr., majoring in drawing/painting, describes the theme of his mainly pen and ink work as “an ‘everything happening everywhere at once’ kind of vibe.”
Fifth year General Studies major Chelsey Katshor’s work follows a silk screen print and skeleton theme; it is a type of art she learned just last semester and she used her love of skeletons as inspiration.
“I am very proud of my ‘Infatuations’ piece,” Katshor said. “This is a silk screen print that has nine different layers. I spent so much of my freetime working on this project because I couldn’t wait to see the result.”
To curate an exhibition such as this, students had to coordinate and communicate not only among themselves, but also with the venue and the community.
Such work involved contacting venues to request them to host the exhibition, setting exhibition dates, creating flyers, preparing artwork, and more.
“The best part about the preparation for me was creating the flyers for the event as it showcased little sneak peeks of our upcoming works for the exhibition,” Martin said.
As far as working together, “there was a lot of cooperation involved,” Martin added. “Every Thursday we would all meet up to plan out things such as the name for the exhibition, who would contact publishers for info about our event and contact businesses that would let us hold our exhibition.”
This teamwork has meant a lot to King. “The fact I’m able to be a part of the show with my friends means more to me than words can express,” he stated. “It’s truly a blessing.”
For Katshor, finding out that the Saginaw Art Museum was willing to host the group’s exhibition has been her favorite part of this experience so far.
“The best part was when we heard back from the museum saying they were willing to host our exhibition and fit us into their schedule,” she said. “That was pretty surreal.”
For these artists, presenting their work at the Saginaw Art Museum is a great honor.
“This will be my first exhibition outside of SVSU’s campus and will be a key point in being a professional artist,” Caulkins said. “So I think me and the rest of us are a little nervous with a lot of excitement mixed in.”
“It is pretty incredible to be able to say that my artwork will be presented in a museum,” Katshor added, while King explained “It’s truly an honor in all honesty. Anytime I’m able to showcase my art to new people is always exciting. You never know what opportunities this kind of exposure may lead to.”
The exhibition will take place Wednesday, April 5 to Saturday, April 8 from 12-5p.m.
Visitors will have the opportunity to meet the artists at the opening reception on Friday, April 7 from 4p.m. to 5p.m. General admission to the exhibition is $7.00 while the rate for students and seniors is $5.00. Saginaw Art Museum members can get in for free.
While preparing the exhibition has required a lot of group work, Caulkins hopes that visitors will also recognize the individuality and expression of each artist.
“I invite everyone to look at each artist and see what they are doing, and what they are trying to share with them because at the end of it all our works are an extension of ourselves,” Caulkins said. “we put a lot of love and commitment into our works.”
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