Digital Montage | Gina Hamer

Digital montage © Gina Hamer 2016

Above Digital montage by Gina Hamer (2016), graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Liam Hudson, “Texts, Signs, Artefacts” in W.R. Crozier and A.J. Chapman, eds., Cognitive Processes in the Perception of Art. Elsevier 1984—

The arts in particular are seen [in our society] as peripheral, or—even worse—as “fun”; that is to say, as a simple emotional release that receives little professionally academic attention because it deserves none. Yet the briefest glance shows that poems, novels, paintings, photographs, plays, films of any quality are rarely fun, either for the artist or for the spectator; what is more, that they are at least as carefully poised, as subtly calculated in their effects, as any other genre of intellectual activity. Many take months, years, to put together, and at least as long to assimilate in any but a superficial way.

Iowa Insects | Roy Behrens and David Versluis

Iowa Insect Series © Roy Behrens and David Versluis c2012-13

South Suburban College’s Dorothea Thiel Gallery will host an exhibition of 10 large-scale digital montage images [see examples above and below] from the Iowa Insect Series, a collection of artworks created in collaboration between graphic design professors Roy R. Behrens and David M. Versluis.  The exhibit, Graphic Designers Collaborate: Attention to Detail, will be held in the Dorothea Thiel Gallery from April 1 to April 21, 2016.

The exhibit features digital montage collaborations created by Graphic Design professor Roy R. Behrens, University of Northern Iowa, and Art & Graphic Design professor David Versluis, Dordt College. Various artworks from the Iowa Insect Series have been exhibited in group shows at the Washington Pavilion Visual Art Center in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Nemeth Art Center in Park Rapids, Minnesota; University of Northern Iowa Gallery of Art in Cedar Falls, Iowa; and the 27th McNeese National Works on Paper Exhibition at McNeese State University Grand Gallery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This exhibit at South Suburban College is one of the first times that the collection Iowa Insect Series will be shown together.

Iowa Insect Series © Roy Behrens and David Versluis c2012-13

“The process of creating the collaborative images began in 2012 with me sending Roy scanned images of insects from my personal collection. One image at a time, we challenged each other to respond to each image, building a digital montage, using Adobe Photoshop®,” said Versluis. “We would then pass the image back and forth, responding to each other’s move.” The images were built with about five or six back and forth exchanges between Behrens & Versluis, until the two graphic designers mutually decided that the artwork was finished.

Professor Versluis will be at the college as visiting artist in the digital arts lab and Dorothea Thiel Gallery for a 1:00 p.m. reception on Thursday April 21st. The public is welcome to visit the art exhibition and reception at no charge. The Thiel Gallery is located on the 4th floor in the Art & Design hallway, Room 4333.  SSC Galleries are open at minimum Mondays through Thursdays from 9:00 am–6:00 pm, and Fridays from 9:00 am–4:00 pm. The galleries are closed on weekends and holidays. For more information, please call (708) 596-2000, ext. 2316, or visit www.ssc.edu/art. SSC is located at 15800 South State Street, South Holland, Illinois.

Iowa Insect Series © Roy Behrens and David Versluis c2012-13

Collections Poster | Maris Price

Poster © Maris Price 2016

Above and below Posters on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Maris Price (2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Mircea Eliade, Journal IV, 1979-1985 (University of Chicago Press, 1990)—

22 June 1979
At 7:30, at the Tacous’: reception for the marriage of their daughter, the beautiful Florence, to the son of Claude Mauriac. At 8:00, with G. Dumézil at the home of his son, the doctor. Splendid apartment. At dinner, Claude Lévi-Strauss—very charming toward me. But we didn’t talk much. Only in the taxi did I realize I’d taken Lévi-Strauss’s raincoat by mistake.

Poster © Maris Price 2016

Collections Poster | Rachel Bartholomay

Poster © Rachel Bartholomay 2016

Above Poster on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Rachel Bartholomay (2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Joseph Gerard Brennan in The American Scholar (Autumn 1978)—

[British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead] himself had moments when he was not quite sure where he had put things. One day in the early 1930s he had Professor James Melrose of Illinois to tea at the Whitehead cottage…It occurred to Whitehead that his guests might like to see the work in progress on a library addition to the house. So he led them outside, first carefully putting on Professor Melrose’s hat which he found in the coatroom closet and assumed was his own. After the excursion he returned the hat to the closet, but at tea’s end, when he and Mrs. Whitehead prepared to accompany the guests to their car, he went there once more for his hat. This time Melrose beat him to it and retrieved his lawful property. Whitehead reached up to the place where his visitor’s hat had been, made a little exclamation of surprise, then trotted some distance to a spot where his own hat hung on a hook. It was clear to his guests that the author of Process and Reality did not realize there were two hats, but believed that his own had in some unaccountable way changed its place.

Typographic Poster | Hastings Walsh

Poster © Hastings Walsh (2016)

Above Typographic poster (©2016) by Hastings Walsh, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh. New York: Dover Publications, 2004—

He [Ernest] was, however, very late in being able to sound a hard “c” or “k,” and, instead of saying “Come,” he said “Tum, tum, tum.”

“Ernest,” said Theobald, from the arm-chair in front of the fire, where he was sitting with his hands folded before him, “don’t you think it would be very nice if you were to say ‘come’ like other people, instead of ‘tum’?”

“I do say tum,” replied Ernest, meaning that he had said “come.”

Jared Rogness Exhibition at UNI Rod Library

Jared Rogness Exhibit Poster

From February 29 through April 4, 2016, selected works by an Iowa-born illustrator, and UNI Department of Art alum, Jared Rogness, will be on on display on the Learning Commons Exhibition Wall on the main floor in Rod Library at the University of Northern Iowa.

This exhibit both predates and coincides with RodCon 2016, the Rod Library’s annual mini comic con, which takes place on Saturday, April 2, from 10 am to 4 pm. Throughout the day, the various featured events include comics, crafts, games and a costume contest.

© Jared Rogness

Artist Jared Rogness is a storyboard artist and illustrator living in Los Angeles. He earned his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree at UNI in 2003. As a student he was a frequent contributor of outspoken political cartoons to The Northern Iowan (student newspaper) under the pen name e-Chicken.

He has illustrated short stories for magazines, produced motion picture storyboards, and created the graphic series "Green Street" for Little Village magazine. The works in the exhibition are a mix of selected components from a variety of his projects.

© Jared Rogness

Collections Poster | Heidi Schmidt

Poster © Heidi Schmidt 2016

Above Poster on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Heidi Schmidt (Spring 2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Anton Bilek, American Army soldier, interviewed in Studs Terkel, The Good War (New York: Pantheon, 1984)—

One time [during WWII, while interned in a Japanese prison camp, where he worked underground in a coal mine], at the end of the day, while I was waitin’ for the little train to take our shift out, I laid back against the rock wall, put my cap over my eyes, and tried to get some rest. The guy next to me says, “God damn, I wish I was back in Seattle.” I paid no attention. Guys were always talking about being back home. He said, “I  had a nice restaurant there and I lost it all.” I turned around and looked and it’s a Japanese [soldier]. He was one of the overseers. I was flabbergasted.

He said, “Now just don’t talk to me. I’ll do all the talkin’.” He’s talkin’ out of the side of his mouth. He says, “I was born and raised in Seattle, had a nice restaurant there. I brought my mother back to Japan. She’s real old and knew she was gonna die and she wanted to come home. The war broke out and I couldn’t get back to the States. They made me come down here and work in the coal mines.” I didn’t know what the hell to say to the guy. Finally the car come down and I says, “Well, see you in Seattle someday.” And I left. I never saw him after that.

National Park Posters | Allison Rolinger

Poster © Allison Rolinger 2016

Above and below A suite of three posters having to do with the national parks, designed and illustrated by graphic design student Allison Rolinger (Spring 2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Joseph Epstein, A Line Out for a Walk (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992)—

One of the things that college taught me was that I cannot be taught in the conventional manner. Autodidactically, I have to go about things in my own poky way, obliquely acquiring on my own such intellectual skills as I have, assembling such learning as I possess from my odd, unsystematic reading. Are there many such people as I? The inefficacy of teaching in his own life, if I may say so, is an unusual thing to have to admit on the part of a man who spends a good part of his own time teaching others. But there it is—or rather, there I am.

Poster © Allison Rolinger 2016

Poster © Allison Rolinger 2016