“It’s really exciting to see a piece exhibited because you spend a lot of time working with it, and you know all the mistakes you’ve made, but then to see it in a gallery elevates it to a good piece of artwork and all your hard work has paid off,” said Madison Chuhran, 21, who is double majoring in art and creative writing at Eastern Michigan University.
Chuhran, who was also featured in last year’s fibers exhibit, is one of the undergraduate artists on display for the Student Juried Art Exhibition showing at Ford Gallery until Feb. 12.
Her chosen work, entitled “Steampunk Journal,” is a metal piece made out of brass, found objects and leather and is one of three artistic books in the show. The other two include Hope Comella’s “Fairytale,” made from an old book, pattern paper, vellum and glue, and Julie Weber’s “Untitled” mixed media in the form of a black book.
“The piece was done for my intro class,” Chuhran said. “I was learning how to do rivet and it gave me an opportunity to work with found objects. I mostly work with fibers and soft objects, I am proud of this piece because I had to fight with it a little more.”
The Student Juried Art Exhibition was coordinated by the Intermedia Gallery Group (IGG), a student organization dedicated to the art community that involves presenting exhibits, happenings, activities and other art-based educational programming representing a wide range of media, cultures and ideas.
The IGG started in 1977, when a group of students decided they needed their own exhibition space and were given one in McKenney Union.
This organization currently has about twenty members and is headed by President Jessica Lind and Vice President Alexa Dietz.
The IGG sent out a call for applicants by putting up posters, sending out e-mails, making phone calls and asking professors to encourage their students to apply. After the application deadline, the IGG collects the work and puts it into a Powerpoint for the juror to select pieces for the exhibit.
This year the juror was Carolyn Putney, head curator at the Toledo Art Museum, who selected all the pieces for the show. The pieces chosen highlight the ten areas of concentration within the art department.
“Once the pieces are chosen it comes time to put them in the gallery, where volunteers help with installation and lighting.” Lind said.
The end result allows members of the EMU community to visit the gallery and look at what students in the art department have worked on.
Nina Little, 38, a junior transfer student at EMU who majors in social work, needed to pick a piece she found interesting for her ART 101 class.
She chose Megan Byrne’s work entitled “Please Reuse or Recycle,” a mixed media piece that looks like a raincoat fabricated from plastic bags and bottle caps.
“I really like the message and idea,” Little said. “Knowing what you can do with such simple things. I really think that is creative. It makes me think more about what we can do with bags, recycling and the things we throw out.”
The exhibit pulls together many different communities at Eastern, whether it is the undergraduate students who apply to be in the show, the IGG or fellow students relating to what is on display.
“There is artwork that follows traditional structure, but there are also a lot of nontraditional items,” Chuhran said. “It’s a good reflection of the different levels of the art department and how we are not constrained to making what we feel should be in a gallery.”
