“We walk the walk, we don’t just talk the talk,” said art professor David Newton about the faculty art exhibit. At the exhibit’s opening on Oct.2, a handful of professors proved that teaching includes more than just leading classes and grading papers.
The exhibit featured the works of Art Department faculty members Adele Wayman, Roy Nydorf, David Newton, Charlie Tefft, Maia Dery, Todd Drake and James C. McMillan. The artists represented a broad array of media including photography, painting, ceramics, metal working and carving.
The biennial faculty art show is important to students and staff.
“I like to talk to my students about the path that I am taking and show them the results,” said Tefft. “I like to show them what being a productive artist is.”
The professors definitely walked the artist’s walk in this show.
Dery chose to show a number of black and white photographs that captured the subject of water in nature.
Wayman continued the nature imagery in her series of oil paintings of trees and wooded areas juxtaposed with images of buildings and cities. She also showed several collages, created by sewing together scraps of tawny paper, beads, and feathers.
“It was interesting to see the underlying similarities in faculty concerns,” Wayman said. “If you look at it, many of the works are about nature.”
Nature certainly inspired Tefft’s ceramics. While working on the pieces he exhibited, he became very aware of the connection of humans and nature. His works reflect this thought process.
Images of coyotes, darting fish, nests and wren feathers appear throughout Tefft’s teacups, saucers, pitchers and bowls. He also displayed a series of bowls glazed to mirror a river bottom. I could almost feel the cool sand under my feet and water trickling over my toes just looking at the series.
Newton, new to Guilford this year, chose some very interesting and starkly different works for the show.
“I wanted variety so that students could think of some options for their own work,” Newton said. His colorful sculptures, carved from giant pieces of wood, invited guests to sit and interact with the art. He also sought viewer participation with a windmill-like sculpture, displayed with a sign encouraging people to pour salt into its arm-like appendages and watch it turn slowly.
McMillan showed three paintings. One striking painting focused on Greensboro. Though steeped in the history of racial division and student protest, it expresses the building of a new foundation.
Nydorf showed two series of images. The first focused on butterflies and moths. The colors, words, and arrangement of the eight images invited comparison between the works. His second series depicted bathers and reminded me, in a kind of deranged way, of the Garden of Eden.
Adjacent to Nydorf’s bathers was Drake’s huge abstract painting whose power lay in its size and its colors.
“Everyone should go and see the show,” said senior art major Ansely Collins. “The variety of media and craft really impressed me.”
Plenty of students, faculty, and community members turned up for the opening. The gallery was packed.
“There were a lot of people, which is really ideal,” said Newton. “It feels really exciting.”The exhibit will be displayed in the Hege Library Gallery until Dec. 12 and will feature a series of luncheons held with the artists.