Department of Art News

Artist Bill Dunlap (left) and TV producer Sam Haskell III (center) watch as colleague and friend W. Ralph Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress, speaks to an audience at Mississippi State University. (Photo by Megan Bean)

As the first artist in residence at Mississippi State, Bill Dunlap has set the bar high – interacting with the community, students and faculty and bringing in numerous colleagues to teach workshops and lectures and to interact with students.

“We are just so fortunate that he’s bringing that experience and culture to campus,” said Lydia Thompson, head of the Art Department, when introducing Dunlap at one of his final events as artist in residence.

While in graduate school, Dunlap said he was touched by some visiting artists who told him there was life in the arts after the university. So, he decided to wrap up his residency by sharing that experience with the help of two friends – W. Ralph Eubanks and Sam Haskell III.

Eubanks, director of publishing at the Library of Congress, credited his success with networking and connections early on, and he extended that offer to the audience.

“Someone helped me; I want to help you guys as well,” he said.

Eubanks went on to explain that in his position, he works to develop books based on collections at the library.

“I take them; I make stories about them; and I try to make sense of them,” he said. “I’m a storyteller.”

He credits his Mississippi roots for helping him tell his stories, explaining that storytelling is a huge part of Mississippi’s culture.

Haskell has also credits his Mississippi roots in helping him fulfill his childhood dream of working in television, and he is now the worldwide head of television.

“When you think about a life in the arts, when you think about just enjoying the arts … you have to think about dreams,” said Haskell, who said he dreamed as a child of working in television and would walk around his small town of Amory with a TV guide in hand, telling people what was coming on television that night.

Haskell then told the story that changed his life and made him believe his dreams could come true. He explained how he saw a Procter & Gamble commercial when he was nine that said the “Cheer man” would be visiting towns across America and would give $10 to anyone who could show proof they used Cheer detergent.

“Well, I was absolutely sure that he was coming to Amory, Mississippi,” said Haskell, who – much to the ridicule of friends and family – painted a giant Cheer box on a sign to display in his yard.

A year later, the Friday before Labor Day in 1965, the Cheer man did show up, and Haskell was given his $10. He learned that every registered voter in every county across the country was put into a computer system that chose two addresses at random. Haskell’s house happened to be one of the two chosen in Monroe County.

After that, “I learned at a very young age what blind faith was … the blind faith about having a dream and working hard for that dream.” Haskell said, “The Cheer man has come for me many times since, and the Cheer man can come for you, too, you just have to have the capacity to dream.”

The guest speakers then took some time to answer a few questions about their ‘lives in the arts’ and how they achieved their dreams.

Click below to watch video clips:
W. Ralph Eubanks
Sam Haskell III
Sam Haskell III (part 2)
panel

For more information about the artist-in-residency program, contact the MSU Art Department at 662-325-2202.

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Richard A. Lou presented a lecture on March 7 before the reception for his Stories on My Back exhibition.

Lou discussed themes that are found in his work, such as questioning his identity and questioning photographs’ claim to reality through storytelling. He also discussed the idea of collaboration and how artists often serve as “citizen diplomats.”

Lou, who is half Chinese and half Mexican, discussed how he questioned his identity growing up and how he would cross the border from Mexico to the United States for school every day with his father from age six until age nine.

Many of Lou’s works, including his current exhibit at MSU, are site-specific. “The Border Door – 1988” is work that Lou did along the U.S./Mexican border. For the work, the artist created a door and handed out keys for people to use his border door.

Another series, “Border Sutures,” involved a group of artists crossing the border in various locations and installing steel “staples” to ‘put the nations back together.’

For “Headlines – 1992,” Lou shaved his head once a month and invited different artists of color to create text or drawings on his head. The images would last 7-10 days, thanks to Lou’s sleeping on his stomach and wearing a bathing cap for showers. The artist said he wanted to “not be able to divorce myself from my work,” and he definitely got his wish. The artwork on his head was with him at the grocery store, when he picked his children up from school and wherever he went. Lou said people often stereotyped him and were scared of him until they started a conversation and learned about his project. The artist plans to start this project again soon for the 21^st anniversary.

Lou wrapped up the lecture by again referring to the idea of artists as “citizen diplomats.” He said he enjoys what he does because his work is important to his conscience and represents issues that are important to him.

Watch some video from the lecture:
Video 1 (Lou discusses some of his early border projects.)
Video 2 (Lou discusses his “Headlines” project, where he invited artists to create works of art on his head.)
Video 3 (Lou discusses how he used humor for a project that served as a way to discuss who has the power to define culture.)

The Department of Art, College of Architecture, Art and Design and Mississippi State University is proud to host a series of presentations, “A Life in the Arts,” that will explore what it means to have a life in the arts. Guest speakers will discuss aspects of their careers in fine arts, publishing, design, television media and creative writing.

March 25
4:30pm
Giles Hall, Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium
William Dunlap – Artist
W. Ralph Eubanks – Author
Sam Haskell III – Television producer and author

More about the presenters:
William Dunlap:
William Dunlap is a nationally recognized artist born in Mississippi. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1967 from Mississippi College in Clinton, worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Mississippi from 1967 to 1969, and earned a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Mississippi in 1969. In 1985 he won the Mississippi Arts and Letters, Visual Arts Award and since has had numerous exhibits of his work around the state. His paintings, sculpture and constructions are included in prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Lauren Rogers Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, IBM Corporation, Federal Express, Arkansas Art Center, and United State Embassies throughout the world.

W. Ralph Eubanks:
W. Ralph Eubanks is the author of Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi’s Dark Past (Basic Books), which Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. He has contributed articles to the Washington Post Outlook and Style sections, the Chicago Tribune, Preservation and National Public Radio. A graduate of the University of Mississippi (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A., English Language and Literature), he is a recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and has been a fellow at the New America Foundation. Ralph lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and three children and is director of publishing at the Library of Congress.

Ralph’s most recent book, The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South, was released May 19, 2009, by the Harper imprint at HarperCollins.

Sam Haskell III:
In 2007 Television Week Magazine named Sam Haskell III “One of the 25 Most Innovative and Influential People in Television of the Last 25 Years.” Haskell earned his ranking among the industry’s best through his 26-year career at the renowned William Morris Agency where he was one of the most powerful agents and dealmakers in the business.

Originally from Amory, Haskell graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1977. Haskell worked in Los Angeles for William Morris Agency first as an agent in the TV Variety Department then as senior vice president, after which he was promoted to West Coast Head of Television. In 1997 he was named executive vice president and a member of the WMA Board of Directors, and, in 1999, he was appointed to the position of Worldwide Head of Television.

Prior to Haskell’s retirement from WMA in late 2004, his clients included: Bill Cosby, Kathie Lee Gifford, Ray Romano, Whoopi Goldberg, Dolly Parton, George Clooney, Sela Ward, Martin Short, Kirstie Alley, Tony Danza, Sean Hayes, Michael Feinstein, Lily Tomlin, Lucie Arnaz and His Royal Highness The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

Haskell is also known for his role as executive producer of “Mississippi Rising,” a three-hour, MSNBC special hosted by Morgan Freeman, which raised over $30 million for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. As Chairman of the Mary Kirkpatrick Haskell Scholarship Foundation, Mr. Haskell’s biennial “Stars Over Mississippi” benefit concerts in Amory have raised millions of dollars in college scholarship funds for Mississippi youngsters in need of financial assistance to further their education. In addition, Mr. Haskell serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Miss America Organization and Executive Producer of the Miss America Pageant telecasts.

Haskell’s discusses is journey from a small town Mississippi boy through his days in Hollywood in his nationally-bestselling memoir, Promises I Made My Mother, in which he attributes his success to the lessons he learned from his mother at an early age – lessons such as faith, hope and character.

Check out the story by Margaret Kovar with MSU University Relations!

Artist Wyatt Waters paints fellow artist and friend Bill Dunlap. (Photo by Whitten Sabbatini)

Photo by Whitten Sabbatini

Faculty from the Department of Art stand with Wyatt Waters and Bill Dunlap after the workshop.

By Margaret Kovar | University Relations

STARKVILLE, Miss.–Mississippi watercolor painter Wyatt Waters demonstrated his techniques and discussed his life as an artist during a free event at Mississippi State Thursday.

Sponsored by the MSU Artist-in-Residency program featuring William “Bill” Dunlap, Waters shared stories, musings and techniques with an audience that included students, faculty, staff and members of the community.

Waters brought copies of many of his watercolors and gave insight into his painting style while painting a portrait of Dunlap.

Waters said that for him, the real appeal of art is connecting with one person.

“You do this for yourself, but you do it to connect with people too. And you have to have a generosity of spirit,” he said. “You have to connect with people somehow and sometimes its strange ways that makes those connections.”

The Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson and the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel have hosted solo shows of Waters’ work and two books of his paintings have been published. He is currently represented by Gallery 119 in Jackson and Southside Gallery in Oxford.

The artist is a past president and signature member of the Mississippi Watercolor society and his work has been featured in numerous magazine articles including American Artists Special Watercolor Issues, Art and Antiques, and Mississippi Magazine.

Waters studied painting and drawing at Mississippi College in Clinton, receiving his bachelor’s degree in art with a minor in English and later a Master of Fine Arts.

The university’s art department recently established the artist-in-residence program to enhance its mission of preparing students for careers or advanced studies. The program emphasizes studio practice, liberal arts, visual language and exposure to regional, national and international artists.

For more information about the artist-in-residency program, contact the MSU art department at 662-325-2202.

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Wyatt Waters | via www.wyattwaters.com gallery

Watercolor painter Wyatt Waters will conduct a demonstration of his techniques and a discussion about his life as an artist on Thursday, Feb. 21.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will begin at noon in Freeman Hall, room 225.

This program is sponsored by the The MSU Artist in Residency Program featuring Bill Dunlap.

Bill Dunlap in his studio in McLean, Va. (Photo by Linda Burgess)

William Dunlap: Look At It – Think About It
What: Art Gallery Exhibit
When: Feb. 21 – April 5, 2013
Where: Cullis Wade Depot Gallery, Mississippi State University Welcome Center
Event Programs:
- Public Opening Reception and Artist Book Signing – Feb. 21, 5:30-7:30 p.m.
- Gallery Talk with Bill Dunlap – Feb. 26, 11 a.m.
All events are free and open to the public.

(By Lori Neuenfeldt:)
Something very exciting is happening this spring in the Mississippi State University Department of Art. For the first time ever, the Department of Art has a visiting artist in residence. And it’s not just any artist living in Starkville and working in the Department of Art facilities at MSU; it is none other than Mississippi native and nationally recognized artist William “Bill” Dunlap.

Dunlap has a strong connection to Mississippi, where he was born and attended high school. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1967 from Mississippi College in Clinton, worked as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Mississippi from 1967 to 1969 and earned a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Mississippi in 1969. In 1985, he won the Mississippi Arts and Letters, Visual Arts Award and since has had numerous exhibits of his work around the state. His paintings, sculpture and constructions are included in prestigious collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Lauren Rogers Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, IBM Corporation, Federal Express, Arkansas Art Center and United State Embassies throughout the world.

While he is visiting, the artist will take advantage of the Department of Art’s studio spaces to work with ceramics, sculpture and printmaking. Students in the Department of Art will get to work alongside Dunlap and experience his creative process. Students will also get a few helpful tips on having a career making art, or as Dunlap calls it “a life in the arts – people who have gone out and amounted to something.” According to Lydia Thompson, department head for art, the Artist-In-Residence program supports the department’s mission of preparing students for a career or for advanced study in the field of art through studio practice, liberal arts, visual language and exposure to regional, national and international artists.

Along with working on campus, Dunlap will have an exhibit of his paintings and constructions up at the Cullis Wade Depot Gallery on the second floor of the MSU Welcome Center. The exhibition, Look At It – Think About It, will open Feb. 21 and run until April 5, 2013. An opening reception will be held on Feb. 21 at 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the gallery. The public is invited to this free event where the artist will be present talking about his work and signing copies of the book Dunlap. A complete catalog of Dunlap’s works that can be purchased at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore on MSU’s campus.

Dunlap is immersing himself in the arts’ scene at MSU and in Starkville. Some of the events the Department of Art will host are free gallery talks with the artist, where visitors will experience the work through a guided discussion with Dunlap. The first scheduled talk with Dunlap is Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 11 a.m. in the Cullis Wade Depot Gallery. “What I want to do is engage people on an aesthetic and personal level and give them something to contemplate,” the artist said.

Look At It – Think About It showcases several of Dunlap’s paintings and constructions from a twenty-four-year period from 1971 to 1995. The show is the inaugural exhibit at the Cullis Wade Depot Gallery, which officially became part of the MSU Department of Art Galleries this past fall 2012. It is the first of many important exhibits that the Department of Art will organize and bring to the MSU and Starkville community.

As he thinks about the time he will spend in Starkville, Dunlap notes, “It’s going to be one interaction after another. If I make some work, get to know some people and have some influence on the students and community, it will be a success.”

For more information about the exhibition and free events offered by the Department of Art, contact Lori Neuenfeldt, Coordinator for the Visual Arts Center Gallery at 662-325-2973, or email lneuenfeldt@caad.msstate.edu. All events will also be posted on the Department of Art’s facebook page.

The exhibition and its programming are made possible by the MSU College of Architecture, Art and Design, Department of Art and a 2012-2013 Starkville Area Arts Council Art Grant.

Genesis of the Art Wars, 1990. Slate, oil paint on stretched paper, paint, snake, nest, arrows, palette. Collection of the artist.

Professor Brent Funderburk presents “Walter Anderson: A World Vision of Art and Nature.” (Photo by Beth Wynn | MSU University Relations)

The Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium in Giles Hall was filled on Thursday (Jan. 24) for a lecture presented by Professor Brent Funderburk, “Walter Anderson: A World Vision of Art and Nature.”

Walter Anderson’s youngest son John, a friend of Funderburk, was present for the lecture, which was meant to introduce the MSU community to the works and life of the artist Walter Anderson.

John Anderson was also visiting the campus to work on discussions to establish a Walter Anderson Center at Mississippi State, which would make his father’s works accessible to not just the MSU community but to scholars, artists and others worldwide.

Funderburk, a professor in the Department of Art at MSU who has spent years researching and focusing his classes toward Walter Anderson, walked the audience through the artist’s life history and paintings.

Funderburk said Walter Anderson, throughout his life, was searching for the answer of “What is art and my place in it?”

After a lifelong struggle to find the meaning – from art training in Philadelphia, Penn., New York and Europe, to a battle with depression that nearly killed him – Funderburk believes Anderson found his meaning of art. Along the way, Anderson discovered that when two different languages meet, they produce a third thing, a miracle, and he believed art could be that miracle.

Walter Anderson took some early advice from his mother to heart – to not show his work until he went as far as he can. After his death from lung cancer in 1962, Anderson’s family uncovered a mural, hidden in his cottage in Ocean Springs, Miss. In the cottage was also a wooden box that contained 85 log accounts of Anderson’s journey to discover the meaning of art and 2,000 neatly stacked watercolors.

“The box has been opened,” said Funderburk. “I believe with all of my heart that nothing could stop him and that they were meant to be seen.”

John Anderson (back, right), Walter Anderson’s youngest son, attended the lecture.

On January 16, the four new faculty members in the Department of Art participated in a panel discussion moderated by Dr. Ben Harvey. Adrienne Callander, Neil Callander, Gregory Martin and Suzanne Powney each briefly discussed their work before the floor was opened up for questions. According to Lori Neuenfeldt, programs coordinator for the Visual Arts Center Gallery, the panel was set up as a way for students and current faculty to meet the new faculty and learn about their work.

Harvey said he has had a chance to view his new colleagues’ work in the gallery in McComas Hall, which will be up until February 23.

“We are lucky to have this kind of talent in Starkville,” he said, before introducing the first new faculty member, Adrienne Callander.

Adrienne Callander
Callander holds a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University and is the Department of Art’s most recent hire as a lecturer in 2D Design and Art Appreciation. She described her current body of work, “Ball Series,” to involve a conversation with the people she receives the materials from.

“I remember how it all began,” she said. She first got the idea for this while in graduate school at Rutgers. When observing a painting of a sweater, she thought about how it was really a 3D drawing and, “in theory, you should be able to deconstruct it,” she said.

Now, 21 deconstructed sweaters later, Callander joked, “If you bring me a sweater, I’ll add it.”

Callander even deconstructed a friend’s entire sea foam halter wedding dress.

“That was complicated because this was something of great value to her; I didn’t want to disappoint her,” she said. “The piece itself is an action. I received the dress. I altered it, and I’m going to send it back to her.”

Other pieces in Callander’s “Ball Series” include a piece that honors her father, who passed away in 2007, and a piece she explained to be her conversation with painting ­– her mother was a painter, and she is married to a painter.

Neil Callander
Next, Callander’s “painter” husband, Neil Callander, was introduced. Neil Callander also holds an MFA from Rutgers University and is the Foundations Coordinator for the Department of Art. His current body of work revolves around a fictional character, “Dusty,” as imagined by his now-six-year-old son when he was two.

The paintings are done from direct observation in his studio. Neil Callander said he is unapologetically still life painting.

He said if you remove the cliché fruits and vases from still life and think about “what’s possible when you set up anything in the world and freeze it, I don’t see it as boring at all but full of potential.”

Neil Callander tries to set up items in the studio quickly, so they look like they are pulled from someone’s life.

“They exist naturally in the world of Dusty, and I recreate them in the studio.”

The artist described his paintings to be like “choose-your-own-adventure books” in that “you can go back to them, and they constantly reveal themselves in different ways.” He showed a zoomed-in image of one of his paintings to further illustrate this thought, and explained that perceptions may change based on one’s mood, the time of day and/or the lighting.

Neil Callander ended his lecture by telling about how a colleague once reacted to one of his paintings by telling him it made her want to throw up.

“I took it as one of the best compliments that I could imagine – that a painting could have that sort of reaction!”

Gregory Martin
Gregory Martin said Neil Callander’s work hasn’t had that kind of reaction, yet, for him.

“But I’ll give it a chance and see how it goes,” he joked.

Martin, who was born and raised in southern California, recently drove 2,000 miles from Venice, Calif., to start a position as assistant professor of Drawing and Design at MSU. He holds an MFA from Claremont Graduate School.

“The disconnect and relationship between people’s ideals and the reality they live” is a major theme in his work.

Martin described some more of the influences place has had on his work and encouraged everyone to go to the gallery to see the work. He said artists often have a hard time in the spotlight, talking about their work.

“We sort of want the attention to be on that neat thing we made,” he laughed.

Martin said he was attracted to MSU by the fairly large pool of faculty doing good work, and he hopes to build on that while he is here.

Suzanne Powney
Suzanne Powney has been a graphic designer since 1995 but said she discovered the world of letterpress when she got frustrated with the lack of texture in graphic design.

“It has become a part of me; it feeds my soul,” the professor of Letterpress, Graphic Design and Advertising with an MFA from the University of Houston said.

Powney’s work in the exhibit includes three books resting on tables that float. She said she wanted to create an intimate space where visitors could engage with the work on a very intimate level. In fact, all Powney’s books are meant to be touched, and she hopes visitors will interact with them.

“Poke” consists of a series of circles. Powney said people are supposed to use a stylus to poke through to see where the paper gives, and eventually words will emerge from the pattern.

“Stroke” is a series of words and graphics, “thousands of dots referring to thousands of neurons – how we physically observe the idea of touch.”

Powney said “Trace” requires interaction to find what the message is.

The overall theme in her work is “how touch is important to who we are as humans.”

“I’m hoping this feeds you with some thoughts,” she said.

Questions
Harvey and the audience next had a chance to ask the artists several questions about their work and connections between their work.

The artists will all be present at the opening reception of the exhibit, New Associations, on Jan. 24 from 5:30–7:30 in the Department of Art Gallery in McComas Hall, to answer more questions.

“Walter Anderson: A World Vision of Art and Nature”
An illustrated lecture by Professor Brent Funderburk
3:30 p.m., Jan. 24, 2013
Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium, Giles Hall

Brent Funderburk, a faculty member in Art at Mississippi State University since 1982, has pursued Walter Inglis Anderson through lecturing about him, curating exhibitions of his artwork and dedicating courses to his vision for 30 years.

Funderburk’s lectures and exhibitions have taken him to many universities and museums, while his MSU classes – “Encounters,” “Sea- Earth- Sky” and various watercolor courses – have taken art and natural science students into the world of New Orleans-born/Mississippi-based Anderson. In order to better realize the renaissance perspective of Anderson’s philosophy and to help develop their own, Funderburk and his students dove into Anderson’s works – from Horn Island in the Gulf of Mexico, to nature’s forms, close and far.

Funderburk’s talk “Walter Anderson: A World Vision of Art and Nature” will present the lifelong, creative investment of the artist, naturalist and writer Anderson. Funderburk will discuss why and how Anderson created thousands of images – some purposefully reproducible for the identity of the greater local world and community – and others more carefully crafted, selected and hidden from view. The images revealed show a plan to replenish a culture bent on nuclear destruction, and those hidden might offer cross-millennial (and cross-cultural) “inside” communication from artist/sage to artist/sage, as vanguards in the movement.

Walter Anderson’s two bodies of work, one “tribal” and one “virtuosic,” report  a one-man campaign to save mankind (as well as himself!) and his natural environment through the power of art.

Did Anderson succeed in his world transforming plan? Funderburk believes that he did, and will attempt to prove it though a guided trek through hundreds of Anderson’s jewel-like watercolors, lightning lined drawings and myriad decorative objects.

Artist Richard A. Lou works on the installation of his exhibit at the Department of Art’s woodshop in Howell Building. Lou’s exhibition is site-specific, meaning it is different every time it is installed, having to fit in a new space with different dimensions.

By Lori Neuenfeldt, Programs Coordinator for the Visual Arts Center Gallery and Outreach Programs

The Mississippi State University College of Architecture, Art and Design and the Department of Art is proud to bring the work of artist Richard A. Lou to the MSU Visual Arts Center (VAC) Gallery on University Drive.

Stories on My Back is a three-dimensional, multi-media installation that combines photography, found object and sound. With his work, Lou questions and initiates discussions about race and celebrates the multicultural background that the world shares. To do this, Lou oftentimes references his own Chinese and Hispanic heritage as a visual way to introduce the viewer to ideas of cultural identity. Lou constructs spaces that are meant to evoke ceremonial places where familial stories of loss, migration, assimilation, power, and love are told and shared. The artist uses the power of storytelling as a means to connect with visitors. As audience members walk through the installations they hear recorded stories of tales passed down from the artist’s own family, spanning four generations.

In an interview with Guisela Latorre for an article in the 2012 American Studies Journal, Border Consciousness and Artivist Aesthetics: Richard Lou’s Performance and Multimedia Artwork, Lou said, “I always talk about stories. I come from that background. My father was a wonderful storyteller, and my mother is a wonderful storyteller. In actuality that is how I entered into the visual arts, it was from writing because I was interested in writing before I became interested in the visual arts.”

Text and word are both important to Lou’s work. Images of Lou’s family are throughout the installation of Stories on My Back. One of the images, titled Magda, is Lou’s daughter juggling small stones, each imprinted with a single word – “Chinese,” “the,” “grind,” “would” and “Pebbles.”  These stones reference the story of Lou’s father who practiced speaking English with pebbles in his mouth. Another visual reference to Lou’s Chinese heritage that is significant to the installation is the color red. Red is the Chinese symbol for good fortune. Red also recalls bloodlines – the essence that ties generations of families together.

Versions of Stories on My Back have exhibited at the University of Mississippi and Georgia College & State University. What makes the installation of the piece unique is that it is site-specific, meaning it is different every time it is installed, having to fit in a new space with different dimensions. The VAC Gallery installation of Stories on My Back will be extremely unique because the piece will fit into four different gallery rooms.

MSU photography alumni April Wallace, left, and Candace Hitt help Richard A. Lou with the installation of his exhibit. Hitt received her MFA from the University of Memphis and studied under Lou.

Richard A. Lou is Professor of Photography and Chair of the Department of Art at the University of Memphis. Lou’s career includes work as a curator and essayist and he has worked with groups as the Border Art Workshop and the Georgia Council for the Arts. Lou received his BA in Fine Art from California State University at Fullerton and his MFA in Fine Art from Clemson University.

Stories On My Back will be on display January 15 to March 23, 2013 at the Visual Arts Center (VAC) Gallery, 808 University Drive, Starkville, Mississippi.

The artist, Richard A. Lou will be speaking to the public about his work on March 7, at 3 p.m. in the Robert and Freda Harrison Auditorium in Giles Hall.

A gallery reception will also be held Thursday, March 7 from 6:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. at the VAC Gallery. Both events are free and open to the public. For more information call 662-325-2973.