Emporia State Visiting Artist Lecture

Emporia State University, March 2004 (photo by Eric Conrad)

At the end of February, I visited Emporia State at the invitation of my dear friend, Eric Conrad. I first spoke here in 2004 and was happy to return to present the Stalking Artist: In Pursuit of Home series and visit students in a digital photography course. Here are some random images from the visit:

Emporia State: Where Art Departments are Tornado Shelters.

If only I had a story to tell on these rotating chalkboards.

Ever since starting the Art Department series, I am fascinated with taking quick snapshots of other classrooms in the pedagogical environment. Here is one from the Art Ed classroom....

... and jewelry display case.

The view from Eric's old (non Chair of the Art Department) office and poster advertising his Ball State University visiting artist talk.

A small detail in Yoonmi Nam's Lawrence, Kansas studio featuring one of Eric's sculptures with a cast on her arm.

Emporia State University, February 2015 (photo by Eric Conrad) - we couldn't find the pointer from eleven years ago so chalk was used instead.

Installation Weekend

Here are a few details from yesterday's installation (= me sneaking around photographing holes and zippers).

(Portrait of an artist with his cat and horse)

Eric Conrad

Today is my friend Eric's birthday. He is also an object maker (and a painter, drawer, trickster, snow camper, and marvelous maker of anything ranging from waterproof jackets to loincloths). I've been thinking a lot about visiting him and his wife Yoonmi in Kansas soon. They aren't that far away but sometimes they feel like they really are. In my quest to make distance shorter & to feel slightly closer, this blog post will have to do.

From Eric's artist statement: "Figures, part-beast and part-human, struggle to regain a sense of identity, support and control within sensual, exuberant, violent, and/or co-dependent relationships.  The works often contain narratives that deal with a coming to terms with past actions taken or current events not easily forgotten.  Heaps of figures are mixed-up, entangled, disfigured and forced into co-dependent communities, fragile structures where there is potential for reconciliation and collapse."

Anthropomorphology, 120" x 48" x 96"

 

Horse Head, 15" x 15" x 15"

Last Night 2, 30" x 39"

Last Night 2, Detail

This drawing is from a collaboration entitled Yesnomaybe with Eric Conrad, Yoonmi Nam & Kristi Arnold.