Multimedia Art Advocacy

Through this interdisciplinary project, students from the Sculpture, Graphic Design, and Music departments will generate one multifunctional art work that personifies a percussion instrument and can take the role of a sculpture. Graphic artist will assist with computerized abstracts to help with construction and lecture/demonstrations. Musicians will play the sculpture as a percussion instrument and visual artists will present it as a sculpture. Each student will participate in every phase of development including design, sculpting, and musical composition. Developing the skill to collaborate with artists of other disciplines will build more opportunities for education and employment as well as enlarge audiences. The completed work will reach out to students through musical performance and visual aesthetics.
Kevin Estes, Music Performance
Peter Soroka, Music Performance
Brittany Shade, Sculpture + Extended Media
John Labra, Graphic Design
Award: $2,500
Faculty Mentors:
Robert Carter, Graphic Design
Kris Keeton, Music
Brian Jones, Music

Magnetic/Jewelry

This Craft-Sculpture team will attend the 2009 Magnetic Conference to learn more about magnetic and diamagnetic metals like bismuth and ferrofluid. Interested in how people fidget with their objects of adornment (rings, necklaces, opening lockets, braiding hair) they will create magnetic and scientific wearable art that the viewer can play with on and off the body.They also plan to integrate glass, metal and fibers into their designs and showcase the series as interactive sculptural pieces on and off the body.

Mary E. S. Cox, Craft/Material Studies
Jessica N. Price, Sculpture + Extended Media
Award: $2,900
Faculty Mentor: Susie Ganch, Craft/Material Studies

Resurrection of Haute Couture in America

The project team will further practice and expand their knowledge of the Modaris program while creating a line of nine individual looks of women’s Haute Couture clothing. This practice of paying high attention to detail in the construction, embellishment, and fit of a garment has died in the American fashion industry. Haute couture embodies the highest quality of craftsmanship, fabrics, seam finishes, and incorporates details such as embroidery, beading, feather work, braiding, et cetera. It is the art of fashion at its best. If selected by the jury, the final collection would be showcased in the VCU fashion show as well and the independent senior fashion show.

Amy Galles, Fashion Design
Carole L. Jones, Fashion Design
Tonya Mixon, Fashion Design
Award: $2,489
Faculty Mentor: Holly Alford, Fashion Design & Merchandising

Identity: Richmond

Counter culture is the swift current that moves beneath social experience. For the past two years Sera Tabb and Jon Headlee have challenged themselves to bring this growing phenomenon to a broader audience. From Lucha Libre wrestlers, to fire throwers, to drag queens and many social groups beyond, the Identity: Richmond documentary project has successfully documented Richmond counter cultures actively engaging in the creation of alternative identity. Identity: Richmond is the continuation of a project previously titled “Identity Formation in Urban Environments.”

Eden Papineau, Communication Arts
Adam Parker, Communication Arts
Christina Huther, Communication Arts
Mike Ng, VCU Brandcenter
Jon Headlee, Psychology, Philosophy, Religious Studies, minor in Creative Writing
Sera Tabb, B.F.A Communications Arts, B.A. English
Award: $3,000
Faculty Mentor: Robert Meganck, Communication Arts

New Zealand Bound: World of Wearable Art

This team will create a spectacular garment that will incorporate their specific mediums: fashion and sculpture. Together they will design, sketch, create and submit their design to the “World of Wearable Art” the world’s largest wearable art fashion show held annually in New Zealand. If accepted, they will travel to New Zealand to participate in the two opening nights of the show in September 2009.Together they won Richmond’s tenth annual Wearable Art fashion show and opened the SEAMLESS: Computational Couture fashion show in Boston, MA.

Grace D. Johnston, Sculpture + Extended Media
Melanie J. Hearn, Fashion Design
Award: $3,000
Faculty Mentor: Henry Swartz, Fashion Design & Merchandising

“Rising to the Top: ‘Palladian’ Windows on Richmond Rooftops”

“Palladian window” – an expensive feature used to light grand spaces -- migrated upstairs to become a common feature of American attics (1890-present). VCU not only owns the earliest Richmond example (at Ginter House, 1888-92) but also boasts13 other historic buildings with this motif. Studying how the influence of these windows traveled widely into the Fan can open up the national story. The first part will summarize findings; the second will provide a catalogue of attic Palladian windows in the Fan, with illustrations of the most significant ones.

Allison L. Frew, Art History
Award: $1,800
Faculty Mentor:
Charles Brownell, Art History

Scent Markings: Enfleurage and Intaglio

Investigation of scent by participating in the process of extracting essential oils from gathered natural materials and responding to findings using intaglio as a medium. The choice of intaglio as a medium is due to the similarity between the copper plate and scent in their abilities to hold a sense of memory and history. The opportunity to work with two different scent capturing processes (steam-distillation and enfleurage) will allow the scent to be experienced on a deeper level and with a strong spirit of exploration that will inform a coherent body of work in intaglio. The intended result of this research project will be an exhibition, in the VCU Student Gallery, composed of scent response prints in intaglio as well as an installation of my bottled extractions.

Caitlin Shields, Art Education major and Painting and Printmaking Minor
Award: $1,000
Faculty Mentor: Brooke Inman, Painting and Printmaking

Mobile Gallery Investigation in Contemporary Art Fairs

The participants will examine the function of a conceptual mobile gallery within a contemporary art fair setting. They propose to take their miniature mobile gallery, WORN Gallery (worngallery.blogspot.com), to New York and participate in one of the yearly contemporary art fairs [Armory Show, Pulse NY, Affordable Art Fair]. Most galleries participating in international art fairs are exhibited from stationary booths, but as a traveling gallery affixed to gallery members, they propose to become a new form of gallery participant as well as spectator, learning about new and upcoming artists. This project will get participants involved in research, collaborative planning, creating presentations for fair administrators, designing exhibition materials, exchanging ideas with other artists, and learning how to maintain professionalism in the contemporary art market.

Diana Cavanaugh, Sculpture + Extended Media and Painting and Printmaking
Cara Frye, Communication Arts
Derek Cavanaugh, Communication Arts
Alexa Lester-Frazier, Sculpture and Painting
Joseph Whitfield, Sculpture + Extended Media
Award: $2,500
Faculty Mentor: Carlton Newton, Sculpture + Extended Media


Dean's International Study Grant

Each year, students are encouraged to apply for funding to support individual research projects that occur outside the United States. The recent winners will study photography in Paris, glassmaking in Murano, Italy, wood sculpture techniques in Uruguay, Peruvian textile techniques, Japanese culture and opera activities in Rome. Last year VCUarts awarded over $30,000.00 in these grants.

2008-09 Dean's International Study Grant Recipients:

Jessica Ferey, Art History, Internship in French museum/photograph hidden architecture in Paris
Maureen Elswick, Craft/Material Studies, Glassmaking in Murano, Italy
Roberto Celis, Craft/Material Studies, Wood sculpture, Uruguay
Alexandra Barao, Sculpture + Extended Media, Peruvian textile techniques
John Ziol, Sculpture + Extended Media, Japanese culture
Emily Rosko, Theatre, Operafestival di Roma

To see if you're eligible and to apply, visit http://www.vcu.edu/arts/prospective_students/scholarships/, select your department, then click on Dean's International Study Grant.